Words Bubble Up Like Soda Pop

The screen practically vibrates with a palette so loud it makes a bag of Skittles look greyscale. We’re currently living through an era of "prestige" animation—where everything is either hyper-realistic lighting or gritty, soul-crushing realism—but Words Bubble Up Like Soda Pop (2021) decides to take a different path. It’s a flat, neon-drenched, pop-art fever dream that feels like someone turned a 1980s city-pop album cover into a living, breathing world. I watched this on a Tuesday night while trying to ignore the fact that I’d accidentally bought decaf coffee, and honestly, the sheer visual caffeine of this film was enough to keep me wired until 2 AM.

Released during that weird mid-pandemic lull where streaming services were our only windows to the outside world, this film dropped on Netflix the same day it hit Japanese theaters. In the current landscape of franchise dominance and "content" saturation, a quiet, standalone romance about a boy with headphones and a girl in a face mask could have easily evaporated. It almost did. It’s one of those modern oddities that the algorithm buries under a mountain of true-crime documentaries, yet it deserves a permanent spot on your "comfort watch" shelf.

The Social Anxiety of the Masked Era

At its core, the story follows Cherry (voiced by Kabuki actor Somegoro Ichikawa), a boy who wears noise-canceling headphones like a suit of armor to avoid talking to people. His only outlet is writing haikus and posting them to a mostly ignored social media feed. He crosses paths with Smile (Hana Sugisaki), a bubbly influencer who hides her "rabbit teeth" behind a surgical mask. It’s a premise that feels accidentally prescient given the global events of 2020 and 2021, but it’s really about the timeless, agonizing self-consciousness of being seventeen.

The drama here isn't world-ending; it’s internal. It’s the weight of a phone in your hand when you’re too scared to hit "send." I found the chemistry between Somegoro Ichikawa and Hana Sugisaki to be remarkably grounded, especially considering this was Ichikawa’s first voice-acting role. He brings a flat, stuttering cadence to Cherry that feels authentically teenage—not the polished, heroic tone we usually get in "Coming of Age" stories. Smile’s anxiety is equally palpable, hidden behind her bright digital persona, a dynamic that speaks volumes about how we curate our lives for the "Gram" while crumbling in private.

A Love Letter to Analog Ghosts

What makes this more than just a "boy meets girl" story is the subplot involving an elderly man named Mr. Fujiyama, voiced by Koichi Yamadera (the legendary Spike Spiegel from Cowboy Bebop). He’s wandering around the local shopping mall clutching an empty record sleeve, desperately looking for a lost vinyl from his youth. This turns the film into a scavenger hunt through a suburban landscape that feels both hyper-modern and decaying.

The film captures a specific "mall culture" that is rapidly disappearing. Director Kyohei Ishiguro (of Your Lie in April fame) uses the shopping center setting to highlight the contrast between the digital present and the analog past. The search for the record is the emotional anchor that prevents the movie from drifting off into pure sugary fluff. It’s a reminder that haikus are essentially the original Twitter, and that our need to document our feelings hasn't changed—only the hardware has. The score by Kensuke Ushio, who previously did the hauntingly beautiful A Silent Voice, swaps his usual minimalist piano for bright, synth-heavy beats that make the whole experience feel like a summer vacation in a soda can.

The Beauty of Being a Little Bit Weird

Technically, the film is a triumph of "limitations as a style." Production houses Signal.MD and Sublimation opted for a look that ignores traditional shading. It’s bold, flat, and uses thick linework that reminds me of European comics or the works of Taiyo Matsumoto. In an era where CGI-assisted "perfect" animation is the industry standard, seeing something that looks like a hand-painted mural is incredibly refreshing. It’s a visual protest against the blandness of modern streaming aesthetics.

There’s a specific kind of bravery in a movie being this earnest. It doesn't rely on irony or meta-commentary to shield itself. It just wants to tell you that it’s okay to have big teeth, it’s okay to be quiet, and it’s okay to shout your feelings from a stage even if your voice cracks. It’s a "small" film that feels massive because it treats the problems of its protagonists with total respect. It also makes a strong case for the fact that physical media is the only thing keeping our memories from being deleted by a server error.

Words Bubble Up Like Soda Pop is a vibrant, sparkling reminder of why we watch coming-of-age dramas in the first place. It captures that fleeting, sweaty, awkward sensation of a summer that changes everything before you even realize it’s happened. While it lacks the historical weight of the Ghibli classics, it is a definitive piece of contemporary "New Reiwa" cinema—bright, digital-native, and unexpectedly soulful. If you’ve ever felt like you were hiding behind a pair of headphones, this one is for you.