Review #453: 'The Girl Who Leapt Through Time' (2006)
Based on Yasutaka Tsutsui's 1967 novel, - which has been adapted several times over the years, including 1983's The Little Girl Who Conquered Time - The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is a charming mix of drama and romantic comedy, with a slight infusion of science fiction ideas. Makoto (Riisa Naka) is a high school girl who, through serendipity, gains the ability to leap back in time (but she only manages moments or hours back). She has platonic relationships with two high school boys, Chiaki (Takuya Ishida) and Kousuke (Mitsutaka Itakura), and they spend their time playing baseball.
With her new-found abilities, she does nothing spectacularly profound, and the films intentions aren't to comment on paradoxes or to shift the space-time continuum as is usually the case with time travel narratives. Makoto uses her abilities to repeat events that pleasure her, to ace a school test, and also to avoid certain embarrassing situations with her friends. But as her relationships with, particularly, Chiaki and Kousuke, her leaps become more personally profound, as she attempts to possibly save the people she cares for (within the context of small human moments of danger, and not the usual global/country catastrophes.
I love the fact that in Japan, they do not distinguish between live-action cinema and animated (anime if you like) films, they are all simply movies. Now I'm going to contradict this with a Western perspective: This beautifully animated film is a delight to view, with its traditional two-dimensions, it is evidence to the west that 3D, computer generated animation is not the overbearing format, and 2D is still a genuinely viable medium. The film is filled with charming human moments, both touching and thoughtful. Teenage comedies rarely have this level of tenderness of character, that also explores concepts of fate, the passage of time and the intricacies of small human moments, and the delicate nature of human relationships.
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