Bubble – A Shiny Shell Filled With Air

Production

I’m going to try to make this make sense. I don’t particularly like the art style of Bubble. It’s not bad at all, this is just a personal preference thing. Both the character models and to a certain extent the backgrounds aren’t really my thing visually. Moreover, I’m a little disappointed that given the opportunities for creating some truly spectacular backgrounds considering the plot of Bubble, they went with a rather generic post-apocalyptic look with only the bubbles themselves adding something new.

What I’m picking at here is the design elements though. The fact is I can say the art style is not my thing and the environmental designs seemed too dull for the story, but I also thought Bubble was beautiful. A really great-looking anime with some breathtaking animation throughout. I have no issue recommending this movie purely for the enjoyment of the production. It’s lush and impressive. Occasionally the colours are spellbinding, and I do like how it uses colour contrasts to set the mood. My screencaps are not doing it justice, it looks better than that.

Story & Characters

Bubble is trying to be a modern retelling of the little mermaid with an environmental message added in. Not the Disney little mermaid but the original depressing little mermaid. And on paper, that’s not a bad idea, right? A lot of fairy tales have these very grim outcomes and morally dubious messages that have been sanitized with time and it could be interesting to make a new generation discover them.

The original Little Mermaid has some Christian, let’s call them themes… It’s a part of the story that only humans have souls which is why the mermaid turns into foam if the prince marries someone else. Oh, and the Prince does 100% fall in love with someone else because mermaids don’t have souls and this one can’t even talk so it’s a bit boring. I read somewhere that it was a cautionary tale so silly young girls don’t try to dream beyond their station. Moreover, only God can give you a soul and you shouldn’t try to defy his plans. Something like that.

Regardless of how you personally feel about this messaging, it has been a bit lost with time and I think it could definitely be crafted into an interesting wicked modern fairy tale. Maybe that’s what Bubble was trying to do. But I can’t really tell.

The messaging in Bubble is a bit all over the place and too wishy-washy to make much of an impact. You just drift along with changing character motivations in beautiful sci-fi backdrops and hope you don’t drown. There does seem to be something like a vengeful God in the story as the Bubble hivemind who is responsible for all the catastrophes and deaths also seems to be very quick to take offence. But they are also Uta’s sisters so this is basically just the plotline about the sisters giving their hair for a dagger that the mermaid can use to kill the prince and save her own life if he falls for someone else.

However, we’re never really told the stakes or the initiating incident of the story. Hibiki as a young boy is isolated due to his hypersensitivity to sound (he might also be on the autism spectrum). Because of that, on the day of the incident, he is the only one to hear a song coming from a bubble and they form a connection of some sort. Then all the other bubbles get mad and nuke Tokyo. We don’t know why. We also don’t know why exactly the bubble became a girl or what the limitations of her transformation are. If she can become a girl again in the future for instance. None of that.

She does seem to lose her form whenever Hibiki touches her but that’s it. Basically, the magic system of this story is completely unexplained which can make you think that the writers never bothered to establish one at all.

It made it difficult for me to care about what was happening too deeply as the consequences seemed sort of random. I don’t know the impact of an event so I just sit passively and wait for the story to tell me then move on to the next.

It’s this lack of proper emotional establishment that really bogs down Bubble. And I guess the main characters are sort of dull but the fact that the emotional punch is kneecapped is a huge problem.

I should probably let you know that I don’t like these types of stories. And by that I mean, there is a certain trope in fiction of introducing a character that is often physically superior to the average but is so “innocent” that they are child-like or even animal-like. They might be very strong, often beautiful and capable of feats most others are not, but they are simultaneously helpless. The main character has to teach them everything and basically raise them.

So far, the trope is not my favourite, but I think it works well in some scenarios. However, when you introduce an element of romance, as is often the case, I personally seem to have associated it with the notion of grooming and it just annoys me. This is a problem with my personal perception rather than with the trope itself. However, it makes stories like the Little Mermaid and in this case Bubble, really tough for me to enjoy at face value. As such I might be a little harder on this movie than I should. I am trying to put aside my personal bias though.

This s neither here nor there but the names are really on the nose in this movie.

At the end of the day, I think the best part of Bubble is the great animation and I think it is more likely to succeed in spite of its story than because of it.

You might like this anime if:

You prefer anime movies to series and want something that looks great.

I save all my screencaps on my Pinterest and you can find more there if you are interested. But I still like to show you a few in the post. If you’re like me, screencaps are something that really helps you decide to watch an anime or not.