A Film Directed by Tetsurō Araki

Tetsurō Araki is the man behind the TV versions of Deathnote, Attack on Titan, and High School of the Dead, so I was excited to see a film he had produced up on Netflix as a Netflix exclusive release. Post-apocalyptic films are “a dime a dozen” nowadays, but 2022’s Bubble did not look anything remotely like any other film in the genre that I had ever seen. Moving away from the bleak gray and brown color palette, the world featured in Bubble is vibrant and cheery despite the harrowing predicament the characters in the film find themselves in.

Five years prior to the start of the film, strange bubbles descended from space and covered the world. Tokyo was especially victimized by this, as the seemingly harmless bubbles caused undue havoc, killing millions and creating odd issues such as flooding, gravity wells, and other anomalies. The survivors, mostly children at the time, created a sport, that is not too dissimilar to parkour, to pass time and have some semblance of a normal life. Bubble is the story of one such group of these survivors.

“Five years ago, gravity-defying bubbles with mysterious powers rained down upon the earth. After a huge explosion of uncertain origin, Tokyo became ground zero, with the city being enclosed in a gigantic bubble. As a result of this “Bubble Fall” phenomenon, the metropolis that was once the capital of Japan drowned in a gravity-bending sea; the government declared it a prohibited zone, and the residents abandoned it.

Children orphaned by the Bubble Fall now squat illegally in Tokyo, partaking in dangerous parkour team battles across the city’s dilapidated buildings. Hibiki—a talented ace in these games with the ability to jump between bubbles—claims he can hear sounds from the Tokyo Tower. Determined to uncover its mysteries, he sets off toward the source, but he falls into the waters below. A strange girl, whom he later nicknames Uta, saves him. But little does Hibiki know that Uta’s appearance in his life will reveal the secrets behind the disastrous event that changed their world forever.”

Surprisingly, this isn’t the first “parkour movie” I’ve seen, because I have also watched the French action films District 13 and District 13: Ultimatum, but this is perhaps the most imaginative one that I can think of. Introducing the idea of gravity anomalies into the mix, such as bubbles one can jump off of, and dangerous terrestrial black holes that can suck people in, makes the numerous action scenes very exciting and interesting so that it never gets old. The last thirty minutes of the film is especially well-done with cool action, gorgeous animation, and an interesting premise moving this film past any sort of shortcomings it may have.

The plot of this film is actually an odd take on the Hans Christian Andersen story, The Little Mermaid. The story itself goes as far as making the “mermaid” herself, a girl named “Uta”, aware of the story and her own predicament as she tries to live a normal life with humans. You see, Uta is not actually a person, she is one of the bubbles that descended to earth that has taken human form to be closer to Hibiki, a boy she saves after becoming smitten with him. We don’t actually know much about these aliens or why they came to Earth, or even why they almost destroyed the planet, but it has something to do with Uta running away from her family and them trying to find her and lure her back.

Having an alien race that is VERY alien is somewhat refreshing in modern science fiction, considering how easy it is to just slap a weird ear or eyebrow on a human and say “it’s an alien”! The mystery surrounding Uta and her kind is very cool, and although the film never holds your hand and drops all of the knowledge it can onto you, one can surmise the basic intentions they have and understand the plot. I’ve seen other reviews basically say that the plot made no sense in terms of alien motivations, but I feel it’s far more simple than what they are used to, and they were looking for a huge info-dump that never came.

Another big aspect of this movie is music, considering the catalyst for a lot of the mystery in the film is Uta’s singing, which is what gave her that name. Uta, for those unaware, means “song” in Japanese. While the soundtrack was not spectacular, some of the signature music including what I guess you would call “Uta’s Theme” was really good, and helped some of the more dramatic scenes that much more.

I will warn everyone reading this that this film is VERY bittersweet and ends on a rather down note for the most part. With this being a movie built around romance that is an homage to “The Little Mermaid”, I’m sure you can surmise what is likely to happen. With the gigantic success of the last three Makoto Shinkai films, a lot of other movies with somewhat thematically similar plots of “a vague impending disaster scenario featuring two lovers destined to be separated in some way” have been getting made quite a bit. I’m not saying that was the intention here, but one would be dense to ignore the idea that it could have helped this get made. While Bubble is not as polished as a Shinkai film, it has its own charm and doesn’t simply exist as a copycat as some films end up being.

Overall, this film was a little surprise that I randomly came across when looking for a different movie on Netflix. It’s not perfect by any means, but it’s a quality film that actually could have done well theatrically had it not been a Netflix production. The animation, colors, and story are all very well done, and I’m glad I took a chance watching it. If you are looking for something different, grab a tissue box and try to find Bubble, it’s well worth it!

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