Bubble

I am going to start with what must be obvious to everyone: every time people see that WIT Studio is the main animation studio on a major project, they know it will be beautiful! Animation-wise, this movie is a wonderful showcase of what this studio can do. Given that parkour is an essential part of the movie, the animators flex their muscles and demonstrate how brilliantly they can animate movement. Of course, those in charge of the backgrounds were not slacking off either, and so many shots would make a gorgeous poster, wallpaper, or screensaver. Each image showcases a brilliant sense of aesthetics and the artistry of the illustrators, both of which make the viewer sit back, enjoy every minute, including the parkour race, and take it all in until the stunning conclusion. WIT Studio uses what they learned while making the anime series Atack on Titan, and so many scenes look like Levi's famous "coming to the bar" scene. The final sequence makes you think of the best aerial fights because the movement of the characters here is so iconic. Everything is beautifully colored. When anything moves, it is simply flawless. It feels epic when something falls to the ground (like buildings collapsing). The detail is just great. The bottom line is that animation-wise, this movie is worth 10/10. The soundtrack by Hiroyuki Sawano works well and is literally perfect in some moments (like the conclusion), so you notice it a lot, plus it is helped by the fact that one particular song serves as an important theme in this movie. On the other hand, overall, it is not exactly a memorable experience. In the first half especially, I only partially noticed the music, almost as if Sawano was being unnecessarily restrained at the beginning. On the other hand, he makes up for it in part two, and especially during the dynamic final sequence, where he shows why he is considered by many to be one of the best Japanese composers in anime today. Musically, it is worth 8.5/10, in my opinion. Are you familiar with Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid? Regarding the movie's narrative, the screenwriters are fully aware of that particular story and are not shy about building the main storyline around it. On top of that, they bolt on parkour races like they are straight out of a sports anime series, and even that line kind of works for them, interspersing the whole thing with a good dose of pretty interesting fantasy elements although I found that a bit too grating. What happened over the course of the five years plus the bubbles felt a bit unbelievable, and it took me a while to come to terms with it all. Likewise, the parkour races seemed quite strange. I thought I would have liked to have seen any government allow this, and I could just not believe that if one of two teams decided to radically raise the stakes and still broadcast it on the internet, somehow, no one would intervene. There were just some things that were a little harder to accept. On the other hand, the pacing of the narrative was good. The build-up was a bit slower, although the movie managed to build everything up so that the emotional conclusion had an impact. It even had an effect despite all the philosophizing about birth and death. The atmosphere was good, too, although a certain romantic part of me thinks there could have been more of The Little Mermaid and a little less of the parkour, although I can still live with that. The narrative, pace, and atmosphere are worth 7/10. So, in summary, I enjoyed Bubble. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to see what really good animation should look like or those who are romantic souls with a sense of aesthetics and also to the average anime viewer. 8/10. (28.04.2022) (mniej) (więcej)

A little parkour fairy. Indeed, in the anime production, this project is confusingly peppered with the biggest names: Tetsurō Araki, the lauded director of Attack on Titan. Gen Urobuchi, the man behind the excellent scripts Fate/Zero, Puella Magi Madoka Magica and Psycho-Pass. Hiroyuki Sawano, one of the most famous composers of anime music in recent years. The dubbers include such stars as Yūki Kaji or Mamoru Miyano, all under the aegis of one of my favorite studios, WIT. The opening immersion and bouncing around in a world sketched out by a giant bubble blower is an incredibly effective audiovisual spectacle; the opulent focus on the watery state is the centerpiece of this animated Tokyo, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if you assume this is another Shinkai, since it's similar in quite a few aspects to his recent Weathering with You. You can see the WIT style above all in the composition of the background against the static images of faces, with the accentuated play of lighting effects frequently found in Vivy: Fluorite Eye's Song. You can't help but enjoy the camera frenzy during the competitions, its endless wrapping around all the athletes' axes. The parkour action sequences are beautifully animated, and the only thing that slightly snapped me out of my reverie was the script's confusion over whether to use the classic run or the ridiculously inappropriate "Naruto run" (Like why even? Surely you don't wear a suit to a ball so you can ultimately put boots on?). And speaking of the script, it was only a slight hint of a bigger noise. I have no idea if Urobuchi slightly flubbed it, it was heavily cut, or if there were other external interfering factors: The inspiration from Andersen's "The Little Mermaid" is beaten into our heads every few minutes, but that shouldn't be allowed to create a fantasy world that is unfinished compared to the original tale and filled with unknown rules, or to churn out a bundle of characters with no backstory and no deeper characterization, and then try to retroactively wrap it in a romantic gift package meant to tug at more sensitive heartstrings. The romance between the fairy and the prince follows the aforementioned pattern and is created with gestures rather than words, but is nothing more than a bland shortcut. The main "wingman" of the script, the visuals, tries to convince the audience of their existing proximity, diligently selling one magical scene after another, but without meaningful actions and chemistry between the lead couple together, it's just a hollow picture, literally an advertisement for silence. The implausibility of the plot seems to be sadly symbolized by the author’s reluctance to have the surrounding characters question or even ponder the supernatural elements surrounding our fairy, or the strange ignorance of her origins. The emotional impact of the last dramatic minutes was thus, for me, like the grand headline of a weak tabloid. As Jeoffrey wrote, it wouldn't have hurt at all to have less action and instead more very fragile bubbly relationships for more touching animation, to put it ironically. It's a waste, a very nice looking waste, and a burst bubble. 3 stars (11.05.2022) (mniej) (więcej)