The song goes on...
Bubble is a 2022 post-apocalyptic anime film produced by WIT Studio. It's directed by Tetsuro Araki with a script by Gen Urobuchi and music by Hiroyuki Sawano. The character designs were done by Takeshi Obata of Death Note. The film had early screenings at the Berlin International Film Festival on February 10, followed by its worldwide release on Netflix on April 28, 2022. It was released theatrically in Japan by Warner Bros. Pictures on May 13.
In a flooded Tokyo, overrun by bubbles that warp the laws of physics, a young teen encounters a mysterious girl who knows the song he alone can hear.
Not to be confused with the 2022 comedy film titled The Bubble.
This anime contains examples of:
- After the End: Downplayed. While the area of Tokyo within the bubble is overgrown and flooded, the city outside is relatively normal.
- Aliens Are Bastards: Uta's "sisters" can be viewed as this since they caused the disaster that left Tokyo flooded and would have killed Hibiki if Uta hadn't saved him.
- An Arm and a Leg: Uta loses her left arm when she uses it to give Hibiki the boost he need to win the parkour game and later sacrifices her other arm to escape her sister so she can save him in the climax.
- Animal Motifs: Uta get associated with parrots due to her imitative nature and brightly colored outfit. At one point she's shown reading a book on them.
- Arc Words: "Collapse and Rebirth"
- As You Know: The leader of the Mad Lobsters explains the purpose of the parkour competitions to one of his clueless companions, when he ask for clarification.
- Bespectacled Cutie: Makoto is an older version of this, being a cute scientist in glasses with a kind personality.
- Bittersweet Ending: Uta loses her human form and is separated from Hibiki and the friends she made, however the conflict is ended with Tokyo being rebuilt while Hibiki and the Blue Blazes continue with their parkour contests.
- Bookends: Both Uta and Hibiki's first and second kiss happen underwater while she's saving his life.
- Bouncy Bubbles: The film's premise centers around anti-gravity bubbles that swamped the world. In Japan, groups of young people face off against each other in parkour battles leaping from one building to another. The movie features Hibiki and Uta jumping on the bigger bubbles raining down upon Tokyo during their parkour races.
- Call-Back: Uta repeats what Hibiki said to her in his garden as she's fading away.Its because I met you that I could be the me I wanted to be.
- Cat Girl: Uta's initial feline-esque behavior gets noted as this by Shinn and is implied to come from her interaction with a stray cat.
- Character Development: For both Hibiki and Uta. With Hibiki opening up more to his teammates and Uta becoming more human.
- Chekhov's Gun: Kai is seen early in the movie ti be reading a Mariners' study guide, and in the movie's climax is the one who maintains and sails their ship to get the crew out of danger.
- Cool Ship: The Blue Blazes' home base, the Reiko, a JSDF cruiser.
- Conveniently an Orphan: All the kids in the cast lost their parents in the disaster that destroyed the city.
- Cute Mute: Uta is this initially.
- Dark Is Evil: The Undertakers kidnap Makoto to raises the stakes for their contest with the Blue Blazes and are depicted as masked and dark clad figures out to profit by streaming the parkour tournaments.However they do give Hibiki and his friend their gear so they can save Uta.
- Expy: Uta is a blue-haired girl in love with a boy, and has associations with the title character of The Little Mermaid. She shares these traits with Sayaka Miki of Puella Magi Madoka Magica, which Gen Urobuchi was the head writer for. Her final moments being spent lying in the water amidst a ruined city also bears some resemblance to Madoka's final moments with Homura in the third timeline of that show's tenth episode. Notably, her final words to Hibiki are similar to Madoka's final words to Homura, with her declaring her love for humanity like Madoka telling Homura that she thinks the world is worth protecting despite everything.
- Fairy Tale Motifs: The Little Mermaid figures heavily into the plot with Uta referencing the story at several points. She identifies Hibiki as the Prince, herself as the Little Mermaid, and the inteligence behind the other bubbles as the Mermaid's sisters. And like the Mermaid, Uta dissolves into foam as the sun rises.
- Fashionable Asymmetry: Uta's outfits usually have some element of this. Her base outfit has a very mismatched hodgepodge of looks that are barely cohesive, and later she adds a single glove to hide her bubbled hand to the mix. Even her outfit for the showdown against the Undertakers has her wearing a set of socks of two different lengths.
- Forbidden Zone: After the event, the downtown Tokyo area was sealed off by the authorities, but several gangs took over the area and engage in parkour competitions.
- Gravity Screw: The downtown Tokyo area has a lot of gravitational anomalies which become more intense the closer to the Tokyo Tower.
- Green Thumb: Hibiki has a private garden on a rooftop.
- Handicapped Badass: Quite a few. Hibiki has hypersensitive hearing that causes his dislike of crowds. Shin has a prosthetic leg but comes to help Hibiki, showing he can parkour with the best of them. The Undertaker leader is mute and uses an artificial voicebox.
- Hates Being Touched: Uta can't touch Hibiki because contact between the two will turn her back to foam. She does it anyway to save him.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Uta sacrifices her human form to save Hibiki and bring an end to the conflict.
- Hidden Depths: Though Kai may come across as an immature hothead at times, during the group's morning chores he can be seen reading a study guide for a "Mariner's Exam", indicating he's actually more studious than he lets on.
- Humanity Ensues: Uta becomes increasingly human and her perspective causes her to go against her "sisters" to save Hibiki.
- Inscrutable Aliens: Where Uta and her "sisters" came from and their motives are left entirely unansIntel.
- Insistent Terminology: The leader of the Mad Lobsters absolutely hates the Undertaker leader making fun of the team by calling them other shellfish. And corrects her every time.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: The leader of the Undertakers may have played dirty to force the Blue Blazes into betting their ship in a parkour match, but when things get serious their leader doesn't hesitate to offer her team's (presumably very expensive) equipment to Hibiki and co so they can rescue Uta. For a fee.
- Jet Pack: Or rather, Jet Boots. The Undertakers make use of special boots that shoot pressurized streams of water to give them extra lift on jumps, and an edge in the parkour competitions. They later lend them to Hibiki's gang to help them rescue Uta.
- Le Parkour: The gangs inside the restricted area engage in parkour competitions through the ruins for resources.
- Meaningful Name: Uta is Japanese for "Song".
- Menacing Mask: The Undertakers wear cyclops-esque ones as part of their gear.
- Monumental Damage: The Tokyo Tower was the epicenter of the blast and is only held in place by gravitational anomalies. It collapses entirely at the end but is shown being rebuilt in the epilogue.
- Motherly Scientist: Makoto plays this role for Uta, teaching her how to read and sharing her books with her.
- The Reveal: Uta saved Hibiki as a kid from the tower disaster.
- Riddle for the Ages: Why the bubbles came to Earth.
- Samus Is a Girl: The masked leader of the Undertakers is revealed to be female.
- Shout-Out: The emphasis on spirals brings another series to mind...
- Surveillance Drone: Part of The Undertakers strategy to dominate the game is sending up camera drones to surveil the arena and let them know the best routes/where their opponents are with an eagle-eyed view. They also make use of them when they're not in play, to scope out other peoples' matches and gather intel.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Hibiki believes his interaction with Uta causes the bubbles to attack.
