Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Words Bubble Up Like Soda Pop’ on Netflix, a Gentle Anime About Two Teens’ Very Awkward Romance

The stereotype of anime paints the genre as a screaming loud violent display of over-the-top exaggeration, but there are times when it’s precisely the opposite, e.g., Netflix’s Words Bubble Up Like Soda Pop. Less from the Urotsukidoji school of nuttiness than the My Neighbor Totoro school of gentle drama, Soda Pop is a calm, understated story about two awkward teens who partake in a summer romance that doesn’t smolder as much as it celebrates the simple fact that these people communicate with each other in a positive way, because communication seems to be their greatest challenge. Sound cute? Let’s find out exactly how cute.

WORDS BUBBLE UP LIKE SODA POP: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Cherry (voice of Somegoro Ichikawa) wears headphones all the time not because he loves music. Rather, they deter others from talking to him, because he’s not particularly good at the art of conversation. He mutters and grunts lightly, if you’re lucky. That doesn’t mean he’s inarticulate. He finds haiku poetry to be his most effective means of expression, and carries a pocket dictionary in his phone case. When he finally finds the perfect combination of syllables, he posts the poem to his social media followers, who number in the single digits. His mom is usually the only one who’ll give him a like. He works in the big gleaming mall in the city of Oda, in a daycare center for the elderly, filling in for his mother after she hurt her back. When the workers have the old folks write haiku for an activity, they make Cherry read one of his poems in front of them, and he sweats profusely, turning the color of an exquisitely baked salmon filet.

Smile (Hana Sugisaki) looks in the mirror, contorting her mouth and lips, trying to cover up her braces. Her front teeth jut out more than usual, and she’s remarkably self-conscious about it. Only while wearing a facemask is she confident enough to share videos with her hundreds of thousands of social media followers. She’s livestreaming some surely scintillating content from the Oda mall one day when a kid named Bieber (Megumi Han) commits a mild act of shoplifting and skateboards off with the goods. As mall security oafishly Blarts all around him, he runs into Cherry and Smile, and they crash together quite adorably. Cherry takes one look at her with her mask askew and utters one fateful word in his signature low-volume monotone: “Braces.” All but broken in two, Smile grabs her phone and dashes away — except it isn’t her phone, it’s Cherry’s, and he picks up her phone, and they go about their day, temporarily unaware of the accidental switcheroo.

Some time passes. How much, I’m not sure, but it definitely seems longer than an influencer would go without looking at their phone. Of course, this is kismet at work, because kismet is a character in this movie, the invisible hand provoking change in these characters, miniscule though they may be, these two teenagers mere specks on a planet that’s even less than speck in the whole of the universe. Smile and Cherry connect to exchange phones, and end up following each other’s respective social media accounts, liking each other’s posts, which are kind of profound in their own ways, I guess. Cue a very pleasant montage of Smile also working at the care center, Cherry intensely pinkening as he reads his poems, Smile going to the dentist and Cherry not telling her his family is moving away at the end of summer. She says everything is “cute,” giving him a new word to cram into his haikus. Kismet gives them a project to work on together: An old man in the day care who yearns to find a vinyl record he misplaced decades ago. So they try to find it, searching for it among the thousands of records in the aging, dusty store he used to run. Will they find it? I will not say if they find it, but there seems to be a good chance they’ll find something else.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Soda Pop is in the same vein as realistic anime dramas like When Marnie Was There and Only Yesterday, both from Studio Ghibli.

Performance Worth Watching: So this Bieber kid tags buildings around the mall with graffiti quoting Cherry’s poetry, because he thinks other people should be able to read it. He’s a troublemaker, sure, but he’s also a good friend.

Memorable Dialogue: “Braces.” Not a great first line, bro.

Sex and Skin: None. TBLFAOTVTF: Too Busy Leaving Fingerprints All Over The Vinyl To F—.

Our Take: Those of you addicted to grandiose, external conflict should go fire up Gunpowder Milkshake or something instead, because Words Bubble Up Like Soda Pop may have the least amount of conflict of any movie since My Dinner With Andre. Cherry and Smile’s quiet struggles play out in a world of bright oranges, pinks and yellows vividly splashed across the skies and green fields flanking the massive multi-story community hub of the mall. It’s not just cute, it’s all quite visually lovely, even the shopping center, a temple to the gleaming glories of capitalism, ever-vibrant and bustling.

The miniscule miracle of the story is, Cherry and Smile learn the power of face-to-face communique, even if they stumble over some of the hurdles here and there — he still struggles to express a feeling through his muted facade, and she refuses to remove her mask, even when her stomach grumbles and everyone else is eating. The teen-romance fodder seems rather trite and banal, occasionally embarrassing, and likely contrived for young audiences, but that shouldn’t shoo you away entirely. It has its charms. A big festival at the mall and the inevitability of Cherry’s departure and the quest for the old man’s record come to a head at the climax of a movie about, quite simply, end-of-summer joys and sadnesses, quiet yearning and bittersweet memories. It really doesn’t need anything else.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Words Bubble Up Like Soda Pop is by no means a life-changer, but young fans of the tamer side of anime may delight in seeing two teenagers find each other by working through their respective maladies.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Stream Words Bubble Up Like Soda Pop on Netflix