Here comes yet another gorgeous anime-fairytale twist, in the form of Bubble by studio wit. Now that they’re not literally held prisoner by attack on titan its interesting to see what they produce.
As always a summary:
In a Tokyo where gravity has broken, a boy and a girl are drawn to each other…The story is set in Tokyo, after bubbles that broke the laws of gravity rained down upon the world. Cut off from the outside world, Tokyo has become a playground for a group of young people who have lost their families, acting as a battlefield for parkour team battles as they leap from building to building. Hibiki, a young ace known for his dangerous play style, makes a reckless move one day and plummets into the gravity-bending sea. His life is saved by Uta, a girl with mysterious powers. The pair then hear a unique sound audible only to them. Why did Uta appear before Hibiki? Their encounter leads to a revelation that will change the world.
(Source: Netflix)
First of all it must be noted that the production of this movie is beautiful, from the visuals to the soundtrack it is a pleasure to watch and with the music by Kiroyuki Sawano its not a mystery why. Despite the rather dystopian situation that Tokyo has been put in, flooded by bubble residue in addition to being inclosed in a giant bubble with gravity abnormalities, the movie’s palette is very bright. The parkour element gives way for amazing animation sequences that display both the action and the abandoned city-scape.
Now as for the plot itself, I found it slightly lacking. The movie offers a quite a fair bit of exposition at the beginning which never really takes off. There are constant references to Makoto (one of the side characters) researching the bubble phenomenon, but then it never really provides much use, and basically all other characters outside of Hibiki and Uta fade into the background as filler since none of them are really given any real purpose, save for maybe Shin as he helps Hibiki reach Tokyo tower at the end of the movie. This is a shame though because the characters are well designed and I would have loved to get to know them better. Especially the “Undertakers” who are one of the rival park our teams and who at one point (very randomly) kidnap Makoto. It is mentioned by some character that the Undertakers have been streaming their parkour battles to the outside world, however this never becomes relevant ever again, and we all know Chekhov’s rule of writing. If you mention a gun, you have to use the gun.
The relationship between Uta and Hibiki itself also seemed a bit fast paced for me despite there being a bit a ‘montage’ showing Uta’s new life with Hibiki and his team mates, however from that point to the end of the movie we seemed to have skipped a few chapters.
Lastly of course, the whole bubble disaster didn’t really make sense, but im assuming it has to be treated like the science in Your Name where you just ignore logic.
One thing I did really enjoy seeing was a decent representation of auditory hypersensitivity, with the character having actually sensory headphones prescribed to him by doctors at some point in the movie. And I just thought that was very neat, since often times things like this are only implied and written in between the lines.
In conclusion, I definitely feel like the plot could have been better, but if I just take it at face value its cute and fun and an enjoyable watch on a Thursday night.
PhantomFiles 