I expected more from the animation; the combination of studio Madhouse and the high praise this movie enjoys filled me with expectation, but in the end it was nothing out of the ordinary. Of course ordinary for Madhouse means a cut above the rest. So, great but not spectacular, animation.
The movie begins as a “slice of high-school life” with some time-leaping shenanigans. For the most part the movie does a good job for the first two thirds; the heroine, Makoto, behaves pretty naturally and develops along with the increasingly complex time-leaping machinations.
The movie centers around Makoto, so I will not fault it too much about the underdeveloped side characters, but I have to point out the the strong friendship (or awkward love triangle) between Makoto and the two boys feels forced. I wouldn't reproach that aspect of their relationship if it didn't became so important in the plot later.
The director attempts escape the genre's prose by introducing some stylistic elements: The actual leaps in order to leap through time, showing numerous times the pompous phrase “time awaits for no one”, and gently insinuating the heroine of the source material as the “aunt witch” (Kazuko Yoshiyama). Those tricks work, but they don't offer anything of substance.
In the final third of the movie the problems appear in massive amounts. First of all, have the inevitable plot holes that associate themselves whenever a work of art depicts some form of non linear time line. People don't seem to mind (yes, I am looking at you, Interstellar fans) but a bunch of plot holes really spoils things for me. I will address the major plot hole in parable form in order to avoid spoilers:
Genie: “Congratulations, you have three wishes”
Makoto: “I want to have an infinite amount of wishes”
Genie: “Cool choice sister, infinite wishes it is”
Another problem is the dubious motivations of the characters towards the end. I don't want to spoil anything, but motives are not well established. If you couple that with the also poor established time travel “rules” you have a mess of a third act. And the mess continues to the very end; Gungrave (7.0/10) managed to salvage itself from it's shitty third act by providing a heartfelt ending, here we have a vanilla ending, devoid of any real emotion.
There are more faults I could whine about; like the lack of sufficient stakes or lessons for the heroine, but I think you get the idea: It begins as a calm and sweet movie, but fails to deliver. You could do worse, but you can do so much better. 5.5/10.
If you liked the good aspects of this movie, like the slice of life and coming of age, I would suggest Sakamichi no Apollon (7.5/10), Cross game (9.0/10), and Barakamon (8.0/10).
