Time Travel Shoujo: Mari Waka to 8-nin no Kagakusha-tachi

Time Travel Girl functions as both educational adventure and mystery as high schooler Mari finds a pendant and book belonging to her missing father that somehow causes her to travel back in time and encounter several historical inventors famous for their major contributions to scientific and technological advances. Outside of Mari's encounters with famous inventors like Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Edison, the series adds to the education theme by having segments at the end of each episode that demonstrate the means by which each of the inventions function.

In regards to the historical exploration from Time Travel Girl, the series believably depicts its time periods from ... the fashions to the societies to how technologies are utilized. The series aims to show the challenges that each inventor had during their time period with getting their work accepted by others, trying to get their invention to work, or working through perseverance to get the results they are seeking. It shows through hard work and perseverance, these famous inventors were able to create their inventions and this gradually led to further advancements with the ideas and concepts discovered through them. Mari serves as a sort of viewer surrogate to learn about these inventors through her time travels and gradually develops an admiration for the hard work they put into contributing their inventions. The experience of viewing this is informational enough as such where even older audiences may learn some new things on inventors they may have forgotten or never learned of in school.

Outside of the focus on historical figures, the series also takes the time to focus on other characters within Mari's life. While a bit simple in characterization, they are still mostly likeable and help add some levity to get away from the anime's educational focus. It also adds an element of mystery to the anime as Mari does learn her father has connections to the time travel technology that she uses and tries to figure out what his connection to it is.

This said, Time Travel Girl does carry its fair share of issues. Perhaps a big one is that the series does have a fair number of logical holes with how its time travel gimmick is implemented as it disregards any focus on potential ramifications for the future timeline by intervening in historical events and doesn't really get too deep into the particulars of plot elements like how the time machine was created, thus some suspension of disbelief is needed to enjoy the educational value of the series. The show's attempt to add in a villain in the form of businessman Joe Mikage felt out-of-place for the intended focus of the anime. Also, the visuals to the series are nothing impressive as there are a decent number of still shots employed and character designs are on the plain side.

Still for edutainment, Time Travel Girl offers solid engagement in its focus on famous Western inventors and showing that history and science can be engaging and beneficial to learn, something that younger and older audiences could appreciate.

Time Travel Girl at the start was a pleasant surprise among the Summer anime season. By the end, I have some major criticisms, but still, I enjoyed the ride. It had a likeable set of characters and interesting premise. It was strict to formula, but was never overly ambitious. Each episode left me feeling satisfied and a want to continue, for the first nine episodes at the least. Then, I just trekked through the rest.

The formula is usually one episode focused on one of the eight scientists, though sometimes two for a certain few of them. There's a certain ... situation or issue happening that concerns the protagonist Mari in the present. Her issue will "coincidentally" match with the scientist in the past, even sometimes with the scientist giving her words of wisdom, providing the lesson of the day. Lastly, when she returns, she takes the words to heart and moves forward. It's pretty straightforward in it's approach, not surprising since this anime is targeted for kids. However, even as mostly a kids show, the series had elements even a 26 year old like myself could invest into. The level of accuracy in the portrayal of the history presented is astounding, really showing the work on the writers' part. The only disappointing one was the last one where the story shifts to resolving a subplot that's been built up throughout the series.

The characters are also enjoyable. The main duo Mari and Waka are easy to get behind. They have enough personality to where they aren't just a stereotype of a overused cliche. Even the businessman Mikage who serves as the main antagonist has shades of a personality and isn't a caricature one-dimensional bad guy, that is until the climax when he's degraded into the latter.

However, for this storyline to work while taking into account child viewership, some contrivances were taken. When the time traveling occurs, the people of the past that witness Mari or Waka suddenly appearing in a gulf of blue light react only with a seconds worth of shock before accepting it, and take the idea they are from the future at face value at first before accepting it later on. The dress of both Mari and Waka in the past only gets a few comments that it's shameful due to the short skirt, but it doesn't draw as much attention as you would think it would. And again, this is so the show can focus on what's intended.

There's plenty of plot convenience as well. I already mentioned the coincidence on how each issue introduced in the beginning of the episode manages to coincide with the scientist the protagonist would be meeting later on. In addition, Mari, for the first six trips, always accidentally activates the time machine. Shun, the oldest of the group and Waka's brother, is the one to suggest Mari shouldn't tell her mother about the time traveling. Furthermore, no sane wife would still be married to a husband who she has not seen or heard from for 3 YEARS.

The climax is also pretty weak. The antagonist who was morally grey beforehand jumps of the slippery slope to be the "bad guy" of the series. He's evil because he wants to use the time machine for profit, and intended to use the protagonist as a hostage against her dad to make him cooperate, but then midway, he changes his mind to instead prevent her dad from returning, which doesn't make sense since he himself said he needed the dad to work and maintain the time machine. And even that becomes unnecessary as plot happens to make sure one of them can't get back anyway. Guess who? The guy ends up being a poor antagonist, as in the end, he really doesn't do anything, and is just an excuse to add conflict in the story where there were other alternatives. For instance, actually have the future change because of the interventions of Mari, Waka, or Mari's father. Mentioned before, it's pure plot convenience, how nothing they said or did changed the future e.g. appearing right in front of people after time leaping, letting the scientists know they were going to make a difference, the clothes they're wearing, showing off future technology, etc.

And then the confrontation concludes with Mari recalling each scientist, and preaching essentially the theme of the series. Again, it's marketed towards kids; it's understandable, but comes off as a forced way to spread the show's message, one that was already iterated quite a few times already throughout the series. Also, there's the blatant diversion off of Mari's dad's misuse of the time machine by making Mikage act caricaturely evil. Even if some good came out of it and he fixed any time inconsistencies he unintentionally caused, Eiji was still time hopping for his self interest to witness major scientific discoveries and in the end, these events lead to his family having no contact with him for three years. The anime tries to lesson it with time travel "logic" by the one we meet being the one from three years ago and it's this version that returns to the present. Also, it tries to mitigate it by having the wife unleash her fury at him. However, all of it is to simplify and handwave the main issue, not to mention adding the plot hole of why Mari's dad from three years ago doesn't return to his timeline but instead jumps to the present.

For a kid's anime, Time Travel Girl is fairly average. It wants to provide education and inspire children to take an interest in science. In that aspect, it does things well. After each episode, there's a cute segment with chibi versions of Mari, Waka and Mari's dad that explain what was discussed in the episode in more detail, with real life presentations and examples. On the other hand, it also tries to add a deeper story subplot with Mikage in an attempt to add tension, but fails in this regard. In the end, he becomes an inept villain meant to act as scapegoat to divert attention away from Mari's dad, and the confrontation ends with a speech that wasn't natural to reiterate the story's theme.

I watched all 12 episodes of Time Travel Shoujo: Mari Waka to 8-nin no Kagakusha-tachi. Here are my thoughts:

I have very little to say about this anime. This is basically the Japanese equivalent of an educational TV show that a school teacher might throw on when they're feeling lazy or something. It literally aired on Saturday morning and is targeted to a child audience. I mainly just watched it while I was eating breakfast.

The educational focus of the show is on electricity and magnetism. There are various relevant experiments that get incorporated into the show, and there are also some short educational segments at the ... end of each episode. For me, the most amusing aspect of the anime was the incorporation of various western historical figures into the cast, like Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Edison. The use of these characters in an anime was entertaining enough to keep me watching.

Otherwise though, the anime was pretty bad. I mean, it's literally a kid's show. The plot was groan-worthy. The characters were very simplistic. The art style and animation were unremarkable. It seems perfectly fine as a kids' "edutainment" show, but for me personally it was bad.


My rating: 4/10

Worth it though to see Benjamin Franklin as an anime character. Lol.