invisibleunicornninja I would almost have recommended this movie. It starts of almost entertaining, but then fails miserably at telling a coherent and entertaining story. Animation - This is probably the best thing about this movie. Though the visualization of time travel, the editing, and some of the direction is all pretty bad, the overall look of this movie is fantastic. The characters are kinda generic and look like they're walking on green screens, but the backgrounds are amazing. Characters - The characters in this movie are so underdeveloped its almost impressive. There aren't any character arcs and everyone is incredibly shallow. I don't know anything about the main character except that she's a bit of a jerk. I don't know anything about the side characters, or the main characters family that isn't extremely surface-level. The finale is supposed to be really really sad, but I can't care because the characters haven't been developed and the story barely makes sense. Story - I can follow what they're going for but it just doesn't work. The characters are too flat and the editing is too bad for me to care. This movie is listed on IMDb as Animation, Adventure, and Comedy. Its animated, but there's no adventure or comedy. I think its supposed to be a romantic drama, but just barely. This movie is so bad. Barely anything is explained, and trying to figure out what happened is a pain. If you really want to watch this, stop watching after the main character notices the numbers on her arm. Otherwise this movie is a massive waste of time.

tenshi_ippikiookami Makoto is your average Japanese high school girl, enjoying her life, going to class, having her friends... till, for unexplained reasons, she gains the power to travel through time (well, to jump, literally, back in time). Happy with the knowledge she will use to her own benefit. But this will have unexpected consequences..."The Girl Who Leapt Through Time" is an entertaining story, with good animation, funny humor and cool characters, that only fails a little bit in the pace and strength of the story, the first coming and going, and the second a little bit all over the place. It is difficult to justify time-travel, but the movie just ignores any kind of science or similar, and goes for Makoto using it to pass her math exam or trying to get a couple of friends together. It makes for funny moments, and the tone helps in making it all enjoyable, every time she travels in time her actions having unexpected and, sometimes funny, consequences. The last part, though, is a little bit weak, with a strange and unexpected twist. Fans of anime will enjoy it, though.

joshuafagan-64214 The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is not the best animated movie ever made, or even the best time travel movie ever made. But it is amazing, enrapturing, and one of the best animated movies of this century.It centers around a teenage girl named Makoto Konno and her two friends, Kousuke Tsuda and Chiaki Mamiya, the latter of which has a crush of her. The three of them play baseball in the park every day after school. Makoto has had a bad day, making all sorts of stupid mistakes and even falling onto a small walnut-shaped item in her chemistry room. But none of that compares to what happens next: while riding her bike on her way to see her aunt, the train passes through the street. She tries to stop in time to avoid it, but she is hit, dying. But then she wakes up where she was five minutes ago. She has gone back in time.I was immediately drawn in.This films is fascinating on so many levels. It never goes quite where you expect it to go. It is not deliberately subversive, but it is clear that is telling its own story, using tropes and clichés instead of falling back on them. The twist they throw in at the halfway mark is clever and smart, and it really adds to the experience, making the movie as a whole even more rewarding than it otherwise would have been.To call the direction inventive would be an understatement. Every artistic decision is the right one. For example, look back at the title of the film. That is not metaphorical. Makoto literally leaps through time. Her powers activate because she flies through the air upon being hit, and whenever she wants to jump through time, she has to jump from high up. When she arrives at her new temporal destination, she is on the ground, rolling. That is so smart and innovative. Time travel as an idea has been around for hundreds of years, and it has been done to death. To bring something new and different to the equation is difficult, if not impossible. But Hosoda managed to pull it off.This is very much a high school supernatural drama. There is everything from teenage awkwardness to teenage indecisiveness to teenage anxiety. But it is done well. I felt like I was seeing the first teenage drama ever made. There is a sense of energy to every second of the film. Things like seeing someone trip and fall were ten times funnier than they otherwise would be thanks to the time and effort put in my the animation team. Animation allows for more energetic expression, something this movie takes full advantage of without making it seem like too much.Makoto is the highlight of the film. The animation on her is fluid and sharp and hyper, and the English dub voice actor does a great job of matching it. She captures every scene of the film. It's enough to almost make me wish there was no time travel element, and the whole story was just her journey through high school.Hasodo's first major project was directing the first two Digimon movies (or, if you're a Westerner, the first two-thirds of the Digimon movie). I was surprised by this, but it makes sense. Those movies were way better than they should have been thanks to two things: one, its ability to make it's human characters interesting to watch and listen to even when they're not doing much; and two, its ability to make a low budget sing. Those two elements are apparent here. Not a lot of extraordinary, jaw-dropping things happen- except in the middle third- but the feel of the movie, that of a hot, past-its-prime summer day, more than makes up for it.As for the 'low-budget' thing: this film has far more money than any of the Digimon movies, but it did not have enough money to go for the big guns on every shot, like a Miyazaki movie could. There is an almost tangible desire of this film to conserve the money for the spectacular shots. And there are a lot spectacular shots. The animation of her going through time is a showstopper. It's like she's traveling through a giant watch.All in all, it feels somewhat like the animated equivalent of an artsy indie movie. There are all the ingredients: young, brilliant director, low budget, adding new twists to old mechanics. It's a unique experience.But that does not mean it does not remind me of things. The first thing that came to mind was the fantastic episodic video game Life is Strange. Some elements of that were clearly lifted from this and given a hipstery, sepia-toned makeover. But as it war on, it started to remind me of a mix of Inception and Run Lola Run. Obviously, the tone is different, but it has a quality of etherealness and visual inventiveness that reminds me of the former and a quality of experimentation and videogameiness that reminds me of the latter.There are a few things that stop this movie from measuring up to the great Miyazaki films. Though the pacing is almost absurdly good, it still doesn't give off as much narrative heft as it wants to. And while there are no characters I find unbearable, I wish the other characters were as interesting to watch as Makoto. But these are minor gripes. This is the sort of film you feel bad for not giving a perfect score. It's powerful, evocative, and innovative. These are the kind of films we need more of. Hosoda may be no Miyazaki, but with luck, he could usurp Miyazaki's crown. If that happens- and it looks like it is- the future of Japanese animation looks bright.

Anssi Vartiainen The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is the film that put director Mamoru Hosoda on the map and made him a household name in the anime circles. It's a time travel story, but with a very different take on the usual clichés. Here the time jumps are short, almost meaningless, and the traveler is not some young adult with a destiny or a world to save. Instead she's just a teenage girl.But it's that seeming normality of the story that makes it so special. Makoto (Riisa Naka) is an average girl, who likes to hang out with her friends and play baseball. She's not even all that bright. She's actually pretty dim, especially when you compare her to the usual heroines of cinema. So when she suddenly gains the gift to travel through time, you can bet that she's not going to be responsible about it. And that's where the film's charm and humour come from.It's also a good animated film on the technical side of things. Studio Madhouse has a distinct animation style that fits the story extremely well, being both fluid, expressive as well as rather urban, if that makes any sense. The voice acting is also flawless, the colours are bright and summery, the music sounds great and all in all it all simply works.If I had to nitpick, I'd say that the ending was not to my liking. Nothing wrong with it, really, but it shifted the tone rather abruptly, though not as much as to be jarring. Though I did like the explanation for the time travel, even if it seemed to have some plot holes. But then, time travels always have. It's pretty much inevitable.All in all this is a good film to check out for all anime fans. It has personality in spades and has an astonishingly good idea for a captivating story. Personally I do prefer Hosoda's Summer Wars to this, but it's a matter of opinion.