バブル

BUBBLE

ONA

STATUS
COMPLETE
EPISODES
1
RELEASE
April 28, 2022
LENGTH
100 min

DESCRIPTION

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)

Note: The anime released on Netflix on April 28, 2022. It screened in theaters on May 13, 2022.

CAST

Uta
Riria.
Hibiki
Jun Shison
Makoto
Alice Hirose
Kai
Yuuki Kaji
Shin
Mamoru Miyano
Undertaker
Marina Inoue
Usagi
Sayaka Senbongi
Oosawa
Wataru Hatano
Kanto Mad Lobster
Shinichirou Miki
Isozaki
Ryouta Oosaka
Denki Ninja
Tasuku Hatanaka

EPISODES

Dubbed

| | |

Not available on crunchyroll

RELATED TO BUBBLE

MANGA Sci-FiBubble

REVIEWS

R2R
60/100
Don't go expecting too much
https://anilist.co/anime/142455/Bubble/
#OMG! LoOk At tHeSe NAmEs!
"Bubble" is a hyped Anime backed up by some of the most appreciated names in the industry like; it's written by "Gen Urobuchi" who also written Madoka, Fate/Zero & Psycho Pass; directed by "Tetsurou Araraki" who also directed Death Note & Attack on Titan, music is done by "Hiroki Sawano" who also made amazing OSTs for Anime like 86 & Attack on Titan, character designs by "Takeshi Obata" who also did character designs for "Death Note, Bakuman & ~~Platinum End~~" and it's animated by "studio WiT". So a lot of expectations are surrounding it but;
Did it really lived up to the hype?

Bubbles & Parkour

The story takes place in a post-apocalyptic Tokyo where mysterious bubbles are still raining down, even though it stopped raining on the remaining world. Some angsty teens started to go into the bubbled Tokyo in order to flex their parkour skills by having tournaments in it's one of a kind track. One day, a guy named 'Hibiki' gets saved by a girl who was later named 'Uta' while climbing the Tokyo tower and then she starts to hang out with him.
The parkour scenes are all what I came for and they did a pretty good job. The choreography is decent, dynamic camera movements & the bright lighting gets a plus, and the backgrounds & scenery are really great. They set the mood & atmosphere pretty well and I really liked them.

The Mermaid & the Prince

All the characters have some eye catching character designs but don't really have interesting traits to compliment their looks. Uta is a damsel in distress who came out of a bubble, Hibiki is your cool MC with some understandable backstory and remaining characters aren't even worth discussing because your first impression of them will gives away everything about them. It's whole 'mermaid' story is very predictable yet gets so much attention that it forgets that it's also a sci-fi. It wanted viewers to care for the story but did a very underwhelming job at it. They focused too much on drama but ended on a poor note. This whole story reminded me of 'Weathering with You' a bit and honestly, that did a better job at drama than this.

Hibike! Uta.

The sound is one thing that didn't disappoint. The dramatic & mysterious vocals and the action inducing music, really did a great job at bringing the best out of the scene. Both Eve opening and Riria Ending themes are pretty good too.

So, was the hype real?

NO!

If you go into the movie in anticipation of something great, you might get sorely disappointed. It used it's setting only for the parkour which was good but didn't explored it more than the vague plain, it has a fairly big cast who doesn't even have enough screentime to care or develop, which lead to a soap opera of a drama that is simply melodramatic in the end.

Summary
- Eye candied Character Designs & Backgrounds
- Good music
- Pretty great Parkour scenes
- Simply bland characters
- Boring melodrama
- Poorly explored setting
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Niansuh
50/100
best staff gathered, a new anime with the most respected people working on it, a not so new story?
Bubble is a movie that takes place in Tokyo which had suffered from a supernatural phenomenon and left the capital of Japan uninhabitable with floods on the ground and bubbles in the air. The story starts off with introducing us to the characters, the characters are not too different from most anime movies that have come out in the past years, the main character is a stoic person who does not bother being with other people, an eccentric and energetic younger kid, a boy who seems to have anger issues, funny enough, it also features a story that seems familiar, a survival type romance which is taking place because of a supernatural phenomenon. For the first half, it becomes quite hard to be interested or care about the story or the characters as nothing new or special is shown, no character interaction that catches my attention and no development that I want to witness, just some parkour racing that the characters are involved in, which looks like something that would be more attractive to someone who likes 1) Parkour 2) anime like beyblade or bakugan. The story does take a turn when our stoic protagonist encounters a near death experience and gets saved by this bubble girl who turns out to be someone who took a shape of a singer or actress and is originally a bubble that looked like it had a soul. Our protagonist and the girl start to form a relationship and this relationship is what starts the development of our protagonist who gradually starts to care more and show more emotions. In the second half, things became more interesting with the protagonist: Hibike and the bubble girl: Uta, as they take part in a race together to save another one of the characters, this race was one of the more interesting parts which was uplifting and enthralling however as the story continued the pacing did not get better, switching between high action scenes to normal conversations, not maintaining a balance and often forcing me to zone out. It introduced side characters that had a role in the movie but their roles were not much fun either and it failed to make the characters seem important to the story. Now with a good deal of pacing issues, boring characters and story, we move on towards the ending which I think suffered the most from all the previous issues such as pacing and being able to make anything seem important, with some backstory which made me think that things are more interesting now, with bare explanation to the phenomenon and my lack of interest for the parkour concept and a declining interest in the main couple I did not enjoy the final part enough, there are movies like Weathering with You in which I felt more attached to both the story and the characters and enjoyed it throughout, this movie barely had anything fun or interesting for the first 75 percent that what was supposed to be the best part of the movie, I could not be invested in it. I still give credit to the main couple who had backstories and development complemented with beautiful animation and sound that made scenes with them together more beautiful and had more feeling in it.

The animation was my favourite part of the movie, with amazing camera movements during parkour scenes, beautiful and vibrant colours that you would just want to frame on your wall. The movements were fluid and dynamic, the camera following the characters created a great cinematic experience. Some of the shots which closed up on Uta and Hibiki's face were cocaine to the eye with the colours and the details. The sound was top notch, great soundtracks which were used well and created a deadly combo with the animation. These were the things that gave scenes in the movie more feeling to them and more joy to watch when things were at the best, although at some points these elements did not match the feeling of the scene, or at least it tried to force the feelings on to the viewer.

Personally, someone who is less invested by the parkour races and a story and characters that look like a repeat of other films, the style was not enough to make up for flaws, even the state of the art animation and sound only partially helped. I'm convinced that Netflix original anime are now to just try things out that's it, no one on this platform wants to make a complete story with a good idea put to use.
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MehdiBhaii00
65/100
Visually Spectacular, Narratively Muddled
[Note: Mild, unimportant spoilers may follow. Story-specific and important spoilers will be marked with the tag]

For many, Bubble promised to be the next big animated movie out of Japan and, understandably so, with the film featuring the likes of Tetsuro Araki, Gen Urobuchi and Hiroyuki Sawano among its staff. And while Bubble does end up being enjoyable, it never really reaches the heights that many had probably expected.

Make no mistake, the movie is absolutely phenomenal in terms of its visuals and animation. Bubble's scenes often feature a wide array of colors that are utilized beautifully, with a lot of the frames looking like they are straight out of paintings or artworks. The exceptional use of colors is most evident when the main characters Hibiki and Uta tend to a garden, or when countless bubbles surround the Tokyo sky. As for the animation, Wit Studio continues to showcase just why they're considered to be one of the best studios around. The animation of the movie is consistently great, with the transitions extremely smooth and near-flawless. The parkour scenes, especially, are extremely well done, and give the viewer a real sense of excitement and thrill. CGI is used in a few scenes as well, but are mixed in well and so aren't glaringly obvious or egregious.

The soundtrack is another highlight of the film. Hiroyuki Sawano's compositions for the music in the background of the various scenes are, in one word, magical. While I personally did not enjoy them a lot, the opening and ending tracks, too, are solid in their own right. The voice-acting, however isn't much of a standout. The performance of the two leads felt a bit flat; Hibiki's voice actor, in my opinion, did not seem like a good fit for the role. The supporting cast, however, did a pretty good job in their respective roles.

What really hold back the film are the narrative and the characters. The story itself had a very interesting premise where Tokyo has been abandoned due to a phenomenon known as the Bubble Fall. However, it falls apart in the second half, as the narrative seeps into "generic" territory, with the proceedings in the latter half strongly reminiscent of uninspired science fiction flicks, and not in a good way. There are also exposition dumps in several parts of the film, and one dump in particular, near the end of the film, feels completely underwhelming, as though the writers had become unsure of how to conclude the story properly and, thus, somehow bundled everything together. The characters, for the most part, are one-dimensional as well. Only Hibiki gets some development, and that too feels as if his personality undergoes significant change in too little time.

Overall, Bubble is a visual spectacle that also boasts a spectacular soundtrack, but is held back by an underwhelming story and cast of characters. Maybe with a bit of polishing, it could have been a real standout, but it is still an enjoyable film, provided the flaws do not bother you too much.
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