Bubble Plot Synopsis
Bubble is the fictional story of a modern day Tokyo city which is enveloped with a bubble after an usual phenomena rendered the city unfit for habitation. The movie features the main protagonist Hibiki who has been diagnosed with hypersensitive auditory function since he was a child. This ability makes him no less than a gift in the now-abandoned Tokyo. The city is now fulled with children and teenagers who ran away from their homes. They are unofficially dubbed as the ‘Orphans’ of the Tokyo City. These children engage in hyper-intense parkour games where they bet their daily supplies. The team that wins gets the whole lot. Hibiki is very attuned to the minutest of noises and this helps him to gain an advantage in these games.
What happens with Tokyo Tower?
One day, he meets a mysterious girl who saves him from drowning. Initially she cannot speak but later picks up a few words. She is named Uta. Hibiki and Uta form a good companionship, although Uta develops a crush on Hibiki. Uta has a very beautiful voice. Her voice can calm and even make the bubbles move. She uses her ability in the parkour games, and eventually to save Hibiki’s life. As the film progresses, the gravitational anomalies take a hazardous turn. The habitants of the abandoned Tokyo city start to evacuate as the red cosmic field near Tokyo Tower shows signs of eruption. Uta goes into the vortex to save Hibiki from a dreadful fate. Hibiki, unaware of Uta’s true self, follows after her.
How does Hibiki survive?
When Hibiki goes towards the vortex, he sees flashbacks from his childhood from when the Tokyo city first encountered the bubbles and the massive destructions. The tower where Hibiki stood crashed, killing several people. Hibiki survived which was no less than a miracle. It is then revealed to him (and the audience) that it was Uta who saved Hibiki that day. She is the soul of those small blue water bubbles. The scene shifts to the present where Uta is holding hands with a silhouette formed out of red bubbles. She addresses it as ‘sister’.
Does Uta die?
Even after all this, the cause of these bubbles falling is not really explained, neither is the emergence of Uta’s sister in the form of red bubbles. Despite that, Uta saves Hibiki by enveloping him in a safe hug. As they both descend, Uta starts losing bits of her mortal form. She completely vanishes as the narrator recounts how the mermaid turned to bubbles after saving the prince’s life. Hibiki mourns her loss. After this, we see Tokyo is moving back to normalcy, with the previous habitants of the abandoned city continue their parkour games. As Hibiki is crossing the buildings, a small bubble with Uta’s laughter floats alongside him. The phenomena that wrapped Tokyo City to doom is not explained either. In the movie, we’re only given flashes of the ‘unexplained’ phenomena so it’s left rather ambiguously open to our own interpretation.
How does Bubble end?
The movie ends with Uta sacrificing her physical form to save Hibiki and, by extension, the rest of the citizens from a dreadful fate. Through Hibiki’s short flashback, the makers attempt to provide an answer, but alas the attempt fails. The bubble is uplifted from the town of Tokyo and life begins to take shape again. The children continue to engage in the parkour activities. Netflix’s latest anime movie Bubble leaves audiences wanting more questions than answers. The short epilogue of the city returning to normalcy does not help quench the thirst for a closure. A sequel to the film does not seem likely either, given the definitive end to the plot, although a short follow-up to explain the climactic phenomena of the water bubbles and the gravitational anomalies certainly wouldn’t be remiss! Read More: Bubble Movie Review Thanks for reading our Ending Explained article! What did you think of the ending? Have we missed anything? Did you predict the ending? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
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