This review contains spoilers for, and assumes familiarity with, the reviewed material. This is your only warning.
Like your emotions
rise above the sea
young one
The anime film industry runs over with summertime teenage romance. Nowadays, a film in this category has to be either really good or have some kind of twist to stand out. Words Bubble Up Like Soda Pop is in the former camp. It is conventional, but has such warmth and easygoing charm that, if you have even the slightest bit of room left in your heart for this genre, it’s impossible not to love.
The story (or rather, stories) here are extremely simple. Point the first; boy meets girl, literally. A chase sequence climaxes in a crash and an accidental phone switcheroo. Cherry, our boy, is a withdrawn haiku poet with a deserted Twitter account. Smile, our girl, is a teenage influencer who has recently become self conscious of her buck teeth. Mapping this out any further almost seems superfluous, if you’ve ever seen a film like this you can correctly guess that it all dovetails into shouted “I Like You”‘s and such. The story is a skeleton in this sort of film, not the flesh and blood.
Our second narrative is the more interesting one, involving an also-withdrawn old man who is also a haiku poet. The film neatly entwines together his story, and his love for his late wife (an also-bucktoothed singer-songwriter) with Cherry and Smile’s. But as sweet as all this is, lingering on story details risks getting stuck in the mud.
The current period of Makoto Shinkai’s filmography stands as a reference point, at least for me, here. Like those films, Words Bubble Up succeeds not because it is particularly complex or challenging, but because of its startling emotional resonance. It expertly captures sensations as disparate as the joy of first love, the fog and frustration of memory loss, the pleasures of artistic creation, and the deep futility of trying to correct an uncorrectable mistake.
Much of this comes down to the visual angle. The film’s symbolism is intricate, with every image chosen interlocking in a dozen different ways. Cherry blossoms are names and fireworks, and their leaves are buck teeth which link otherwise related characters across generations. Haikus are song lyrics. The sweetness of young love is a cola. The world is alive, so Words tells us.
On top of that? Bright, sharp coloring giving the world of the movie a look akin to informational posters and spot-the-object books. That may sound odd, even offputting, on paper, but in practice it works amazingly well, making the city it takes place in feel concrete in a way that even more “realistic” media can struggle with. It also means that Words is capable of conveying a ton of emotion through nothing more than some clever editing, or through character acting. Those whose greatest appreciation of anime stems from its core as animation will find a lot to pour over in this one.
Take Cherry, for instance. The boy’s character-as-written is solid but minimal. He likes haikus, he has a crush. But if we pay attention to his actions we can learn so much more. It’s straight-up pointed out that, in a way common to people with anxiety or processing disorders, he often keeps heavy headphones clamped over his ears to shut out unwelcome noise. As you may guess, he relies on them less over the course of the film, Smile’s companionship rendering them unnecessary.
Smile too gets a lot of attention in this regard. A moment late in the film where she’s shattered a vinyl record absolutely drips with intensity; you really feel her regret. She spends an entire night trying to glue it back together in a scene that probably lasts only a minute or two but feels three times that. All this without a single word being said.
That’s not to say the auditory component of the movie is unremarkable, though. The voice acting carries a lot of charm, with even minor characters like Beaver having distinctive tones. The soundtrack is excellent, too, and when we do finally get to hear that record (or rather, a copy) played at the story’s end, it’s a wonderfully sweet cut of folky pop.
“Sweet”, of course, is the operative word. I can think of few anime in recent memory that are so obviously fit by their titles. Of course words bubble up like soda pop; have you seen the world this movie takes place in? Like cola, I can imagine it being too sugary for some, but as summer ends, it’s the sort of refreshing treat I find myself craving.
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