The End of the World

[Categories: OAVs, Movies and Full Series]

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time

Posted by Martin  [Tags: iyashikei, realistic fiction]

I won’t hazard a guess as to how long this was sitting unwatched - suffice to say it was too long. The nostalgic, iyashikei vibe of the movie is just the sort of thing I’ve grown to love in recent months so maybe it’s no surprise that I fell for this little gem hook, line and sinker. Many films that use time travel as a plot device end up with a fractured narrative that’s so hard to follow that the other messages are clouded or lost altogether; The Girl Who Leapt Through Time on the other hand prevents it becoming too much of a dominant force in the plot progression by setting its sights firmly on telling a story of friendship and teen romance with the slightly sci-fi twist…and what a story it is.

Tomboyish Makoto Konno is a decidedly typical teenager with an typical routine and a typical lack of concern or decisiveness concerning her future…until she discovers that she has acquired the ability to jump back in time to revisit past events. Initially she uses this for selfish and trivial ends, such as repeating a test she flunked or eating a snack before her kid sister swipes it, but when she begins to use this to influence the lives of others Makoto realises that not even time travel can offer escape from life’s problems and responsibilities.

The film is actually a sequel of sorts, following on from the events in a book by Paprika writer Yasutaka Tsutsui. This is more of a piece of interesting trivia than an indicator of the nature of this film though because it has little in common with anything Satoshi Kon has come up with so far. I can even liken certain aspects to movies by Shinkai and Takahata (in that fans of those will appreciate this too) but in truth Mamoru Hosoda has found a delightful style of his own. Interestingly, Tsutsui’s novel was made into a live-action film; Hosoda’s take on the story could quite easily use the same approach. That is to say The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is a very realistic and true-to-life piece regardless of the time-hopping, with the muted and soft-focus watercolour feel that Madhouse would later apply to Dennou Coil. That’s right - this is another Madhouse marvel: even the character designs, who add so much life and energy into the production, are attributed to my old Gainax favourite Yoshiyuki Sadamoto.

The characters well and truly take centre stage here, which is all the more obvious with the art and music. It’s a really pretty and picturesque film, but not excessively so; the visuals don’t attempt to dazzle or amaze the viewer. Instead, they create that all-important atmosphere of nostalgia that harks back to lazy, dreamy summer days of childhood - this is one of those anime movies where the animation allows you to forget it’s animation at all. It has a very relaxed but skilful and self-assured directorial style that offers time for reflection - the visuals just get on with their business of setting the scene with selective attention to the exquisite details.

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time does after all tell a great story. The morals behind it all, such as those of facing up to responsibility and the over-arching Time Waits for No-One, may seem a little straightforward and obvious from the perspective of someone who’s already halfway through his twenties but Makoto’s experiences are no less compelling or difficult to relate to. Who wouldn’t use a time-leap to avoid mishap and revisit fun activities as she did? The Groundhog Day-esque moments were pure comedy-drama gold but there are poignant moments that address more serious issues concerning friendship and learning how actions taken even with the best interests of others at heart can have consequences far outside what was intended.

Perhaps because it is a follow-on story there are what appear to be loose ends and the conclusion, as neat as it is in conveying the overall messages, feels a little contrived and forced. After reading around I understood the role of Makoto’s aunt in the original story; had I not stumbled on this fact I would never have been able to figure out how she accepted her niece’s outrageous tales of time leaps without any scepticism. The significance of the painting for example is not fully explained either but these are all coincidental when viewed alongside the relationship between Makoto and her two closest friends, Chiaki and Kousuke. Nevertheless, I’d be interested to learn more about these extra plot points - to get a better grasp of the background, such as Makoto’s aunt, I suspect you’d need to read the book or see the live-action film first. This didn’t bother me a great deal actually, because this movie offers so much on its own.

It’s ironic really that when Makoto stops using the time-leaps for personal gain and tries to use them to help her friends, this is when the repurcussions begin to mount up with potentially tragic consequences. The fact she needs to learn is that problems cannot be ignored or pushed to one side and that we need to look ahead sooner or later; the future and the consequences it brings will catch up with us eventually. The time travel is actually fairly easy to follow - it turned out that  for me at least the romance-orientated aspects demanded more concentration and were a little more complicated than they needed to be. In this sense it’s less of a science fiction effort and more of a teen romance with all the blushing confessions and unspoken feelings.

The whole piece is held together remarkably well thanks to a storytelling style that is brimming over with youthful energy but at the same time a tangible sense of melancholy and uncertainty. Makoto is quite a comedic character but her hopes and fears are crystal-clear too; she is a flawed yet likable and fundamentally decent person who is prone to mistakes but is all the more endearing for it. You get to experience her make the mistakes, feel her regret with the realisation that results, and the development of her personality to one that is more responsible and level-headed. It’s familiar territory to fellow fans of the genre, but when told in such an original and refreshing way I never felt tired of it. With all the doom-mongering in recent months regarding the state of the anime industry, films such as this are a timely reminder that truly memorable pieces still come our way every now and then - and it’s a wonderful experience when they do.

[Filed under OAVs, Movies and Full Series]  [Tags: iyashikei, realistic fiction]

Follow comments with this post's RSS 2.0 feed, leave a comment or trackback from your own site