The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (2006)
I managed to catch the screening of The Girl Who Leapt Through Time(Toki o Kakeru Shōjo) last Saturday as part of Golden Screen Cinema’s Japanese Film Festival. TokiKake centers around a cheerful and energetic 17 year old Makoto Konno who by chance discovered the ability to jump back in time for days. With her new found gift, she immediately begins to change the events around her by avoiding mishaps, improving her test grades and also altering some personal relationships with her best friends Chiaki and Kousuke. However she soon realizes that the events that she changes affects the people around her and some takes a turn for the worse.
Makoto, Chiaki and Kousuke makes a very believable and lovable trio of friends. Just when Makoto thinks that the friendship between the three of them will never change, Chiaki decides to confess his feelings for her, and thats when the real mayhem starts. Makoto carelessly leaps back in time over and over again hoping to shape things her way but each ending up in a bigger mess than they originally were.
Makoto literally needs to make huge leaps in order to make her time leaps and this often results in hilarious crashes into the scene and sometimes plowing into people unexpectedly. As she makes more of these leaps, she soon realised that for every mishap that she avoids, someone else will have to take her place in it, and this culminates to the final scene where she has to sacrifice her final jumps to save her best friend’s life.
The animation in this movie is above average, although the details are not as intricate as those produced by Makoto Shinkai’s production, Madhouse still did a great job animating the movie with its busy streets and school halls. The voice acting by the cast is great and Makoto is easily one of the funniest character around. Overall the movie was great fun to watch, the ending could have been better but rest of the show was entertaining enough to be forgiven.
Director
Mamoru Hosoda
Producer
Takashi Watanabe (Kadokawa Shoten)
Yūichirō Saitō (Madhouse)
Writer
Yasutaka Tsutsui (original novel)
Satoko Okudera (screenplay)
Running Time : 98 minutes
Rating: 
Golden Screen Cinemas - Japanese Film Festival 2008
Wikipedia - The Girl Who Leapt Through Time
Popularity: 6% [?]
4 Responses to “The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (2006)”
By Tim on Jul 22, 2008 | Reply
I watched this some time back as well and loved it. I liked how it introduced time travel, something that is usually “heavy” and full of special effects, in such a simple way, focusing on the relationships instead.
By hyperX on Jul 22, 2008 | Reply
I’ve watched this movie about a year ago. It’s nice and funny. Mine was Hong Kong Cantonese version and the main character voice was my favourite singer Janice. I like the movie and I give a big 4 out of 5 for it.
By simon on Jul 22, 2008 | Reply
yeah i watched it last year when it was first released. excellent storyline. I’m looking for a copy of the prequel, preferably in English…
By kianyang on Aug 10, 2008 | Reply
Tim, Hyperx,
I agree this movie is really more about the relationships between the characters. The ending is a little sad but otherwise I would have given it a 8.5 stars.
Simon,
I didnt know there’s a prequel to this anime. I might wanna do a little diggin on this.