Bubble: new movie cyberpunk retelling of The Little Mermaid

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Source: www.scmp.com/lifestyle/entertainment/article/3174348/netflix-movie-review-bubble-cyberpunk-little-mermaid

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Entertainment
Review | Netflix movie review: Bubble – cyberpunk The Little Mermaid by Japanese anime director Tetsuro Araki is shamelessly derivative

Tetsuro Araki has worked on some of the biggest shows in anime, including Attack on Titan, but his latest effort in Netflix’s Bubble is something of a letdown

The themes, plot strands and romantic entanglements in this cyberpunk retelling of The Little Mermaid have been presented numerous times before in better ways
James Marsh

Published: 11:15am, 16 Apr, 2022


A still from Bubble, a cyberpunk retelling of The Little Mermaid by Japanese animation director Tetsuro Araki showing on Netflix. Photo: Netflix

Even the most casual anime fan should recognise Tetsuro Araki’s latest offering, Bubble, for the shamelessly derivative enterprise that it is.
Set in a generically dystopian future, ravaged by a non-specific apocalyptic event that has left a gang of indistinguishable orphans to fend for themselves, this cyberpunk retelling of The Little Mermaid boasts as much substance and narrative depth as the celestial bubbles that litter the dilapidated cityscape.
Araki has worked on some of the biggest shows in anime, including Attack on Titan and Death Note, while screenwriter Gen Urobuchi’s résumé is arguably even more impressive, as co-creator of Puella Magi Madoka Magica and writer of Psycho Pass and Fate/Zero, as well as its source novel.

In Bubble, the animation is effective without being especially memorable while the score features a recurring musical motif that recalls Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Throughout its breezy 100 minutes, the film is buoyed by an unshakeable sense of déjà vu.

Its themes, plot strands and romantic entanglements have been addressed numerous times before, and in almost every instance, with more passion, imagination and vigour.
The depiction of Uta, the film’s heroine voiced by singer Riria, is perhaps the most egregious of Bubble’s many failings. An extraterrestrial beauty who becomes smitten with Hibiki, the film’s young male protagonist, from the moment she lays eyes on him, Uta is beautiful, capable and almost completely inarticulate.


A still from Bubble. Photo: Netflix

It takes her mere moments to master the semi-weightless form of parkour that Hibiki and his friends compete in, leaping effortlessly from one floating piece of masonry to the next, yet the only emotion she is able to express is an inexplicable adoration for our sullen hero.
Hibiki (Jun Shison) is a classic introvert, incapable of forming meaningful relationships, conversations or even vowels, thanks to a childhood case of auditory hypersensitivity. Only when racing across rooftops in bizarre extreme sports competitions can he truly be himself.
His world is disrupted, however, the day he falls into the ocean, to be scooped up by Uta – a girl he has never seen before. It triggers painful memories of the day, years earlier, when bubbles fell from the sky and triggered the explosion that crippled the city.


A still from Bubble. Photo: Netflix

What follows is an achingly bland, occasionally attractive unspooling of post-apocalyptic teen-angst clichés that surfs the coattails of so many more profound explorations of speculative fiction, all while paying vague, ill-informed lip service to Hans Christian Andersen’s beloved fairy tale.
Bubble will start streaming on Netflix on April 28.

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Source: www.animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2022-04-14/bubble-anime-film-making-of-video-reveals-how-the-dream-team-assembled/.184608

Interest
Bubble Anime Film Making-Of Video Reveals How the Dream Team Assembled
posted on 2022-04-14 11:45 EDT by Kim Morrissy
Director Tetsuro Araki shares his surprising connection with writer Gen Urobuchi
Warner Bros. Japan began streaming its first staff interview video on Wednesday for Bubble, the new original anime film by Wit Studio. In the "Story Section" video, director Tetsuro Araki (Attack on Titan, Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress) and producer Genki Kawamura (your name., BELLE) commented on how they developed the plot and assembled the film's "star" creative team.



The production of Bubble began when Araki approached Kawamura with the idea of creating a film together. He wanted to work with someone who was familiar with creating things for a wider audience, while Kawamura was a fan of Araki's work on Attack on Titan. The two spent half a year discussing ideas, with Araki's concept illustration of a mechanical Little Mermaid in a dystopic Tokyo becoming the core foundation.

Screenwriter Gen Urobuchi (Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Fate/Zero novel, Psycho-Pass) fleshed out the science fiction concepts. Araki said that he was acquainted with Urobuchi because the latter helped him with Guilty Crown 10 years ago in an uncredited capacity. (Urobuchi belongs to Nitroplus, a writing company that contributed scripts to Guilty Crown.) Kawamura was eager to work with him as a fan of Puella Magi Madoka Magica.

On original character designer Takeshi Obata (Death Note, Platinum End), Kawamura commented: "He's both mainstream and has a sense of artiness, so I've always wanted to work with him." Unfortunately, Obata was initially too busy to accept the offer, but after reading the plot, he contacted Kawamura to say that he wanted to do it.

Kawamura described the film as "a festival of creators involved with director Araki." The idea was to gather people they all loved and see what would happen if they made a film together.

Netflix describes the anime:

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.



The characters in the top row (left to right) in the visual above include protagonists Hibiki (Jun Shison) and Uta (Riria.), the scientist Makoto (Alice Hirose), and Shin (Mamoru Miyano). The characters in the bottom row (left to right) include Kai (Yuuki Kaji), Usagi (Sayaka Senbongi), the leader of Denki Ninja (Tasuku Hatanaka), the leader of Undertaker (Marina Inoue), and the leader of Kantō Mad Lobster (Shinichiro Miki).

Tetsuro Araki (Attack on Titan, Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress) is directing the film at Wit Studio, with a script by Gen Urobuchi (Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Fate/Zero novel, Psycho-Pass), and character designs by Takeshi Obata (Death Note, Platinum End). Hiroyuki Sawano (Attack on Titan, 86) is composing the music.

The film will debut worldwide on Netflix on April 28, and will open in Japanese theaters on May 13. The film played as an official selection of the Generation 14plus section at the 72nd Berlin International Film Festival on February 10-20.

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Source: www.pastemagazine.com/movies/bubble-review/

Post-Apocalyptic Parkour Anime Bubble Pops off the Screen, but Is Transparently Thin
By Max Covill | April 5, 2022 | 2:23pm



One of the preeminent anime studios in the world, Wit Studio, has released acclaimed titles such as Attack on Titan, Vinland Saga and Ranking of Kings. Their newest original title in collaboration with Netflix, Bubble, features direction from Attack on Titan helmer Tetsuro Araki and a screenplay by Puella Magi Madoka Magica scribe Gen Urobuchi. With this pedigree, the expectations for the science fiction story are pretty high. What we get is a hybrid parkour battle anime with elements of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid sprinkled in.

Bubble takes place in Tokyo, five years after a catastrophic event known as The Bubble Fall, which changed life in the city forever. Millions of bubbles filled the air and caused mass disruption to the lives of the Japanese. After an enormous blast at Tokyo Tower, the bubbles stopped for the most part, except for in the capital city. When the bubbles began to burst, they flooded large areas of the city, making it uninhabitable. Yet, this Tokyo became prime real estate for the many children orphaned by the Bubble Fall. These children now make the sunken city their home and partake in parkour battles for supplies and bragging rights.


One particular orphan with all-star abilities, Hibiki (Jun Shison), has a sensitivity to sound that allows him to hear a strange song emanating from the bubbles. While attempting to find the source at Tokyo Tower, a misstep leaves him on the precipice of death, drowning in the floodwaters. It’s here that he meets a mysterious girl, Uta (Riria), who saves his life and might hold the key to solving this catastrophe.
The animation in Bubble pops off the screen. All the characters flow effortlessly throughout the waterlogged city, and having parkour be the central means of navigation allows the characters to use this phenomenon to their advantage. Tokyo being devoid of additional life enables the creators to make a giant playground out of the city. In what I’m calling “parkour vision,” the camera rotates around the characters, sometimes transitioning into a first-person perspective while they navigate the terrain. It adds a lot of depth to what we see, and it’s thrilling watching the characters jump off of buildings and use bubbles as stepping stones. Death Note artist Takeshi Obata provided the character designs and there are instances where the camera will freeze on the protagonists to show off their incredible looks.

That said, originality isn’t a strong suit for Bubble. A number of characters are built off of stock archetypes, none as painful as the female protagonist. Uta, as a magical girlfriend, has been compiled using an encyclopedia’s worth of anime tropes. Even though Uta lacks the ability to speak (yikes), she becomes an instant expert in parkour and other elements of human life. Not to mention she’s absolutely obsessed with Hibiki. Hibiki’s sensitivity to sound has always made him feel like an outlier, but Uta brings out the best in him and opens up his heart to things he never experienced before. The script tries to disguise a lot of these obvious tropes, using the framework of The Little Mermaid fable, but despite drilling that comparison home it comes across as uninspired.

You can pinpoint exactly where Bubble loses its momentum, because the film literally pauses to explain itself. Bubble’s problems begin with its multiple monologues where the action stops so that the concepts can be explained—parkour battles, Bubble Fall, Tokyo Tower, etc. Urobochi and company have envisioned this world and its characters as something of a puzzle that needs to be unlocked, but none of that happens organically through the story. Urobochi’s known in anime for his dark, unforgiving series—the action takes place in dystopian worlds and some form of tragedy is likely to befall the protagonists. Some of it works, but mostly it adds too much doom and gloom to something that begins as an entertaining sports anime, and transitions into something else entirely.


Bubble is undoubtedly a stunning film featuring some of the brightest stars of Japanese animation. That animation is key, as the showstopping moments from Hibiki and company magnificently jumping through the environment is one of the biggest reasons to delve into this world. These moments can often be thrilling. Unfortunately, despite all this talent, Bubble never amounts to something wholly unique—falling into predictable tropes and a narrative that ends up being a little too self-serious for a parkour adventure with bubbles.

Director: Tetsuro Araki
Writers: Gen Urobuchi
Starring: Jun Shison, Riria, Marina Inoue, Mamoru Miyano
Release Date: April 28, 2022 (Netflix)

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Source: www.cbr.com/attack-on-titan-tetsuro-araki-all-star-anime-team-netflix-bubble/

Attack on Titan Director Explains How an All-Star Anime Team Created Netflix’s Bubble
BY HANSINI WASALAMUDALIGE
PUBLISHED 1 DAY AGO
Attack on Titan's Tetsuro Araki and Your Name's Genki Kawamura reveal how they assembled legendary anime creatives to make their newest film, Bubble.


Netflix's Bubble (Anime)

Attack on Titan's Tetsuro Araki sat down with Your Name's Genki Kawamura to discuss how they brought together an all-star team of anime legends to help create Wit Studio's upcoming original anime film Bubble for Netflix.

As reported by Anime News Network, it was revealed in an all-new video that Bubble came to fruition after Araki, who serves as the movie's director, contacted Kawamura about making a film together. Araki explained that he was interested in working with Kawamura as he had plenty of experience in making films and shows aimed at a wider audience. Being a fan of Araki's directing work on Attack on Titan, Kawamura agreed to produce the film, and the two spent around six months tossing around ideas of what Bubble should be about. A concept illustration drawn by Araki of a mechanical Little Mermaid in a post-apocalyptic Tokyo soon formed the basis of these discussions, as Araki and Kawamura dreamed up a plot around the idea of a futuristic underwater adventure.

Gen Urobuchi, who has worked on series such as Puella Magi Madoka Magica and Psycho-Pass, was then brought on as screenwriter to develop and tease out the science fiction elements of the film. Urobuchi had done some uncredited work around 10 years ago on Guilty Crown, an action-dystopian anime series that Araki directed. Kawamura was keen to collaborate with Urobuchi as he loved his writing on Puella Magi Madoka Magica.

Takeshi Obata, who famously worked on series such as Death Note and Platinum End, was also recruited as Bubble's original character designer. While he initially rejected the offer to work on the film due to his busy schedule, Obata accepted the role after he learnt what the film would be about. "He's both mainstream and has a sense of artiness, so I've always wanted to work with him," Kawamura said.

Given the all-star team of anime creatives that were assembled for the film, Kawamura's description that Bubble is "a festival of creators involved with director Araki" seems apt. Araki's passion project was aimed to bring aboard people whose work is universally beloved to see what would happen if these geniuses worked together to create something.

Taking place in a Tokyo that has been isolated from the rest of the world after gravity-defying bubbles rain down from the sky, Bubble follows Hibiki, a master of the unique style of parkour young people in the city practice due to the laws of gravity being broken. After falling into the gravity-defying sea surrounding Tokyo, the young ace is saved by Uta, a mysterious girl with equally mysterious powers. Together, they embark on an epic adventure to unravel the secrets of their city after hearing a strange noise only audible to them.

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Source: www.polygon.com/23046754/bubble-review-netflix-anime-attack-on-titan

An Attack on Titan director made Netflix’s parkour fantasy Bubble into a true oddity
Tetsurō Araki helms the movie, which is just your basic post-apocalyptic sci-fi parkour riff on The Little Mermaid

By Kambole Campbell@kambolecampbell Apr 28, 2022, 3:20pm EDT


Hibiki and Uta face each other in a dense field of blue and purple bubbles in the anime movie Bubble
Image: Netflix

MuchMuch of the narrative of Netflix’s original anime movie Bubble revolves around a group of radical young people who take part in “Tokyo Battlekour,” a team parkour game of capture-the-flag set amid the submerged ruins of a metropolis. As a post-apocalyptic riff on Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid, it’s an outlandish, willfully silly approach to literary adaptation played almost completely straight. Not to be mistaken with Judd Apatow’s immediately forgettable Netflix original The Bubble, Bubble is tender, even meditative. But its best ideas are sadly swept away amid a wave of half-formed ones.

Taking place in a future Tokyo that’s now mostly underwater as the result of a strange “natural” disaster characters call the “bubble fall,” Bubble (directed by Attack on Titan and Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress’ Tetsurō Araki) follows an introverted young man named Hibiki as he encounters a mysterious girl, Uta, who may have a connection to that apocalyptic event and the magic floating bubbles left lingering in its wake.


Even in occupying a flooded and abandoned city, Hibiki and his friends and rivals run the risk of being evicted by the authorities — the dogmas of the old world cling to what little remains. Bubble could stand to explore that in a little more depth, especially considering the restorative note of the ending. Instead, it focuses on its fairy-tale retelling, falling back on narrative cliché: A young man, disconnected from the world around him, meets a mysterious young girl who knows nothing about that world, but still pushes him to live in it more fully. (It’s a tale as old as time: a boy meeting and falling in love with a sentient bubble who dresses like a Japanese pop idol.) The classic coming-of-age, boy-meets-girl fantasy romance is charming enough, and so is Uta learning about the way of life for Hibiki’s “Blue Blazes” parkour team. But by falling back on something so familiar, Bubble sells its most interesting story angles short.


A tiny human figure stands on a gantry high above the flooded Toyko in Bubble
Image: Netflix

The clumsiness of the film’s world-building doesn’t help. The details of this quiet, isolated post-bubble fall Tokyo and its denizens are delivered through heavy-handed exposition that also proves awkwardly timed: Viewers learn about the state of the city in a monologue after already seeing it pretty comprehensively. But the undercuts and partially cornrowed hair of its various radical dudes are endearing regardless, even if most of the supporting cast remain as simple archetypes rather than fully realized people.

While the plot beats can be forgettable, the platformer-esque set-pieces are engaging. The characters’ freerunning let the most overt hallmarks of Araki’s direction shine through — the zooming and swooping through digital environments and the incredibly cool first-person perspectives that often feel video-gamey in the immersion they provide. While the film isn’t exactly an homage to the thrill of platformers, it’s hard not to think of them as Hibiki puzzles through finding new and unexpected routes and footholds.

It’s honestly funny that writers Gen Urobuchi, Naoko Sato, and Renji Ōki chose parkour to differentiate their Little Mermaid riff from other anime inspired by the story, like Hayao Miyazaki’s Ponyo or Masaaki Yuasa’s Lu Over The Wall. But it’s a choice in keeping with Araki’s previous directorial work — particularly Attack on Titan — as the characters dash and leap through city spaces, with a thrilling sense of vertigo in the way the camera follows them over drops and across rooftops.

But the film also constantly reminds the audience of its story inspiration. Where Ponyo and Lu chart their own creative courses, in Bubble, Uta literally refers back to the original Little Mermaid story as playing a role in shaping her decision-making. There’s a tragic, self-fulfilling prophecy to her engagement with that story. She was born into a sacrificial role that she feels duty-bound to fulfill, rather than living an actual life. But like so many other aspects of the story, that one element feels a little undercooked.


A parkour competitor leaps off a huge shining bubble in mid-air in the anime movie Bubble
Image: Netflix

Again, Urobuchi, Sato, and Ōki make absolutely sure this theme doesn’t pass viewers by. One character actually reads the fairy tale to Uta. She has some interiority, but a lot of it is defined by Andersen’s text, as she relays how she feels like Andersen’s unnamed mermaid. The writers overexplain the story’s most obvious parts while leaving several crucial and baffling threads dangling — like the ominous, masked group of freerunners who repeatedly intrude on the teens’ “Battlekour,” then unceremoniously disappear with little explanation. The film’s failure to establish its main threats ends up feeling unintentionally funny — the idea of “evil” bubbles doesn’t land, and neither do those interfering freerunners, who essentially wear supersoakers on their feet. As a result, it’s mostly the action that sticks in the memory.

There’s some genuine visual poetry to Bubble, though, such as its sequence about finding spirals in the natural world. That eternal pattern is illustrated through a shimmer of light in a spinning bike wheel. (It’s one of a few Bubble moments that recall Gurren Lagann’s similar obsession.) In the same respect, Bubble’s flirtations with psychedelia and the metaphysical stand out from its more earthbound action sequences, as the film conjoins nature and the cosmos through song. Such moments bring in vivid, almost hallucinogenic color, especially compared to Araki’s previous works, defined by rust, metal, and blood.

That downtime is nice, especially as the film’s editing begins to place the characters in tune with the natural world around them, cutting in quiet moments to flora and whatever fauna remains. The story is at its best in these moments, as it reconciles Hibiki’s struggle with agoraphobia and his comfort amid such scenes, contrasting the overwhelming noise of past city life with the hypnotic, rhythmic sounds of nature. When this character study is pushed more to the forefront, all the film’s elements dovetail perfectly — the post-apocalypse drama, the fantasy romance, and the extreme sports.


A mysterious masked villain from Bubble, with a single giant red eye on their mask
Image: Netflix

Hibiki and Uta use their athleticism to find a place for themselves in a city that would otherwise be dead, and to find freedom away from the confines of the streets. While the film’s parkour matches begin as competitions between rival teen gangs, Hibiki and Uta make them resemble a dance instead. The depiction of the primary couple in motion is striking, but so is the painterly detail of the close-ups on characters’ faces. In the less kinetic, more meditative moments, the film’s aim in telling a somewhat tragic, ephemeral love story feels clearest. It’s captured in glimpses of serenity amid the film’s chaos, so it’s hard not to mourn that the rest feels so unfocused by comparison.

Bubble is at its best when it’s dealing with its main character’s psychology, rather than the dramatically inert threat of angry magic bubbles. It illuminates more about its cast when it isn’t dealing with its ridiculous “Tokyo Battlekour” rivalries. And the film’s conclusion is beautiful, no matter how unformed the ideas behind it are. It’s a handsomely animated film where the Little Mermaid learns parkour. That commitment to the anime tradition of taking literary adaptations in completely unexpected directions has got to count for something.

Bubble is streaming on Netflix now.