The Girl Who Leapt Through Time

       Well, I was on Youtube the other evening after I had finished reading the first two acts of Hamlet, reading half of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and expositing Robert Frost's "Design." I have no idea how I got there, but suddenly I stumbled across the full anime movie The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. I had never heard of it before, but I assumed it was about time travel, which is one of my favorite things, so I decided to give it a go. If it was horrible, I thought, could always just turn it off and go to sleep like I should have been doing.
        But when the movie opened up, I decided that I wouldn't be going to sleep anytime soon. The opening was beautiful and so simple - just a few friends playing baseball. It really contrasted with the idea I had in my head of time travel, which was complicated and fast-paced. A lot of other time-travel movies do tend to start out this way, with the calm before the chaos (Field of Dreams, Back to the Future, etc.), but it may have shocked me due to watching too much Doctor Who recently.
      In the beginning of the film, you very quickly get a sense of the nature of the protagonist, Makoto Konno, as she stumbles along through the first few minutes of the movie. She is unfocused, unsure, and just plain clumsy. She freaks out very easily and has a bit of a short temper, especially with her prim and organized little sister. Her two best friends, Kōsuke Tsuda and Chiaki Mamiya, unfold more as the story goes on, though at first you get the sense that Kōsuke is the more mature, strong, and level-headed of the trio, and Chiaki is the fun-loving, sort-of rebel with a good heart. The secondary characters of the movie - the other students at the school, Makoto's family, even strangers in the park are all believable and enjoyable to watch.

Some of the gorgeous animation

     The animation in this movie is just gorgeous. Mamoru Hosoda, the director of this film, was also involved in the Digimon Movie and Summer Wars, another animation project that came out in 2009, three years after The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. It definitely shows, as the animation in all three is very similar, especially as far as the characters go. Their expressions and movements are very fluid, and the backgrounds are amazing.
     The plot of the movie is another one of its high points, if not its highest point. The movie plays off of a well-known Japanese story called, not surprisingly, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, or, The Time Traveler, whose protagonist is a young girl named Kazuko Yoshiyama. Through mysterious circumstances, Kazuko gains the power of time travel, and is able to make small leaps back in time. In the end, however, she is forced to part with her love, who happens to be a time traveler from the distant future. In the 2006 version, Kazuko is demoted to being the aunt of the protagonist, but her story is given some spotlight over the course of the movie.
     Very much like the original story, the plot follows Makoto as she mysteriously gains the power to travel backwards in time one day while in the science lab, and the mess of serious frivolity that ensues. While the plot could very easily get tangled up in itself, as is possible with all time-travel stories, it manages to keep the charm and simplicity it opened up with. It was a sort of organized, peaceful chaos, if that is even possible.

"Time waits for no one," the mantra of the film

     Throughout the course of the movie, I found myself getting more and more involved emotionally. I kept worrying about what was going to happen to the characters, and I really did feel like berating Makoto for her useless jumps back in time; because as everyone knows, time travel just isn't something you mess with! There were a few somewhat ridiculous and draw-out scenes involving running and sobbing, but they were few and far-between and did add to the emotion of the piece. And in the end, all I could think was that The Girl Who Leapt Through Time may be one of the best movies, anime or not, which I have ever had the pleasure to watch. Not too bad for a random YouTube find! If you would like to enjoy this piece of movie magic, as I recommend that you do when you get the time, you can watch it here: http://youtu.be/FMM-M4t2PNQ