Bubble

• Japanese: バブル, Hepburn: Baburu
• Directed by Tetsurō Araki
• February 10, 2022 (Berlin) / April 28, 2022 (Netflix) / May 13, 2022 (Theatrical)

Voice Cast

• Hibiki-Zach Aguilar
• Young Hibiki-Jeannie Tirado
• Uta-Emi Lo
• Makoto-Erica Lindbeck
• Shin-Keith Silverstein
• Kai-Robbie Daymond
• Usagi-Laura Stahl
• Denki Ninja-Kyle McCarley
• Undertaker Leader-Cristina Vee
• Kantō Mad Lobster-Chris Jai Alex

Tokyo is overcome by bubbles that break the laws of reality. That’s it. That’s the plot.

Bubble is an animated feature taking place in a devastated Tokyo that is officially uninhabited but is where groups of people illegally live taking part in what amounts to extreme parkour. The accompanying narrative alludes to social media and people doing things for likes but never digs too deep. Any philosophizing that occurs is much more involving the personal of the characters than larger ideas.

A young boy with hearing sensitivity (and very excellent at bubble parkour) saves a mute girl that acts like a squirrel on espresso. Fine, but he and pals keep her on their boat under the assumption she might be good at parkour rather than her maybe being an interloper like the scientist that has shacked up with them to study the phenomena.

This is yet another story of a young boy that has an emotional hole and encounters a strange woman that he has a connection with that he even can’t explain. She helps him to grow into whoever he is supposed to be and then goes away. The story beats you over the head with The Little Mermaid (not Disney) allusions. It is so heavy that the revelations involving the girl, though predictable, feel even less interesting.

This is another relatively modern trope in Japanese animation which telegraphs much of the climax well before you get there. Hard-core fans of this type of animation may be fine with that, but I want a little mystery as to what’s happening in my story. Comfort food predictability can be okay but there is also fine line between okay predictability and boring predictability.

As per usual the central cast is an eclectic and diverse group of personalities. I use that word loosely. The people behind this mistook quirks as personalities where one trait defines who an entire character is. You know everything you need to know within seconds. One is sullen. One is a horndog. One is spastic. And so on.

They are together for some reason though I am baffled how any of them came together beyond a love of bubble parkour. Were they seeking the tutelage of the team lead who’s missing a leg? I don’t need a backstory, but I need to understand why they would work together and were on a small boat together in the semi dangerous area that most everyone else has abandoned.

Their nemesis in this is called The Undertakers. They’re just a jerk other team that kidnaps the scientist girl in order to extend the story out a little bit and give one moment to show how amazing the strange girl is. But that scene overall is pretty much inconsequential to the whole story.

I think we’re all used to product placement in live action films though in animated features it might be a bit new. Coke and Sprite get put on very prominent display here as do several non-American products. That all felt like a step too far. It broke the fantasy feel that was necessary to believe the fiction by reminding viewers of the real world.

There is heavy computer assistance for the animation of character movements. It is necessary for the parkour but for a boat? Nobody can animate THAT anymore? Character designs rely on a thin pencil line style and minimal detail.

By the end I wasn’t too invested in the characters or the story. The saving grace was the unique and fanciful scenario. It connected with the kid in me that thought it would be cool and fun but that kid as well as the adult that keeps him in check found it all a bit of a bore. It checked off a list of things it needed to do rather than create a story.

I do give them props for some creativity and artistry in a flashback scene. While the kids in that scene have detailed faces, since it’s a flashback the adults are rather poorly detailed. Nice little touch alluding to childhood memories. One good moment does not save a film.

Bubble was just barely okay. Yet ‘barely okay’ makes it largely forgettable. It is a film that goes through the motions and only once gets imaginative.