Girl Who Leapt Through Time, The
Original title: 時をかける少女
Release date: July 15, 2006
Director: Mamoru Hosoda
Novel by: Yasutaka Tsutsui
Screenplay by: Satoko Okudera
Cast: Riisa Naka, Takuya Ishida, Mitsutaka Itakura
I was invited to hear professor Yasuki Hamano do a lecture about Japanese popular culture. Among all the talk about Miyazaki and how Japanese anime has expanded all over the world, he showed a clip of this movie — The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. Something about it captured me instantly, I can’t really remember what it was. I do remember wanting to see it as soon as possible.
Silly me forgot to write the name down, so it wasn’t until very much later that I saw the movie in my friend’s movie collection. I now own my own copy of it.
The Girl Who Leapt Through Time tells the story of Makoto Konno, your typical, tomboy-ish high school student. She has two male best friends, Chiaki Mamiya and Kousuke Tsuda. Together they live their lives as best as they can, they attend school and afterwards play some catch ball. One day Makoto falls in a classroom and she suddenly has the ability to travel through time as she wishes.
I don’t really know why I love this movie. The story is quite solemn yet filled with action, there are some scenes that just are shots of landscape. Makoto is so adorably cute as she uses her powers to fix mundane things, or how she uses them to her own benefit. Well, had I been in her shoes, I would have probably done the same.
When you can travel through time, what do you do? Do you experience life in a new way? Or do you take life for granted? Makoto learns a valuable lesson at the end of her journey, yet we don’t get to really know what that lesson is. But I don’t think it really matters when the overall feeling of the movie leaves you in a very satisfied and content state.
Rating: 
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I have a conflict with this – in the case of Summer Wars, it’s Animation > Story. Acerk is telling me that this one if Story > Animation.
@amy, Acerk is very much correct, here the story is the main point, not the animation.
You will see with the next review I’m about to do, about Haruhi Suzumiya! hehehe
@julili, I watched it. I laughed out loud at some of the things she does when going back time. LOL There’s a lot of food for though after the movie’s done, surprisingly seeing as this is a teenage girl love kind of story…
@amy, Ikr? But isn’t the story lovely in the way it really doesn’t point everything out?
I feel that it was more the friendship than the “love” that took first place in the story.
I love this movie so much!