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
