Bubble Shield

"Sonic and Tails can breathe underwater and bounce like a ball. Sonic can also defeat most Badniks by bouncing on their heads when he is surrounded by the Water Shield bubble."

— Sonic the Hedgehog 3 Instruction Manual

Ah, the ever-so-fleeting soap bubble. It just seems so unfair that we can't make them in such a way that we could go inside one and be safe from everything. Well, while our world sucks, this very concept is often explored in fictional settings. Bubble Shields are when bubbles are used as a defense against an oncoming threat. These bubbles often have incoming attacks harmlessly bounce away on impact, or perhaps the bubble and the person inside get launched away instead. A common alternative to the all-encompassing method is to have a ton of smaller bubbles urround you and block openings. Sometimes they can function as an air supply, allowing the wielder to safely traverse water without having to worry about breathing. Though, be careful not to overestimate them, they're still bubbles after all so be wary of sharp objects or other methods by which your shield can be destroyed.

This trope specifically covers shields made of bubbles, not spherical shields in a more general sense. If the shield is explicitly made of water, soap, or gum, then it qualifies by default. If not, then it can still qualify if it has bubble-like attributes. I.E. buoyancy, wobbling or stretching on impact, general bubbly physics. If none of these qualities apply, take it to Beehive Barrier or Deflector Shields.

Sometimes related to Making a Splash. When the bubbles are instead used as an attack, see Bubble Gun. When the defense is necessary because the user has a malfunctioning immune system, see Bubble Boy. If the bubble is used to bounce on, see Bouncy Bubbles.

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Examples

Anime & Manga

• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable: Stray Cat is a cat that was killed and reincarnated into a Stand embedded in a plant. Its abilities revolve around air bubbles, manipulating the air pressure around itself to form invisible bubbles. Its primary use is defense, creating an air bubble around itself that can't be pushed through.
• Naruto: Utakata is a ninja who uses "Soap Bubble Water Release Jutsu." His Bubble Dome technique encases him and his allies in a bubble sturdy enough to tank explosions.
• In Pokémon: The First Movie, Mew has the ability to create bubbles, presumably made of psychic energy, an ability absent in the games. Ash gets saved from a hard impact by one: the bubble catches and bounces him into the air before he lands on it like a soft beanbag or waterbed.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL: One of the Yuma's trap cards is Half-Unbreak, which prevents a monster's destruction and cuts your life point damage in half. The card art is a swarm of bubbles and the visual effect is one of the bubbles encasing the monster to defend it.

Asian Animation

• Happy Heroes: Sweet S. is a Barrier Warrior who can create pink bubbles of any size and resilience to use for attacking, defending, and supporting her team members. This includes making protective bubble barriers to shield her and others that can also be used to transport people and objects.

Film — Animated

• The LEGO Ninjago Movie: When Lloyd fires a barrage of missiles at Garmadon's Shark Mech, Garmadon himself gets protected by a shield resembling a soap bubble, tying into the movie's blending of LEGO and real-life elements.

Literature

• Harry Potter uses the "safely traversing water" variant with the Bubble-head Charm, which is first introduced in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire to let characters breathe underwater.

Tabletop Games

• Dungeons & Dragons: In White Plume Mountain, the players will encounter "The Beast in the Boiling Bubble", a Giant Enemy Crab inside a magical air bubble in a lake of boiling hot water. If the dungeoneers are careless with their weapons, they could end up bursting the bubble and being boiled alive by the lake water.
• Princessthe Hopeful: One of the charms available to Light-touched characters does this, and is literally named Bubble Shield.

Video Games

• Bug Fables: Leif can conjure spherical shields to protect both himself and his companions Vi and Kabbu in combat. Using the shield outside of combat lets the party walk on and past various hazards.
• Cave Story: The Bubble Gun when upgraded to level 3 will have the bubble projectiles orbit around you while holding fire, obscuring Quote from damage.
• Elden Ring: Mixing an Opaline Bubbletear in your Wondrous Physick will make a bubble around the tarnished that drastically reduces the damage of the next hit they take.
• In Fantasy Strike, Argagarg's ground super move encases him in a giant bubble that can damage and push enemies away from him. The bubble will stay around Arg for a few seconds until he either gets hit or activates it again.
• Henry Stickmin Series: The "Intruder on a Scooter" route of Stealing the Diamond features Henry using a Bubble to defend from an oncoming Sniper, a blatant homage to Sonic's Water Shield.
• Heroes of Newerth: Pearl is a defensive support hero who uses bubble-based magic to protect her allies. Her ultimate creates a huge bubble shield that pushes away enemies when it's created and blocks all damage from attacks outside of the bubble.
• Heroes of the Storm: Murky's Safety Bubble puts him in a bubble that prevents him from doing anything except moving, but makes him completely invulnerable for its duration. He needs it too, considering he has a health pool that's only a little higher than that of a basic lane minion.
• The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker: Castle Hyrule has lain concealed beneath the ocean for centuries since the gods flooded the country to keep evil from taking it over, protected by a bubble-like shield. At the end of the game, King Daphnes uses the Triforce to breach the barrier and allow the ocean to wash Hyrule away for good, preventing Ganondorf from ever getting his hands on its power.
• The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom: While partnered with Sidon, he can place a water bubble over Link that will defend him from one attack or can be shot out as a water-based projectile. His projection as the Sage of Water can do the same.
• Mega Man:
  • Mega Man 10: Acquired from Pump Man, the Water Shield protects the user by surrounding them with a ring of water bubbles that block attacks.
  • Mega Man 11: Acid Man's Acid Barrier weapon produces a bubble of acid around Mega Man that absorbs projectiles before dissipating. The Power Gear causes the barrier to become caustic and damage enemies on contact.
  • Mega Man X2: Charging up the Bubble Splash turns the rapid-fire Bubble Gun into an orbital shield that also allows X to jump extremely high underwater.
  • Mega Man Battle Network: The Bubble Wrap battle chip encases MegaMan in a protective bubble. While the barrier can only block one hit, it reforms after a while, unless it's hit by an electric attack.
• Nicktoons Unite!: In the first game, each character has their own shield with a specialized theme. SpongeBob's shield is a bubble, being an undersea creature.
• Patch Quest: The Bubble effect will shield you and your monster from one hit before popping. Applied from the Shampshrew's defensive ability or making contact with a bubble bulb.
• Pokémon: Dewpider and its evolution, Araquanid, are currently the only Pokémon that have the Water Bubble ability, which cuts fire damage dealt to them in half and prevents them from being burned.
• The Shantae series: Starting from Shantae and the Pirate's Curse, Shantae can acquire the ability to generate a magical bubble as a shield around herself. It goes by different names, but always costs magic:
  • Shantae and the Pirate's Curse: The "Bubble Shield".
  • "Bubble":
    • Shantae: Half-Genie Hero:
    • Shantae and the Seven Sirens: Protect yourself from enemy projectiles with a BUBBLE shield!
• Skylanders: Wash Buckler's Cutlass Captain upgrade path has this as its first upgrade. Slashing a bubble with his sword will cause a bubble shield to surround him that will reduce damage and explode when attached.
• Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • Sonic the Hedgehog CD: Robotnik in Tidal Tempest zone would go down in a single hit if not for the ring of air bubbles surrounding his eggmobile. Fridge Logic kicks in when you realize the boss fight takes place underwater, and it'd probably be easier to just camp above where Sonic can't reach him instead of engaging him with an easily destroyable shield made of one of the only things that can circumvent his inability to swim.
  • Sonic 3 & Knuckles: The "Water Shield" is the Trope Codifier, encasing the user in a bubble that allows them to breathe underwater and Sonic can use it bounce higher into the air. Ironically, despite being a key example of the trope, in Sonic & Knuckles alone (or any level after Launch Base in the locked-on game), it becomes a Useless Item because no levels have any water, rendering its key function irrelevant. Sonic can still bounce jump with it but any other character using the shield gets no unique benefit at all (compare this to, say, the Flame Shield, which is very handy in Lava Reef).
• Splatoon introduces a new Bubble Shield in each entry.
  • The Bubbler is a giant ink bubble that surrounds the user, makes them invulnerable to damage and can be spread to allies via contact.
  • The Bubble Blower is a giant bubble wand that blows 3 enormous bubbles of ink. They absorb enemy ink so theres nothing stopping you from overlapping yourself with your bubbles and being safe.
  • The Big Bubbler deploys a giant shield around a given point and blots out enemy ink fired at it. The shield is equipped with a Beakon for allied Ink Battlers to jump to.
• In Wandering Hamster, Misa du Hamstre's bubble-manipulating skills include a spell that covers her allies with bubbles that reduce incoming damage.
• In Water's Fine, you can find Safe Bubbles which both keep the Oxygen Meter from running out and effectively provide one free hit-point.
• In World of Illusion, Donald and Mickey cast a magic bubble over themselves to be able to traverse the underwater depths of stage 3.

Western Animation

• Channel Chasers:
  • At the start of the film, Timmy asks his fairy godparents to materialize elements from his favourite cartoon, which he uses to replicate action scenes he had watched. When his stunts send him on a collision course with an airplane, he quickly wishes to be surrounded in a Banzai Bubble, which bounces harmlessly against the vehicle.
  • The Banzai Bubble makes a reappearance during the film's final battle when Vicky conjures it to deflect one of Timmy's energy blasts.
• The Legend of Zelda (1989): Using the Triforce of Wisdom, Zelda creates a pair of bubble helmets for her and Link so that they can indefinitely breathe underwater while on their search for the kidnapped King Harkinian at the Royal Water Park in "Fairies in the Spring".
• Steven Universe: All Gems have the ability to contain things in small, hand-sized bubbles. But making that bubble into a personal shield is something only Steven can do, as one of the first things he learns, befitting his status as a Barrier Warrior. By Season 3, he learns how to use it offensively by growing spikes out of the bubble.
• The Smurfs (1981): Scaredy gets a magic bubble wand from a water sprite that he uses to protect himself from danger.
• Totally Spies!:
  • A recurring gadget is the "Bubble Protection Bubble Gum," a stick of bubblegum that can be blown into a giant protective bubble for safety.
  • In order to defend themselves from a remote-controlled wedding dress about to crash into them, Sam busts out the "Escape From Trouble Bubble Wand," blowing a bubble to keep them safe from the crash.
• G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero: In "The Pyramid of Darkness" mini-series, Lady Jaye has one of her javelins project a large bubble to protect her and Flint from lava.

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