The Girl who Leapt through Time

Madman Entertainment

R4 DVD

Genre: Animated Sci-Fi Drama Romance Comedy

Rating: PG

Reviewers: Jeremy & Renata Kong

The Girl who leapt through time was directed by Mamoru Hosoda with Yasutaka Tsutsui writing the novel and Satoko Okudera the screenplay.

As the title suggests, this Japanese anime is about a girl who discovers, through a traumatic event, that she is able to leap through time. At first Makoto uses this gift for frivolous reasons, however, she eventually begins to realise that the changes she makes can have undesired effects. While time leaping is a key part to the story, the real theme is about growing up, love, and accepting what comes your way in your life rather than trying to avoid situations.

17 year old tom-boy Makoto and her 2 best friends, Chiaki and Kousuke, are the main characters. The 3 friends attend the same high school classes, regularly play baseball and hang out together, to the point that both Chiaki and Kousuke show romantic interest in Makoto. Makoto, however, likes her friendship just the way it is and is too fearful to even consider if she has feelings for either boy.

Just a warning note: something that was off-putting and confusing was the frequency with which the 'romantic interests' in Makoto's life called her "stupid" or made derogatory comments about her. This could be a cultural difference, or a translation issue, but it certainly didn't sit comfortably with me. It came across as a lack of respect for her, despite the fact that they 'loved' her.

That said, the movie is entertaining and an especially good anime. The animation is magnificent: the background scenery is so beautifully detailed and the characters are all very slender and willowy - although the effect of this is lessened with the main character Makoto because she is tremendously clumsy and falls over a lot! The character's expressions and movements are quite lifelike - thankfully Mamoru Hosoda keeps a pretty tight rein on his desire to create over the top caricatured emotions on faces (like those he uses in the childrens' animations One Piece and Digimon).

As the movie progresses the plot gets more and more complex, and while the twists can be quite surprising and interesting, it can also be a bit confusing. If you like your movies all sewn up with every question answered then this film is guaranteed to annoy the hell out of you. But if you can suspend disbelief and choose your own way of "answering the unanswered", then you will find it very enjoyable.

If you like anime, then this is a very good one to watch - but I warn you that it is a little bit perplexing.

The Girl who leapt throw time has received many awards including "2007 Best Animation Film" at the Japanese Academy Awards and Mainichi Film Concours Awards, and "2006 Special Award" at the Hochi Film Awards; and others.

This review will appear in Volume 2 No.2 (2009) of the digital and print edition of Synergy Magazine.

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