Voices: Riisa Naka, Takuya Ishida, Mitsutaka Itakura
Director: Mamoru Hosoda
Scheduled release: 23 August

The poster of this animated movie looks a little suggestive but, nope, it’s actually a wholesome time-travel saga which explores the vesting of time-travel powers on a klutzy individual, relationships, and the perennial question of what one would do with the ability to go back in time and make changes, presumably for the better.

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time tells a wonderful story centred on three friends: the tomboyish and clumsy Makoto Konono (voiced by Riisa Naka) and two hunks Chiaki Mamiya (Takuya Ishida) and Kousuke Tsuda (Mitsutaka Itakura). Theirs is a friendship formed after school at the baseball field where they spend quality time talking about typical teenage stuff. Things start to change, however, when Makoto by accident gets the power to time travel and, in her own ditzy way, uses her newfound abilities for ‘good’ – directly for herself or, in some Emma-like moments, to play matchmaker and influence the outcome of relationships for her friends.

And that’s just scratching the tip of the iceberg. While its animation style is kept simple and fairly straightforward, the film doesn’t compromise on the complexity of its storyline. Not that it confuses, rather you’ll be amazed by the amount of pathos the story contains with its various subplots, especially when the time-travelling stuff kicks in. It has adult sensibilities in the treatment of the plot, and knows exactly when to hit the right emotional chords.

Although based on a book, the story here serves as a quasi-sequel of sorts which takes place some 20 years later. What I can say is that although the love stories are intertwined, the major romance touched me like the one in Be With You. I loved that movie, and watching this film’s similarities, couldn’t help feeling the same emotions coming across in the same way: never mind that the characters here are animated, you can feel their pain, love, and despair. And that is difficult for this genre – seeing that the characters on screen are not ‘real’ people. So, that this movie is able to evoke emotions and make one react and empathize, definitely makes it a powerful cut above others. Too often animated films give us cold characters and bastardized stories from folklore.

But The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is not always serious in tone or mood. The movie has light-hearted moments sometimes bordering on the slapstick, thanks to the bumbling Makoto character. In one sequence, it is reminiscent of A Chinese Odyssey Part I and Part II, where each time-travel moment gets played ad nauseam for different comedic effects. Undoing blunders, as we see, is not exactly Makoto’s forte and, while she may be using her powers in a carefree way, with great powers do come great responsibilities.

As usual, it is easy to find fault with the time-travel paradoxes which rear their ugly heads in any time-travel movie, but I would suggest you park such misgivings aside and enjoy the story The Girl Who Leapt Through Time tells. While slight attempts at addressing the paradoxes are made with the creation of totally new and different realities in each jump, a major paradoxical flaw still exists. At its lowest denominator, the film reminds you to seize the day like it’s your last, do what’s right, and don’t be shy in telling someone how you feel about them. Highly recommended!

Stefan S