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

Literally a Saturday morning show ( airing at 7 AM JST ) it tells the story of Mari, a middle schooler, and her friend Waka as they travel to different times in our history and meet some of the most influential inventors in human history while trying to find Mari's dad.

The show is aimed at children so don't expect any mature themes from it, but it's still well made and fun enough that it can be enjoyed by everyone. This also means the show avoid the usual anime cliché tropes and instead gives us a very likable cast of characters who are very fun to watch and easy to like.

As I mentioned above the show revolves around Mari a middle schooler who's dad has been missing for three years. Before leaving, her dad gave her a necklace that, as it turns out, is a part of a time traveling machine. By pure accident Mari ends up traveling back in time to 1600 and meeting William Gilbert, who amongst other things tells her that he has met her father. The show then revolves around Mari traveling back and forth in time to unravel the mysteries of the time machine and find her time traveling dad.

The show strongest point is the characters, all of them very likable, and the appearance of several inventors and their stories and interactions with the cast, as the show likes to show not only the inventions but give you some personal information about them, like how Bell invented the telephone because of his work with the deaf ( as his wife was deaf ) which helps give their inventions context and makes it feel less like just a history book and more like a proper story.

Animation wise the show is quite well done and while it's not going to blow your mind, it's always consistent and you won't see any QUALITY. What's noteworthy in the visual aspect is the excellent reaction faces the characters use when they are surprised, sad, etc. Maybe it's because it's aimed at children but this aspect is very well done and their faces are all very expressive and funny to watch.

The music in pretty average, it doesn't really stand out but it's never intrusive. The VA work is quite good with lots of familiar names. Overall the audio aspect of the show is slightly above average.

The show also has small clips at the end of each episode where they show a real life video of one of the inventions featured during the episode and give small explanations on how they work.

Overall the show is quite easy to enjoy if you want something that's pretty relaxing and funny, especially if you like to see time travel stories that feature historical figures related to electricity and magnetism.

Helpful

read more

"Edutainment" series, ones that both exist to teach and to entertain, are something not everyone enjoys. While I think Time Travel Shoujo would not be completely immune of this from some people, I do think it's possibly the strongest Edutainment series I've seen to date, and could still be something those that generally don't care for them would enjoy.

~STORY~ (7/10)
Believe it or not, this is easily the strongest part of this series, as it actually manages to tell a quite adept story all things considered. While it's not immune of plot holes and logical flaws, as nearly every time travel story is, the other aspects manage to prevent it from being a frustrating mess. For what I can only assume is an anime directed at younger audiences give it's educational touch, it throws some relatively darker elements at the viewer in some unexpected ways. While the specific single episode stories with each scientist Mari visits can be hit or miss, the over-arching plot manages to remain interesting and keep the viewer hooked from a fairly early point in the anime.

~CHARACTERS~ (6/10)
With a few exceptions, the whole cast is quite likable. For younger audiences they seem like they'd be quite easy to relate to and provide as decent "role models", which is good for an Edutainment anime, while for older audiences they play off the events and lessons well to bring you back to younger days. When it comes to how they work with the more serious, over-arching plot, they do tend to shine a little less though, as most fall into fairly standard roles. And while the primary antagonist brings about some pretty adult themes for an anime directed at this kind of audience, he still doesn't manage to be anything all that special compared to most villains in anime. Still, the characters are not by any means bad, they simple just don't stand out as much as they could've.

~ART~ (4/10)
The art and animation of this series can get pretty lazy at times. When characters are just standing around and talking it's usually not that noticeable, but in any high action moments it becomes much more obvious as the inconsistencies begin to shine through. Heck even the opening sequence, which usually in anime has some of the best animation, is quite questionable. It doesn't manage to distract from the enjoyment of the show too much, but once in a while you take notice, and there's really never any moments of impressive animation to make up for it.

~SOUND~ (5/10)
While I don't have much negative to say here, I also don't have much to say positively either. The voice acting and music do their job and that's about it, nothing more or less. The only thing that really stood out to me is one insert song that sometimes plays before a character travels through time. It's actually quite nice, but it loses it's charm after you've heard it a few times.

~ENJOYMENT~ (6/10)
Despite some iffy aspects to the production side of things, this was still a really nice watch. I didn't have terribly high hopes for it going in as Edutainment stuff generally doesn't have a lot to offer, but the surprisingly well written story it offered outside of those educational elements definitely deserves a bit of praise. Hopefully we see more anime like this in the future, as it might be enough to open the doors of anime as a medium to more audiences.

Helpful

read more

History of physics - the anime. An edutainment show through and through on magnetism and electricity.

Story - 7

Girl's father went missing. Girl discovers father's time travel machine and goes back in time to find her father with the help of her neighbours. Evil organisation is hunting down her father as well. Not the most original plot, but it's a mere device to explore the history of science in every episode, with a real life explanation of how the theory works at the end of the episode after the credits.

The writer made it as close to history as possible, and kept the small details (Things you never knew you never knew) like Michael Faraday forgetting to credit Davy and Wollaston for his thesis, Ben Franklin arguing with the local pastor over installing lightning rods on churches, and Thomas Edison marketing the first commercial toaster as CEO of GE. I'm giving the writer props just for the research alone.

That said. This isn't just science. This is history AND science. There are some parts which only adults will understand and make little sense for modern kids like Mari, like the existence of uneducated black slaves in 1800s America, and the suppression of heretical scientific discoveries by the Pope before the Enlightenment era.

Art, Sound - 6 (Fair)

Standard fare. Nothing particularly good or bad stands out.

Character - 7

Nothing too annoying in the beginning considering the main characters are just children. Over the series, they learn the value of hard work for different motives altogether, and how hard work applies to everything in life. MC starts to like science but she's bad at science. The message is clear. If you start loving something but you're bad at it, just start learning and you'll get good at it.

Another kid likes football but his grades are bad, and he got banned from football until his grades pick up. After some whining, he picks himself up, studies hard to improve his grades and learns how awesome it is to play all the football he wants without adults breathing down his neck over bad grades.


Overall - 7

I'm giving it an solid "7" just for this breath of fresh air in the anime industry which lacks educational shows like Time Travel Shoujo. I'm hoping this show will encourage more anime studios to start developing more educational shows in the future.

It's a passable family-friendly show to watch with your children if you've studied physics in high school and want to show them how science can be fun too. In fact, after every show, you should go to the local store, buy the same stuff they used and conduct an experiment at home and watch your kids go "Woah. Science." It'll make the world a better place for science.

Helpful

read more

Kids Show. well, adult may be able to relate it because it's basically about the history, specifically on how the Electromagnetic waves or electricity was invented. (woo)

Characters are well-made. but i hope the focused more with them, ...(T_T) like, they put more importance to them.

story line - 7/10. they just focus on the story of those inventors on how they created their inventions. (just read your history/science books then .. lol :D) though ,it's kind of a refresher for me either, well its been a long time since i read my science book., i dont even remeber their works.

voice actors --- well since i love Toyosaki,aKi, (sphere group -all of them), thumbs up :D

Helpful

read more