Words Bubble Up Like Soda Pop: A Movie Review
Let’s face it: I chose to watch this movie because of the pretty title and even prettier animation. I’ve fallen in love with the relaxing, slice-of-life anime, and on that front, this movie delivered. The animation stayed vibrant and beautiful throughout the entire movie and the use of haikus as graffiti kept up with the artsy vibes.
What I didn’t like (and this is just a ‘me’ thing really) was the cringey teenage insecurities that the movie revolved around. I had to pause and breathe for a second because I remember being like this in high school, and I honestly didn’t want to remember that part of my past. Ugh. But it did make the characters very human. What I found interesting was that these characters chose to deal with their insecurities in a visible form of fashion: the girl with buck teeth chose to hide them behind a face mask and the boy with social anxiety chose to disengage under a bulky set of headphones.
The storyline itself took some neat, unexpected turns. I was afraid that the driving force of the movie would be some sort of forced friendship that the plot created for them, but that wasn’t the case. It was made apparent from the beginning that these characters wanted to connect, so they put in the effort at the beginning of the movie and another subplot took place that they could continue to connect over.
The subplot was my favorite part. I cared more about that than I did the connection between the main characters. It was very cute and a tad surprising, so I won’t discuss it too much so as to preserve that surprise for anyone else reading this.
Would I recommend checking out this movie? Yes. Do I think it’s an amazing feat of art? In terms of the animation style, yes. In terms of the storyline, not so much. It’s an overall enjoyable movie, so if you have some downtime and want to relax to something cute, Words Bubble Up Like Soda Pop is just the film.
