getvalentined: When I started watching Bubble, I assumed Hibiki was just very autistic-coded because
getvalentined: When I started watching Bubble, I assumed Hibiki was just very autistic-coded because that’s all it ever is, coding, it’s never explicit—BUT NOPE HE STRAIGHT UP IS AUTISTIC, IT’S A MAJOR PART OF HIS STORYLINE, HE’S LITERALLY AUTISTIC.Hibiki isn’t just presumed to be autistic by the cast because he’s somehow mystically aware of supernatural things, he is able to perceive supernatural things because he is autistic. The diagnosis came first. It’s not a case where it’s actually some superpower, where he’s actually the chosen one, he’s autistic and that means he’s hypervigilant and has auditory sensitivity and that makes him pick up on things that others don’t. He’s not neurodivergent-coded because he’s actually “special,” he’s genuinely special because he’s actually neurodivergent.The leading female character, Uta, is autistic-coded but not explicitly such because of plot reasons. She’s mostly nonverbal for the majority of the film, when she does speak it’s with a very flat verbal affect. She absorbs information and gets really into math once it’s introduced to her. She has a special interest in The Little Mermaid, and also in spirals and how they relate to gravity and the cycle of expansion and compression throughout the universe. The only thing that makes her being autistic less explicit than Hibiki is that you don’t see her get a diagnosis (and she won’t because that would be a weird way to derail the story).Bubble will make you cry—it’s based on The Little Mermaid, the original, which should make it clear that the title of the film has a distinct double-meaning in the context of the story—but I’ve never seen neurodivergence on display so clearly, so respectfully, and so naturally in an anime before, and I recommend it with every fiber of my being. -- source link