(Theme song from “The Girl Who Leapt Through Time)
Think about how big the universe is, across space and other dimensions. It could be really really really huge! This is the kind of thing that the anime “The girl who leapt though time” does to your mind. This anime move is a really good feel good film in a similar light as the “Sand Lot”, but with a cool sci fi time travel twist. And it’s funny too.
The story is about Makoto Konno, your typical high school kid. Who by events out of her control stumbles on the ability to time leap. Makoto, discovers that by literally leaping though the air she can also leap though time. What does a high school kid do with such powers? Does she try to save the world? Go back in time and fix some horrible historical aberration? No, she tires to fix her friends relationships and other high school trivia. As you can imagine this makes for some hilarious storytelling. Not into Japanese high school stories? Don’t worry, Japanese high school is pretty much just like American High school but, just, you know – Japanese style. Don’t let that stop you, this is a really good story that holds its own. Did you have to be into ships to watch Titanic???
The animation could have been a lot better but it really proves the adage that the story trumps visuals. Because the story is so good we easily tolerate the obvious animation gaffs. But it’s too bad, with a little more effort it could have become on of the timeless classics. This writer and Studio Ghibli should get together because as beautiful as Studio Ghibli’s stuff is sometimes they do lack on the story side.
What a fun concept, to travel though time by literally leaping though the air. Anyway, Makoto, our heroine of time, does a really good job of screwing up one typical day in her high school life. When she discovers she can time leap she gets the fun idea that she can fix that day by going back in time. But every time she does she messes up things even more. By the end of the movie the plot is a twisted knot of mixed up events and fixed events. Sometimes it gets a little hard to follow everything that’s going on but in a fun way. I don’t know how the writer did the mental jujitsu to keep all these knotted plot strings under control. I imagine walls full of index cards with strings of yard crisscrossing the room tying one element to another. But no matter, in a kind of beautiful poetry, the knots all come a loose perfectly through a really cool twist in the end.
On a deeper spiritual or philosophical note. This film demonstrates that we really do not control our lives even with special powers. What appears to be random events of bad luck turn out to have a higher purpose. When Makoto tries to fix these random event to her and her friends favor she kinda messes up whatever order was in the fabric of space and time to a really tragic end. It’s only when, what appears to be a miracle happens, that things are set straight. And although, the way things are set straight does involve time travel, it really makes you pause and marvel at the beautiful dance we call life, including the so called bad and good. It also makes you wonder about all the possibilities in the various parallel universes of alternate events. How is it that even the smallest detail that appears as a random event can have huge implications? Which reinforces the notion that every moment, no matter how small and apparently insignificant is sacred.
Not only is this movie good anime, although the animation itself is lacking but the story is A+ but it’s also really good sci-fi. I hear there is a live action version that I definitely plan to watch. I don’t know if the live action came before or after this animated version (Check that! It turns out there is a 1976 Live Action and a 2010 Live Action version, turns out this story has a rich history going all the way back to a 1965 Japanese Novel, just released in English in 2011, originally called “The Girl Who Runs Through Time” by the Japanese author, Yasutaka Tsutsui see wikipedia for more). I will check it out and let you know. This story is ripe for a sequel. What happens to Chiaki? What is this future we hear about? Do they meet again in her future? Time travel movies are open to all kinds of possibilities. Some say it’s a tear-jerker but that’s only if you’re a high school girl in America or Japan 
Did you see it? Tell us what you thought in the comments.
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