1.🔊 Tetsurō Araki, a notable Japanese animator and director, is known for his dark-edge anime projects like Attack on Titan and Death Note. It’s interesting, then, to see Araki take a decidedly lighter approach to directing with his latest film, Bubble. The Netflix production premiered on the streaming website on April 28, 2022, and the film’s loving tone will immediately strike anyone who’s a fan of Araki’s usual macabre aesthetic. While Bubble does take place in a sort of post-apocalyptic realm, the story prominently focuses on the love between two people. And much like Araki’s other projects, that central component of the film expands to larger, existential elements viewers can relate to.

2.🔊 But for the sake of cutting to the chase, the premise of the movie’s elaborate, nuanced world is quite simple. Years ago, mysterious bubbles fell onto Earth from outer space. And while the rest of the world escaped unfazed, Tokyo was decimated and left for ruin. The city was closed off from the general public, and Tokyo soon became home to rebellious young people who lost their families in the disaster. Now these youth spend their days competing in a parkour-like game of capture the flag.

3.🔊 Our main character, Hibiki, is in the midst of an existential dilemma. Thanks to a hearing disorder, he’s always felt on the outside of society. And because the Bubble-Fall Phenomenon, he is physically forced to be on the outside of normal life. As part of his search to find inner peace, he constantly tries to find the source of a ghostly song that emanates from the center of the original blast that destroyed Tokyo. And during that search, he comes across an alien girl named Uta—his love interest for the film.