Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo

Beginning horrible, I had to skip in order to get to the point. You know its going to be bad if you have to skip in order to get to where the plot of the movie goes.

Romance? no romance

character development? none

going through time by running really fast? don't make me laugh.

If you are watching this for romance, character development or cool story don't watch this garbage.

Although Einstein’s theory of general relativity allows for backwards time-travel to exist — at least, theoretically speaking — modern day physicists have yet to conceive a device that would enable humans to manipulate the flow of time. That being said, science fiction author’s, as well as ordinary people, will continue to dream about the notion of time travel, and the boundless opportunities, as well as ramifications, it would likely entail. Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo (The Girl Who Leapt Through Time) is a story that takes a simple approach to the concept of time-travel, following the events of a high school girl who, unexpectedly, ... attains the ability to leap backwards through time and change the outcome of certain events. Initially, her intentions are quite inconsequential, like getting a flawless score on her pop quiz, or avoiding getting knocked over by some rowdy boys. Then, predictably, Makoto (the female protagonist) realizes the inadvertent consequences of her actions, leading her to the conclusion that time should not be altered for the whims of one person. The banal outcome of the main character’s journey notwithstanding, there was one character that spoiled the entire movie with his cryptic motivations and inexplicable actions thereafter. I speak, of course, of Chiaki Mamiya.

Chiaki Mamiya is a high school boy who is friends with Makoto and Kousuke. His inclination to take school lightly and spend the majority of his time playing baseball matches up well with Makoto’s interests, preluding us to the eventual declaration that initiates the final cascade of events. This reveal catalyzes Makoto’s character forward into discovering new emotions about herself, while, at the same time, sacrifice’s vital information that was necessary in telling a complete story. To expand upon this idea, I will need to divulge a handful of SPOILERS.

After Chiaki asks Makoto out on a date, Makoto begins to see her friendship quite differently. Going so far as to avoid the question through her time leap and pretend it never happened. But it did happen. At least, from Makoto’s perspective. The numerous awkward encounters that proceed culminate into a situation in which Makoto continues to obviate Chiaki’s efforts, leading to a situation in which Chiaki catches Makoto by surprise, questioning whether she knows about the time leap. This is where the relatively bland, mundane movie begins to unravel. Chiaki reveals that he is from the future, and has traveled back through time to see a…painting. Of course, you would think we would be privy to the significance this painting holds to Chiaki, but, alas, we are not. It is, after all, the primary reason — the only reason — this character decides to alter an entire timeline of events and, most likely, change the trajectory of future events thereafter. Then, matters are exacerbated further when Chiaki announces he must return his home (the future) through the use of his time leap. Implying, invariably, that the time leap can be used to travel forward through time, as well. Why, then, did Makoto, through her numerous time leaps, never travel forwards through time, even by some accident? It was clear from the outset that she never truly understood the mechanics of the time leap, as she would often times overshoot her desired time location. Wouldn’t it be entirely plausible for her to accidentally travel forward through time, creating new dilemma’s that must be dealt with. Furthermore, the enigmatic ending that leaves a realm of possibilities for the viewer to ponder, only imbues further dissatisfaction. Because now we must consider what Chiaki means by these words: “I’ll be waiting for you.” Notice that Chiaki does not kiss Makoto in this moment, but, instead, hugs her. Perhaps indicating that Chiaki is, in fact, her future son? Due to the dearth of character depth, it is challenging for us to pull anything away from this encounter. Sure, we can speculate, as several others have done. But what can we hope to learn when there were no attempts at fleshing out the authentic nature of these characters. Everything is presented as surface level fluff, evading the core principles that govern the character’s actions. Because of this, I can only conclude that Makoto feels attracted to Chiaki because of jealousy — remember, she only starts to like him after she time leaps and sees him with another girl. And Chiaki only likes Makoto because they play baseball together. What else is there to go on?

Overall, the movie did not live up to the praise everyone showers upon it. The animation, while intentionally simple, was uninspiring, leaving little to no impression. A rare miss for Madhouse studios. The music was decent, but is easily forgettable. The cast, like I explained ad nauseam, were surface level characters, lacking essential depth to give the viewer a bridge to create a bond of empathy. Which is a shame, because when the story is devoid of interesting, well thought out plot points; and the character’s motivations/emotions are scarce, to say the least, then it really leaves nothing else for the anime to effectively stand on with firm footing.

4/10 —Unremarkable

I had a lot of hope and expectations for this movie. Maybe that's part of what ruined it. Needless to say, my expectations were crushed. After staring at this movie and its reviews for probably waaaay too long (years and years), I finally gave it a shot.

It starts out...boring. Dull. I thought, maybe this is just the calm before the storm. I mean the MC can literally leap through time and that's pretty cool, right? I bet she'll do a bunch of cool shit! ..... Yeah, no. So for starters, the MC is probably one of my least favorite MCs ever. She's selfish, boring, ... annoying, and kind of stupid. Or really stupid.

She realizes this amazing power she has, and what does she do? Well. Nothing interesting. She sleeps in. Sings karaoke over and over...and over. When something remotely interesting finally happens to her, she goes back over and over until it doesn't. And then she gets jealous and fucks everything up.

Hell, it's almost like the directors realized towards the end just how boring and terrible the movie actually is, because they throw in a plot twist from out of nowhere. And it still falls flat. It makes little sense. Throw in the fact the characters have no depth, the story drags, and the ending sucks...and well. 3/10 stars is being generous.

Maybe you'll have better luck. But that's gonna be a no from me...

A perfectly good example of how bad characters can ruin a potentially good anime.

Makoto Konno is an average high school teen who one day due to a freak accident find out that when she vigorously leap she can go back in time.She then uses this power to her benefit to undo any past mistakes .She will eventually find out that such power come with grave consequences.

Firstly the characters are among the most boring/average that you will come across in the world of anime and just didn't have the charisma needed to carry what is an otherwise interesting plot.The stupidity of the main character and how ... she unwittingly gets herself into trouble with her powers and continuously being force to return to the past is simply ridiculous and took away from the credibility of the anime and gave it an image of pretentiousness.

The animation was a mix bag.The background with the exception of a few scene was really well done with rich colour and detail.But the character design themselves were poor and crudely done;such as pointed triangular chins,dots for noses and sometime walked as if they were a bit tipsy. overall character design looked poorer than many 80;s anime.The music was good without being memorable.

Overall expected more and was pretty disappointed.

Story started out with an okay premise (though I'm usually not one to suspend beliefs from reality). I really tried to like this movie, but by the end I just couldn't take it. All of the characters are idiots, I couldn't find myself liking a single one of them. Even from the start they make seriously whimsical/spontaneous mistakes. The story drags on way too far past where I think it should end--I think there could have been at least four separate ending points that would have satisfied me. They really tried to get something going with this story but failed by breaking their own time ... travel logic and building up stupid characters. Not worth watching.

I had quite a few expectations when I decided to watch this movie. But I was not satisfied with how it turned out to be.
The animation was okay and the soundtrack was decent. But the character design lacks taste. Neither the protagonist nor the other characters leave a lasting impression.

Coming to the story, you would expect something interesting every time there's a time leap in a movie. But almost all the time leaps in this story were pretty uneventful except three times. This movie definitely failed in the aspect of "time travel". Now, the romance aspect isn't very redeeming either. I didn't realize ... that this was tagged as a romance movies until I came to MAL to mark it as completed. The romance in this anime is just the protagonist regretting what she did for a brief while.

Since this show has a rating of 8+ it was quite a let down since I expected something more

No matter what, the background music makes it unbearable to watch. Even if it was the greatest anime of all time I couldn't watch it because of the background music. Besides the music, its characters' drawing is very basic and awful. They don't even have shadows on them. No art whatsoever. The story had a great potential but they ruined it.
It is filled with tons of uninteresting regular daily life of the characters and most of the time nothing happens.
There are lots of slow paced anime that are really interesting. But this one is not one of them, there is not much to like. ... The art style is so basic that it looks like a toddler has drawn it, and the animation and the characters' movements are very unrealistic.
I have no idea why its rating is so high!