


Name: Bubble
Type: ONA (Original Net Animation)
Duration: 1 hr 40 mins
Studio: Wit Studio
Director: Tetsurou Araki
#Alright, let's start!

Summary:
Set in present day Tokyo, an unidentified phenomenon has occurred around the world where bubbles fell one day all of a sudden. However, a huge bubble developed around Tokyo City and there was constant bubble fall inside even though it had already ended around the world.
5 years later, the accumulated water from the bubbles has submerged most of Tokyo. Left as a ghost town, the only living beings inside are researchers and teens who developed a game called Battlekour which is basically parkour battles on the Tokyo cityscape.
The story centers around Hibiki, a member of Team Blue Blaze. He constantly hears songs coming from the Tower which is the epicenter of the Tokyo Bubble. The story centers around his relationship with the mysterious Uta.

Art:
The art is just above the current average anime art. It is good but nothing exceptional. The CGI is alright, but then again, nothing especially amazing.

Animation:
Pretty good especially during parkour trick scenes. During scenes that focus on parkour, the pov is well-placed and usually follows the characters around. This gives it an amazing action feel.
It’s otherwise pretty calming when the scenes are slow.
It doesn’t give the effect of “breaking” at any time and is quite smooth.

Story:
Plot: Very unique concept with strong but gentle ties to the story, “The Little Mermaid”.
Holes appear such as why the police didn’t completely block Tokyo off and such.
Storytelling: Very nice but quite gentle and not something that would completely draw you in.

Character:
This is where a lot of the problem lies.
The characters just fall flat and without much depth. Although they try to add into it by saying they are orphans or have lost someone dear to them in the explosion five years ago, it fails to give a punch.
Also, it mainly focuses on the relationship between Hibiki and Uta and their love. This makes the side-characters seem even more useless.
Small time villains like the Undertaker team only serve for plot development and fillers.
As for the main villain? Even that falls flat. Although with good emotions, it really just doesn’ get one excited.

Music:
Because of the high reliance on this genre, it would be safe to consider this story a musical.
As for how good the songs are? Extremely good. All of them add a lot more hype to the movie. Especially the ones in the major scenes and the background themes.
They were all well-placed and great songs. So much so that this genre is one of a couple things that are good.

TL;DR:
Good:
Good animation during action scenes
Good music and choreography
Bad:
Small plot holes
Bad character development

22.5 out of 31 users liked this review