Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo

Tsutsui Yasutaka is a pretty prolific author. He's known for science fiction works featuring dark humour and satire. His most famous work is probably The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. It was first published in 1967 and has been adapted or given sequels several times for live action dramas, films, a manga and an anime film from our old friends at Madhouse. The anime film is a loose sequel rather than a direct adaptation. The big question, is it any good?

Story:

Our protagonist, Makoto, is having a bad day. She woke up late. She flunked a quiz. She got into an accident while trying ... to cook tempura, another student was tossed into her, sandwiching her between two other students for a while and she heard strange sounds when turning in some questionnaires only to find no one in the next room. Things take their worst turn when her bike's brakes fail and she's tossed in front of an oncoming train. That's when she finds herself back in the past a couple minutes before the accident. Her aunt tells her that it was a time leap, but Makoto doesn't believe such a thing is possible until, after some experimentation, she discovers how it works. She puts on a cricket uniform with celery in the lapel and leaps through time and space in search of adventure.

Actually, she uses her new found power to do better on tests, perform better at baseball, have fun and, most importantly, avoid slightly awkward situations. Yeah, our protagonist is neither smart nor creative. At first, she's having a lot of fun but then she learns that her actions are having consequences, as actions are liable to have. Yeah, about half the film is made up of Makoto using her powers to mess around in relatively innocuous ways and the other half is comprised of her trying to fix things that go wrong. Honestly, it's pretty boring. You keep expecting something interesting to happen with it, but it never does. There is one genuinely dramatic moment, but it doesn't even last ten minutes. The main romance is kind of stupid and doesn't make a whole lot of sense given the circumstances presented.

Characters:

Our cast is bland. Really, really bland. None of them are particularly interesting, but none of them are obnoxious or terrible characters either. There's just nothing that makes them distinguishable from other characters we've seen thousands of times, if not more. Makoto is an idiot who gains a really amazing ability but can't be bothered to think of anything to do with it aside from playing around. Her friends are the generic nice, reliable guy and the generic off-putting guy with a good heart. Then we have all the secondary characters like the supportive friend, the shy girl and so on.

Art:

The art is really good with nice detailed backgrounds and character designs that, though simple, look good. The time traveling effect is appropriately strange and is also well animated.

Sound:

The voice acting is competent. None of the actors give really exceptional performances, but none of them do badly either. They all do decently. The music is also okay. It doesn't really stand out in the slightest either positively or negatively.

Ho-yay:

There is no ho-yay in this. 1/10.

Final Thoughts:

The Girl who Leapt through time is a hard film to discuss. Not because it's complicated but because it's tedious and generic. It's a story about time travel where the time travel is never used in either an interesting or a creative way. It's like a mystery story where the detective solves minor mysteries that don't really have any impact. Sure, you can do it but you're going to have to have really strong characters to pull it off. Not the rather generic cast you get in this. That being said, there's nothing really wrong with the film. In the end my rating is going to be a 5/10. It's average. If the concept of a girl traveling through time to make her everyday life better appeals to you, check it out. If you want something more compelling out of your time travel stories, stick to Steins;Gate, Back to the Future, The Time Machine, or any number of other stories. Tomorrow, film festival week ends with a look at a certain film involving cyborgs.

The premise is handled very well initially - the time travel ability is shown in a humorous manner as the character learns to develop it and use it more and more effectively. Eventually this leads to a dramatic moment that was very heartwrenching and gripping where she finally learn what negative effects it may have. Up until here, the movie was a definite ten. The problem is the sudden appearance of a deus-ex-machina plot device which introduces a sudden sci-fi element which feels completely jarring. Granted, time travel itself is a sci-fi element, but it was handled in a slice-of-life manner. ... In the second half the film suddenly becomes something else entirely, and quite frankly I feel very disappointed.

I'm probably the only one here who didnt really like this movie but im sorry I just didn't get it. I am a harsh critic so bear with me. The whole time traveling thing was neat but...well lets break it down:

Story:

Basic "Don't screw around with stuff you don't understand or bad stuff happens" storyline. Been there done that but havnt bought the t-shirt just yet. One of my rules is a good story will leave you with your mouth hanging open and saying "No Way". Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo only did that twice during the whole movie (want to say what they are but it ... says I cant do spoilers). The story had about two twists two it and that was pretty much it. It was also fairly inconsistent, going from being interesting to tedious fairly frequently...and it spent more time on tedious than interesting. It was slow and in the end just didnt make a whole lot of sense so 6 out of 10.

Art:

Well I cant really say much for the art style but it, like the story, kind of seemed to vary from average to just above average. What I mean is some shots show wonderful detail over a great depth of field while others look like the video of astronauts playing golf on the moon...well ok the quality never got that bad but still the character artists seemed to be having a pretty bad day. The main character to me kinda sorta looked like a more girlie version of Shinji from Evangelion, which I didn't believe (or want to believe) was possible, thank God she (yes I am well aware that part of this was that Mokoto has more x chromosomes than Shinji but still...) wasn't as annoying as he was. ("Bad dad I dont want to pilot the giant robot!" "Son this is an anime, NOBODY turns down an offer to pilot a giant robot! Now get in and shut up!")

Animation was what really brought down the Art score here. The animation had a bad habit of being choppy, especially for slow character movements like walking. Fast movements were an improvement but even then there were a few "barrel roles" that didn't look right. One particular gripe was the un-realistic way character's clothes or hair moved while they were running or riding a bicycle for example. On exception was the flying fat guy. (Only time I laughed the entire movie)

Sound:

In my opinion the sound saved this movie, the sound effects were fairly well done and the music was impressive. The character voices were alright, I dont have any complaints to make there. Only wish they would have had more music.

There was however one 90 second loop of the main character breathing loudly as she was running which just sounded really odd since it lasted so long.

Character:

As a writer one of my rules is that at the core of every good story are good characters, in this regard Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo almost failed. None of the characters were developed well and you weren't really able to distinguish between most of them until the very end of the movie. The main character herself was often annoying and had a bad habit of being an "emotional basket case" more than I would have liked. The most important failure of the characters however was they just didn't get me to care about them. If a character cannot do that then he or she is not a good character, thats my opinion anyway. I would have given this category a much lower rating but near the end of the movie one character revealed something that even I didnt see coming so it gets a 4 instead of a 2. (I hate the no spoiler rule).

Enjoyment:

Well it is hard to enjoy an anime where you really dont care about the characters and when you can pretty much predict what the conflict will be. Most of it was very confusing and it almost seemed like the movie was trying to go back and explain what it forgot to explain earlier. There were also several events that had no real significance what so ever. When the thought of not finishing an anime crosses my mind, it means I am not enjoying it.

Overall:

Like I said people are going to hate me for this but I am a brutal critic, of my own work as well as others mind you. So lets recap: Meh Story, Average art with mediocre animations, exceptional sound quality, one-dimensional characters, and a confusing and somewhat pointless plot. Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo gets a 6...out of 10.

The Girl That Leapt Through Time is a good choice for you if you're looking for a plain movie about the circumstances of time travel and the fact that time doesn't wait for nobody. It becomes a bad choice if you expect it to do anything noteworthy with its concept, because it tries to focus on showcasing something any series to feature time travel does as its core theme.

As a movie, there's nothing particularly wrong done in it. I even think that it succeeded in what it did try to portray for its core theme, which is that time travel can be dangerous and leave ... serious repercussions due to how every action changes how things will go and so on. And it also tries to explain that time waits for no one and to deliver this lesson through its story, that there's no better moment than now to act. But these are themes that in any story medium that has featured time travel elements, have been explored, while doing a lot more things than just this. To the point my viewing experience of this movie was this: Oh yeah, using your time travel powers irresponsibly will cause bad repercussions, thanks 9154th story that told me that. You opened my eyes. TIME WAITS FOR NO ONE? Does that mean that every single day that passed in my life, each day I have lived, on each of them... I got one day older?

I can't really fault the movie for what it did. It didn't really have any faults in almost every technical aspect and I think it did get its point across, regardless of whether or not every other show I watched also did.

What I fault it for is its lack of ambition.

Its characters are the most barebone essentials in order for them to work. The group dynamic of its main characters are a clutzy girl, a serious guy and another guy that is foolhardy, the most generic japanese childhood friend trio ever. The personality of each character is generic and easy to sum in a couple of tropes. Whoever doesn't have a trope to be assigned to them, doesn't have an inkling of a personality. There's nothing interesting about any of them.

The way the power is introduced is as accidental to the person and with a lot of clock and time indications along the way in case you have not read the title of the movie you're watching. It's called The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. You're welcome. And when she gets to the point of talking to someone about her powers, that person describes what it is like they completely understand it, because I assume they also had that power. And because it's a really easy way to just explain it. By the way, did I ever tell you that this movie is called The Girl That Leapt Through Time. Yo Clocks.

It doesn't really go into any other theme than the irresposible use of time travel might fuck up your life and that of your friends. Like none at all. I mean I guess it tries to build a romance but I can't get interested in that when the characters are just bland, but the romantic tale plays out into the time waits for no one bit, so I can't say it's something out of turn here. Even then, it plays into the time waits for no one bit.

These are pretty much the ways in which the movie just doesn't seem to be trying anything other than being adequate.

As far as its romance goes, it's basically trying to hit you with the "I regret I never hooked up with one of the friends I got along and now I'm 40 and single." It doesn't really strike me, I typically find indecisiveness and lack of assertiveness stupid, but I guess there's some people to which this can appeal to, so all I'll say about it is the type of romance it features is that of lost opportunity.

Other than that, there's not a lot to say about the animation, it does what I expect it to do in a film, featuring a lot of detail and a vivid world, despite the fact that it looks bland, through the fact that there's usually some things happening in the background or actively. Sound wise, I guess the best compliment I can muster for it is that for the most part it didn't feel intrusive. Other than that, nothing noteworthy to mention, negative or positive.

The best person I can recommend this for is someone that is looking for the type of romance I've had mentioned and doesn't really know anything about time travel stories. But I can't really recommend this movie to literally anyone else, because I couldn't in good faith recommend something that feels like is just a raw ingredient, when there's so many plates with so much welldone cooking, that feature this ingredient and many others. If you're specifically looking for just the things this movie does, then you can go for it. The name of this movie is The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. Yo Clocks.

This overrated movie cements in my eyes Mamoru Hosoda's status as an overrated director, although I really liked Ookami kodomo no ame to yuki (8.0).

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).

The story begins very well, although the idea of ​​the main character simply jumping at a long distance to make her go back in time is very strange and somewhat "because yes". Ignoring this, we are introduced to a cast of characters that are quite charismatic, one of the good points of the film. As things go on, Kakeru Shoujo passes on a message of how time travel can influence your life and other people, both in good and bad ways. So the main character asks advice from another character who has had experience with it (and this fact opens space for a theory that ... I will not expose here), but in the end it makes no difference because the protagonist continues to use the time travel to fix their problems. This was bothering me but not so much to the point that I simply turned my head off for the already confusing movie. Even in a certain part of the film, a revelation about a certain character makes me give up trying to understand the plot. From then on, with my head turned off, the movie even pleased me, but not enough to make me forget all his troubles. In technical matters mainly. A film produced by Madhouse, released the same year of Death Note, with an animation below even works of art in the item, like Denpa Onna and Skull Man. In the matter of soundtrack, it simply does not exist and if there is I do not remember. The characters are the strongest points in the plot, as I already mentioned, from beginning to end. So this is Toki Wo Kakeru Shoujo. Just another travel movie in time, forgettable but not hated.

It's almost as if everyone who has reviewed this hasn't seen the end. In my opinion, it was an enjoyable watch with decent visuals and soundtrack and average characters. Average as in they weren't awful, but they weren't strong --- fortunately, they were likeable. There was a couple interesting twists and the movie held my attention, but the closer it came to the end and when the 'truth' to the story was revealed the flawed nature of the writing became very clear. The ending deceives the viewer into thinking it makes sense, but it's actually a gross lie. The very nature of time travel in ... this story, and the backstory for it doesn't make sense and that's not because time travel is a tricky thing to write, it's because whoever wrote this obviously didn't make an effort to at least try to make it make sense. The ending ruins this film, that's simply it. A poor structure led to this story outright collapsing.

Mixed feelings from the start about this movie, but once I watched I could conform that it is good, but average in my opinion. Hosoda, Mamoru made a few amazing movies, but this one just didn't do it for me, but as you know I am not big on time traveling, so that might be the reason why.
Keeping it short, the anime is nice to watch, it might give someone a refreshing view on high school life, but as far as time travel goes it's the same as every other thing.
The story lacks uniqueness and that special feeling that amazing animes give off ... while you watch them. But don't get me wrong the anime is not bad, it's just average for me, someone else will surely disagree and even love this anime.

So the good things about this:
Great Characters.
A good story telling so you won't get lost due to so much time traveling.
Nice music.

The bad:
Average story, and an average feel to it.

It's cute. I liked it.

The art style is gorgeous, especially the character designs. It has to be, as the world is very grounded and therefore is not the primary focus of the presentation. The time travel element is used merely as a device to explore much greater themes. It does its job successfully.

Makoto is the best character in the story. Others do not have the same depth as her. They are still likable but a bit 2 dimensional for my taste. There are some annoying decisions that Makoto makes, but I'd say that they are in character.

Some of the decisions in the presentation ... irked me as well. The whole white-space-clock area used to represent reversing of time could've been better. Both the loud slapstick and the subtle visual comedy worked for me. It's anime humor, and I can see some people disliking it.

Overall, it was an okay experience. It could've been better, maybe with a longer runtime.

Astonishing as it seems. I find Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo a complete utterly trash movie that failed to make the expressions of characters seem more "thrilling". Seriously, after finishing the show. I felt so disappointed that the show wasn't as good as the rating or the reviews.

So the story's pretty basic. A girl suddenly got power to leap time. She kept leaping, leaping and leaping because she can. Until she found out about the consequences so she fixed it by leaping again. That's about it. I don't really like the story because I've seen so many time leaping movies including ones that aren't anime. ... And this movie isn't even comparable to them. ( e.g. back to the future )

The art looks trash, but I'll let it go for this one since the anime is quite old.

I don't like the sound at all. Sorry.

Bad character development. Too cliche.

I didn't enjoy this anime. But it didn't bore me either. It was a meh. I didn't really care and I wasn't even going to review the show. But since the rating is quite high, I decided to reluctantly write a review for it.

Overall. The show is normal. Watch it if you want.

For story, there's a buildup that in the end doesn't deliver and I feel some of the stuff that happens in the middle were just fillers to make this more than 40 minutes long, as they contribute to almost nothing in the end.
That means there's a lot of introspective-ish scenes of landscapes and slow-motion with music in the background, and that can be good if you're into it.

For art, the backgrounds are amazing, if only some of the craftiness of the backgrounds would bleed into the animated characters: they are so simple that it made me uncomfortable, wishing to catch some more expression and detail ... from their faces, but nothing. It's not something that ruins the experience, but it got in the way sometimes.

For sound, it's very good actually, good piano and classical-ish music in the background of some scenes.

The characters aren't that interesting, but they're realistic.

Overall, it's an interesting movie, that you get curious as to what the end will be, with some good scenes with nice backgrounds and music, but the story doesn't deliver in my opinion.

"MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILER"

Lets be real, the high rating is just because there's a girls crying scene and a sad music background. Almost all anime movie is like that, when both of these come together, boom high rating. This just proved how easy human can be deceived by mere implications.

As for a person like me who prioritize a good story above everything else, the story has a lot of flaws. Not gonna spoil anything much but its a basic knowledge that everyone should know, if manipulating timeline is possible, even a single take of breath difference could cause an entire new different timeline from what it ... suppose to be. But in this movie, it seems science doesnt work well, maybe just to favor the story and to make it easier for viewers to understand the story. Steins Gate is the only anime so far that make a good explanation about how time work.

Then, I hate how the first thing the MC thought after her first accident was she already know she travelled back time. Let's be real, if this happen in reality, to us, then the first thing we should probably think of suppose to be like "did I just see a bad thing of what happen if I being careless" or something. In other word, its doesn't make sense especially for a school girl to suddenly thought of an idea of time-travelled by seeing that.

Lastly, the ending. I know its a trend leaving a cliffhanger ending where it was intended so that we could figure it out the possible future ourselves. But this movie arent suppose to do so because unlike any other movie, this movie lack details and explanation enough for us to accept the ending. At least, the movie should include a short 5 secs post credit scenes explaining what era did the man meant or just who is MC's aunt. With scientifically flawed the story logic + insufficient details, it just made the story ending so worthless for us to solve or keep it as sweet memory. Bet after 2-3 days finished watching, this movie will be just a movie title in my head, not as a sweet memory that worth recalling.

That's it. Im not saying the story is bad but above 8 rating just proved how less people care about a good, defined story.

I'm not sure where all the awards and accolades this film received are coming from. To be fair, at this point it came out nearly 15 years ago, and perhaps the standards and expectations were different at the time, but from everything I can tell this film, while somewhere in the vicinity of "good", is overrated.

Visually I feel there's a huge disparity between the background art and the characters themselves. The backgrounds are gorgeous and very worthy of praise and look like something that could come out today even though, as mentioned, the movie is 15 years old. The characters, however, cannot compare. They look ... very average even for 2006 and most definitely wouldn't pass as "movie quality" today. The don't have anywhere near the same level of detail or quality as their environments.

The audio really didn't stand out for me one way or another. I watched the movie about 12 hours ago at the time of this review and I already forget all the music other than the ending credits. The voice acting was largely the same. No one made my ears bleed or had a voice that blatantly didn't match the character, but it felt very average and run of the mill. The ultra-average writing did not enhance the voice performances in any way.

The plot itself is a bit of a mixed bag. Sometimes the pacing would be better for sure. I was never about to fall asleep from boredom, but I never felt overly engaged either. As a whole, this movie is very surface-level. They play it very safe, don't take a lot of risks and don't ever add particularly meaningful consequences to the actions being taken. By and large, all the plot points and conflicts within the film are just typical high school nonsense- people going out or not going out, a kid getting bullied or not getting bullied, etc.

To its credit, the one big twist in the film did indeed catch me off guard, and I give it praise for doing that in a world where anime is so often predictable and everything has been done before, but even after the twist is revealed they simply didn't go further with it, which is a problem that plagues the entire movie. I'd also say some of the time travel mechanics, some of the motivations for time traveling in the first place, etc are very questionable or exploitable. The film, wisely, doesn't try to get overly mechanical or scientific with this aspect of its presentation because it would most certainly not hold up under scrutiny.

Overall, this film was likely worth my hour and a half, and it's certainly appropriate for families/all ages, which maybe for many is a good thing but for me is actually probably a bad thing- I don't really care if it's kid friendly or not, I'm looking for something with a bit more depth. I didn't love it nor hate it, but I don't feel like it has much rewatch value whatsoever. It's not one of those anime where watching it a second time will give you an entirely new perspective or you'll pick up on subtle things you may have missed the first time. That kind of depth simply doesn't exist here.

So.......... It's fine I guess. It's good. And it's also overrated.

OBJECTIVE RATING- 7.25
PERSONAL ENJOYMENT RATING- 7

excellent animation, you rarely see hand drawn animations of this quality nowadays, the animation and sound are sound are top tier. my problems stem from the main trio, chiaki's motivations seem strange and weak given how easily he gives up on them. seeing makoto's character is so bad because it was almost something good, i like where she ended up, wanting to become an art restorer like her aunt but hate how the movie deals with her, chiaki, yuri, kaho and kousouke, she abuses her powers and that is a very normal thing for a teen who would have gotten it to do, but my ... main problem is that we rarely see any repercussions for that and no her rolling down a hill only for chiaki to fix her boo boo is not valid imho. still would recommend watching if you want a casual watch with a spunky klutz tomboy time travelling with a fairly unique mechanic, although for time travel fans who want the time travel mechanics explained [spoiler incoming] all you get it a weird shell that charges you up somehow and a tattoo that shows a number based on god knows what basis. urghhh, soo frustrating this movie could almost have been a 8 or a nine, but nay it stays in mediocrity for me with excellent animation and a pretty good soundtrack.

Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo (or, "The Girl Who Leapt Through Time" for the English-speakers) is one of Mamoru Hosoda's most recognized works, and not for nothing, either. Despite the issues the film has (and I'm going to be as blunt about it as I need to), the strengths it possesses are almost enough to disregard all of that. Almost.

The first issue that I can bring to attention is the animation. In a lot of shots characters and surfaces lack detail. This wouldn't be an issue if it was a matter of backgrounds (not everyone is Mappa, and thank God for it), but it's especially ... jarring when a single scene has the main character, Makoto, turning slowly in reaction to something and her shirt goes from a blank surface to a minimally-detailed texture in slow motion. I This applies to expressions that are as close to the camera as possible, too. You don't notice it as much when things are not in the focal of the shot and in motion [i]unless[/i] you're looking for it, but it is there.

The second issue is the plot itself. Makoto Konno is just your average Japanese high-schooler who one day discovers she has the ability to "leap" through time. Hijinks ensue until eventually everything comes to a head in a massive plot reveal that... amounts to very little. The ending is bittersweet, at best. The climax has a heart-wrenching event unfold and one of Makoto's friends ends up affected by her actions as a result. Well, that would be to say, everyone she interacts with during her leaps is affected, but the consequences for her friend are a lot more severe. Except when they're not, which they aren't, by the end.

I'm not particularly fond of time travel stories simply because they're a lazy plot device to overcome something that normally wouldn't be undone. Even Avengers Endgame fell short of giving us a satisfying time travel story because it required regressing Thanos to a character who was less introspective and far more self-involved, which in turn undermined his reasoning for all that he had done thus far. It also had a convenient excuse in stating that events being altered don't actually impact their timeline, but will affect others. So, why did Steve Rogers need to go back in time to restore everything back to its rightful place, then? Oh, right. Because plot said so.

My third issue with the story is that ultimately, there is only a small confrontation Makoto has in the end which amounts to her friend shrugging and saying "I goofed, sorry about that," and then off-screening themselves until Deus Ex Machina rewards her with a chance to fix that one event. Which she does. Which leads to a bittersweet ending. With all of our questions unanswered.

The film is ultimately "fine" as-is even with its animation problems and plot issues being the biggest offenses. I can see a bit of Re:Zero and Summertime Rendering in here, though I can't tell if either was influenced or it's a coincidence. I would say if you're already a fan of Mamoru Hosoda and missed this one somehow, check it out. Otherwise, I'm not sure I would recommend it when the aforementioned series already exist (and Summertime Rendering did the "limited leaps" concept a ton better besides).

"The Girl Who Leapt Through Time" is an average science fiction coming-of-age story by Mr. Mamoru Hosada which could have been better if it had been a bit less complicated and the character of Chiaki had received more development. The plot is down to Earth, engaging and repetitive after a period of time. It's imaginative and uses the time-travelling idea in a different way (which is unexplained).
The animation is neat with watercolor-like backgrounds. The background score is good. The intimate relationship between the three main characters is explored very nicely but only Makoto receives proper character development.
One very strong point about this movie is how ... it shows that there are still people who always consider about other people feelings and try to help them always, irrespective of how the solution will hurt them. This movie also gives attention to the theme of self-confidence which is a lacking personality-trait in many people.