Title: The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (時をかける少女, Toki wo Kakeru Shōjo)
Type: film/anime
Creator: Yasutaka Tsutsui (original short story)
Writer: Satoko Okudera
Studio: Madhouse
Language of Origin: Japanese
Version Reviewed: Japanese voice with English subtitles
Genre: adventure/romance/comedy/science fiction
Release Year: 2006
Recommended Age: all ages
Number of Episodes: -
Length: ~99 minutes
Voice Actors: Riisa Naka, Takuya Ishida, Mitsutaka Itakura
Main Characters: Makoto Konno, Chiaki Mamiya, Kousuke Tsuda
** SPOILERS! BEWARE!!! **
Synopsis:
Alarm
A thin, glowing red band of light stretches horizontally across a black backdrop. The viewpoint zooms in and pans left until it becomes clear that the band is a row of digital numbers counting forward in time. A beeping sound is heard every second.
During the day, a girl named Makoto Konno is playing baseball with two of her male friends at a baseball field. She seems to hear something before throwing a pitch. Her friends hear nothing, and she is confused that she is the only one to hear something.
They play on.
Makoto misses a catch, fumbles around, and gives chase to a stray baseball. While grumbling about pudding and how her sister ate hers, she pitches the baseball to her friend, who's batting. The digital timer reappears on-screen a couple of times, and Makoto hears a female voice. "Sis?", the voice says, twice, as the batter hits the ball and it pops up high into the sky and disappears. A moment later, Makoto's other friend in the outfield calls out to her, "Look up! Above you!" As she looks up, an alarm clock is hurtling down towards her. The digital timer is shown again, and then a crashing sound can be heard, followed by Makoto moaning, "Ow! Th-That hurt... "
Beginning?
Makoto is in a room. She's lying in bed in her pajamas with her alarm clock resting awkwardly against her head.
She moves the clock and turns her head to see the time displayed. It is 8:03. Shocked and yelling, she jolts to an upright sitting position. A younger girl is standing bedside drinking a beverage. "It's about time you got up", Makoto's younger sister says.
Now dressed and carrying a bag over her shoulder, Makoto, rushing down stairs to the main level of a house, loudly inquires, "Do you know what today is? Why'd you turn off the alarm?!" Her sister, who was standing bedside, now seated near an entrance on the main level, retorts, "You turned it off yourself!"
The older sister dashes into a room with a television on, and nervously jogs on the spot in front of it. Two women are reporting, "It's July 13th, which is a 'Nice Day.'"
Makoto questions this, because she is worried about being late. She enters the dining area, greets her father, who is seated at a table, and her mother exits the scene carrying away dirty dishes. Makoto downs an entire glass of milk before running out of the room.
About to leave the house, Makoto's mother stops her and asks her to bring a bag of things to her "Auntie Witch", from grandma.
She also suggests Makoto ask her aunt when she's getting married. Her mother motions to her upper lip, minding her daughter's milk mustache. Makoto wipes it off, reluctantly accepts her mother's requests, and then walks her bicycle out the gate at the edge of the yard outside, and then down the street.
The girl who cycles through neighborhoods rides down a steep, sloping street, picking up speed and heading for train tracks at the bottom. Her bicycle brakes squeal, and she stops short of the guardrail and the tracks.
School
Past the tracks and further along, Chiaki Mamiya, one of the friends who was playing baseball with Makoto, is also traveling by bicycle. Makoto rides along beside him and he ribs her about working "more time into her schedule."
School is the pair's destination. They arrive together, and on time, right before their teacher. The other friend from the baseball scene, Kousuke Tsuda, is in class ahead of Makoto and Chiaki, and he remarks about the duo's chronic lateness.
As the teacher enters the classroom, the three friends continue the topic of timeliness. Chiaki refers to them as being lucky, and an audible narration is overlaid. Makoto begins a reflection on her views of luck. She believes luck to be on her side.
A classmate, a girl named Yuri Hayakawa, is the first in the room to show surprise at the announcement of a mini quiz.
The students begin their quiz. Makoto continues her reflection, and it becomes a general self-appraisal, as she adds that she believes she has "good instincts", is "not exactly a brain" and "not an idiot either", "not particularly adept at things... ", "... but not so clumsy that people laugh" at her.
As the teacher monitors the progress of the class, he makes his way down a row to Chiaki, who has his head down on his desk. The teacher turns Chiaki's quiz over, and then moves on, apparently satisfied that Chiaki has finished. Makoto, on the other hand, is not yet finished and is stressed out by the quiz.
An incident involving Makoto is shown; in a cooking class with other students, one clumsy move on her part leads to another, and a fire is started.
Her now exception-laden self-appraisal is added to once more, "I'm careful not to get involved in complicated social situations." Makoto is then walking outside on a path, passing other students. One male student is spinning another male student in the air by holding his legs. The spinner lets go and flings the spinee into Makoto, accidentally, knocking her down as she's passing by.
Unexpected
On a baseball field, the attention of three girls is directed at Chiaki and Kousuke. Two of the girls are evaluating romantic compatibility.
Back inside the school, Makoto stares at a quiz result, and quickly folds the paper up when her classmate, Yuri, approaches her. The girls talk about what classes they will take, and they are undecided. "You can't tell the future after all", Makoto says.
From outside the classroom, the girls hear Chiaki impatiently shouting out for Makoto. He wants to know how much longer she'll be. She comes over to the window, looks down and curtly suggests the boys come and help her with her classroom duties. Chiaki is stopped on his bike and Kousuke is standing next to him with a baseball bat. Chiaki answers, "You've got to be kidding me", puts his bicycle in motion, and tells her to, "Just hurry it up."
Still overlooking the school grounds below, Yuri wonders about Chiaki's course decision. Makoto replies to her, "Sciences, I bet. He's not good with kanji." Yuri adds, "And he's amazing in math." A little confused, Makoto quips, "But that's it. Why bring up Chiaki anyways?"
Someone asks who is in charge of the hand-in notebooks, breaking up the girl's chatting.
It is Makoto that is in charge. She slowly climbs up some stairs, encumbered now by the weight of the notebooks, at around 2:03 PM, and enters a room. She notices a message on the chalkboard, and reads it aloud in English: "Time waits for no one." Then, there is a muffled clattering nearby, and a clinking behind the door nearest her.
She cautiously enters the door to the left side of the chalkboard. Inside, she finds a lab room.
There is no one that Makoto is able to see in the room. She's careful not to disturb anything. On another side of the room, she tries opening a door, but it won't budge.
A small object with a blinking red light drops on the floor in front of her. Curious, she walks to the object to pick it up.
Makoto is startled by a figure suddenly in the classroom. A shadow of the figure is visible through a beaker on a table.
Makoto trips, letting the notebooks she's holding go up into the air. Her body falls hard on the floor, landing first with her elbow on the small object with the blinking red light, which triggers a high-pitched, piercing sound.
The notebooks freeze in the air, and the young girl is thrust into a tunnel of bright light. The light fades and she is floating in darkness underwater. Then, horses gallop by. The perspective and scenery flip back and forth, changing and twisting and turning and whizzing past. Shouts are heard from people with their arms raised, and Makoto travels through fire, a tunnel of wires and blocks, and finally, an opening to a blue sky, which she then appears to be falling away from. She crashes back down hard onto the floor of the lab room, with the notebooks falling on top of her.
Friends and the Future
Makoto meets up with her friends and tells them about what happened to her in the lab room. Chiaki laughs. Kousuke is concerned.
Makoto suspects it was her friends that were in the lab room. Chiaki defensively denies any involvement. Kousuke asks her, "So I'm the culprit?" She earnestly wonders, "Then, who could it have been?"
The friends go to a baseball field and play catch. Makoto suggests the three of them go somewhere together during their upcoming summer vacation. They all have very different ideas of what they want to do. Chiaki wants to "go to a night game." Makoto wants to go to "the beach" or "a fireworks festival" wearing yukatas. Kousuke wants to go to the library to keep to his studies. Makoto isn't interested, because she is "not going into medicine." Kousuke asks her what she is going to do, and Makoto offers that she'll "become a hotel tycoon", or "an oil tycoon." Kousuke warns her that she needs to think about his question seriously, and she then directs the question to Chiaki. Kousuke throws a baseball high up into the air above Chiaki. As Chiaki is pondering his answer, the baseball comes straight down and hits him in the face. Makoto laughs and Kousuke sternly tells them they "need to get serious."
The niece of a witch remembers she needs to run the errand of giving her aunt peaches, like her mother asked her to do earlier in the day, and so she leaves her two friends.
Errant Errands
On the steep, sloping street, a son is telling his mother, "the elves are coming out soon!" Makoto zooms past them on her bicycle, barely missing the mother. "Hey! Watch where you're going!", the mother yells out. Makoto yells back, "I'm sorry!"
A clock's hands point to almost 4:00 PM when Makoto continues down the steep, sloping street. She presses down on her brakes, but they're not working, and she is picking up speed heading for the train tracks. Narration begins. "I had forgotten... that today was my worst day", Makoto laments.
The train is coming down below. She puts her feet on the street, but the momentum is too much and she can't stop herself. Her front bicycle wheel smashes into the guardrail and launches her, her peaches for her aunt, and her bike over and into the path of an oncoming train.
Following the toll of a bell, more dialogue is calmly playing of regrets and laments of the now airborne girl. The train appears to violently collide with Makoto.
A row of digital numbers appears on-screen again, counting forward, then stopping, and then reversing.
The scene shifts to the steep, sloping street. Slumped over, next to her bicycle, is Makoto. The woman and child she nearly ran over before hitting the guardrail are there. The woman is now on her back on the street underneath Makoto's bicycle. Makoto looks up at the clock and the time is just before 4:00 PM. Down the street on the tracks, the train passes without incident and Makoto wonders what is happening.
Questions and Answers
Inside a museum, Makoto paces impatiently back and forth, holding the bag of peaches. Miss Yoshiyama greets her niece as she comes down stairs. The Konno daughter calls out, "Auntie! Auntie Witch!" then blurts out, "Am I alive?!" and, "There's nothing strange about me, right?" Her aunt pauses and observes, "There's something strange about your bangs."
Miss Konno and Miss Yoshiyama go to a room in the museum. Her aunt's questioning determines that what happened to Makoto was a "time leap", that "time can never be reversed", "Time itself doesn't go back", but that Makoto returned to the past. Her aunt goes on, "It happens to a lot of girls around your age. It happened to me."
Trying to Leap
While in a bath, the witch's niece ponders how she will time leap again. She recalls her witch aunt saying, "I'm sure if you get the hang of it, you could do it again."
An attempt is made in her room in the house by jumping, but she fails. Instead of leaping through time, she falls and a loud thudding sound reverberates throughout the house. Her mother, in a dining room below, wonders if the loud sound was an "earthquake". Makoto's younger sister, Miyuki, also hears the sound, and she hesitantly goes up the stairs, into Makoto's room to check on her. Miyuki sees her older sister crawling up over a desk and out through a window. She quickly assumes the older girl is trying to kill herself, when in fact, she is trying to time leap. Makoto's sister pulls her back in by the shirt shouting, "No, Sis!" Makoto struggles to break free of her sister's grasp, firmly stating, "I won't die!" Her younger sister holds on tight around her, not letting go, and is dragged across the floor, out the door.
Again
Frustrated by her failed attempt at time leaping, the youth who learns through failure leaves her house and goes for a walk.
She sits on a hill looking out at the water and negative thoughts swim in her head. Then, she gets up and walks away. In a furious change of course, she bolts down the hills toward the water and leaps up into the air. This determined attempt is successful.
Time slows to a stop, then reverses. Makoto is transported through a white space with turning gears and film-like bands of dotted red lines. She tumbles through the white space, and bashes through sliding doors of a house. The home is familiar, it is the Konno home. The pudding in the fridge is marked, "Please eat by July 12". The television is on and a report says, "It's Tuesday, July 12." Her parents and her sister arrive, not expecting Makoto to be there. They are engaged in pudding talk. Makoto's sister would like to eat the pudding in the fridge and the parents say it is okay. Makoto overhears this and vocalizes her displeasure, then quickly vanishes. The family is puzzled that Makoto was heard, but not seen.
Makoto tumbles back to the body of water where she had a successful leap at the foot of the hills. She is devastated that the pudding did not make the trip back with her. Turning to hear a group of onlookers discussing whether or not she vanished after leaping into the air, the realization sinks in for her that she leapt through time.
Shenanigans
Makoto's time leaping adventures pick up; eating pudding, being on-time, finishing a quiz early, achieving a high grade, switching places, having fun, avoiding trouble, and causing trouble.
So she won't have to deal with the fry pan getting out of control, Makoto switches groups with a student named Takase. Takase gets ridiculed instead of Makoto.
On to more leaping with alternative results...
Relationships
At the fork of a road, Chiaki asks Makoto, "Hey, where's your bike?" She vaguely responds with, "Something happened to it", and then excitedly gets on the back of Chiaki's bike when he offers her a ride, so he can take her to her home.
The two discuss Kousuke and his relationship interests. Chiaki diverts the discourse and asks Makoto out. This takes Makoto off-guard, and she promptly escapes the scene by leaping back in time. She revisits the scene with similar undesired results. Finally, she avoids the predetermined outcome by walking away from Chiaki before he's able to offer her the ride.
The niece and the witch meet and chit-chat about Chiaki. Her aunt suggests she, "Just go out with him" and "If it doesn't work out, just go back in time." Makoto cannot imagine Chiaki as more than a friend. Miss Yoshiyama pities Chiaki, and her niece seems to feel guilty for what she's done.
At school, Makoto is talking with her classmate, Yuri, again about Chiaki. In the schoolyard, Takase is being hosed down with water by four bullies. Chiaki turns off the water at the tap, and the bullies immediately retreat. Makoto takes notice of this courageous side of Chiaki, in light of recent developments. Chiaki walks excitedly over to Makoto, "Did you watch the night game last night?", and she turns away, nervous and uncomfortable. Chiaki presses her, "What's going on?" and "What's up your sleeve?" Makoto snaps at him.
Takase blames Makoto for him being bullied, "Why'd you ask me to fry the tempura?" and "This is all your fault, idiot!" Chiaki defends Makoto, and throws his shoe at Takase for calling his friend an "idiot". Overwhelmed, angry, and sad, Takase repeats his insult again, and runs off. Makoto leaves Chiaki to talk with Yuri, who is shy around Chiaki.
The friend who leaps through time then does her best to avoid Chiaki and any threat of advancing and changing their relationship.
Makoto witnesses Yuri shyly giving Chiaki a small bag. Some classmates say something is going on elsewhere, and Makoto follows them to a place in the schoolyard where Takase is now spraying the boys who bullied him, with fire extinguisher extinguishant. The students think Takase has "lost it." Makoto comes through the crowd of students and insists, "Stop that, Takase!" He is enraged and is about to spray her with extinguishant, but the fire extinguisher will not spray any more. Instead, he throws the extinguisher at Makoto. Chiaki appears and bravely leaps in front of her to block it.
Impulsively, Makoto leaps through time and saves Chiaki from being hit by the extinguisher, but Yuri is hurt as a result.
Then, in the school nurse's room, Makoto watches as Miss Hayakawa is being treated for her injuries. The injured girl is worried about the damage. Makoto mutters, "I'll deal with it somehow." As she opens the door to leave the room, Chiaki is on the other side, standing in the doorway. After a silent pause, he walks past Makoto and goes to see Yuri. Chiaki expresses interest in the injured girl's well-being, and Makoto contemplatively looks on.
Back at the baseball field, Chiaki is playing catch with Makoto and Kousuke, and they're tossing around details about Chiaki's "night game" date with Yuri. Makoto wanted to go to the "night game" with Chiaki and Kousuke. She's surprised when Chiaki says he'll go out with Yuri. Kousuke throws the baseball at Makoto and it hits her in the face. Makoto is distracted and seems to be confused about her feelings for Chiaki.
Fully sUBMERGED in the bathtub, while complaining to herself about Chiaki being interested in another girl, when he already expressed interest in Makoto, the time leaping teenager notices what she thinks is a stylized "90" tattooed on her upper, left arm.
At the museum, Miss Yoshiyama suggests Makoto go out with Kousuke. Miss Yoshiyama thought Makoto "fancied" the boy. Her niece doesn't want to toy with people's feelings, but the aunt says Makoto already has played "games" with people when she's time leaped. Makoto thinks the nickname for her aunt, "witch", is fitting because she finds her blunt comment harsh, but Makoto knows it's true. They walk to the painting her aunt has been restoring, that's now back up on the museum wall.
Auntie Witch explains that the painter of the painting is unknown, and there are no known merits of the person. It was created during a time of famine and war, while the world seemed to be ending.
In a school office, Makoto's teacher speaks to her. He states she is the only one that "hasn't submitted a chosen academic track." Miss Konno is preoccupied with what's on her upper left arm. Makoto leaves the office, and a stylized number can be seen on her upper left arm, a different number than when she last looked.
Then, Makoto is ambushed by members of the Volunteer Club of Kuranose Senior High (the girls evaluating romantic compatibility earlier in the film). They announce themselves, and two of the girls corner Makoto to uncover her status with Kousuke. The third member of the group likes Kousuke, and she is embarrassed by the group's interrogation of Makoto. She doesn't want her friends to ask Makoto about Kousuke.
The girl from the group who likes Kousuke tells Makoto about her grandmother being fond of one of the male students that came to volunteer at her old age home. The girl from the group began liking him in senior year. Her grandmother would talk to her about Kousuke frequently.
Makoto is surprised that stories like that are real. The group of girls share how Kousuke turned down one of their advances. Makoto takes responsibility for Kousuke turning down the offer. She leaps back in time to "deal with it somehow", but the witch's niece keeps messing it up...
The incident in the schoolyard where Makoto was squished under a random male spinnee, is altered after Makoto drags Kousuke into the line of fire. He is crashed into, then lands on Kaho, the Volunteer Club girl with a thing for Kousuke, and she gets hurt. Kousuke picks her up in his arms and goes for help.
Makoto raises her arms in celebration for doing "something good!" Her short sleeves slide down revealing what looks to be a stylized "10" on her arm, changed again from the previous numbers. Turning her arms back down shows the number from another perspective, making it possibly actually "01".
The Shadow
Makoto sneaks into and around the lab room, staying low, hiding behind tables, trying to surprise the shadowy figure she had seen there before.
The girl who sneaks through time expects she'll see the same shadowy figure come into the lab room. When a door opens and someone enters the lab room, she shoots up and asks, "Um, excuse me! I have a question for you!"
The shadow this time is revealed to be Yuri. "I hope you appreciate our friendship here", she says to her friend. She brought the heavy notebooks up for Makoto to put away as her school duty. Yuri exits the lab room. After she closes the door, Makoto calls out, "Did you see anyone on your way up here?" as she scans the room once more, walking backwards. "Like who?", Yuri replies from the adjoining room. Makoto downplays her question and looks at her phone. Kousuke sent a text: "I think I was just asked out. I bet you're envious!" and "I'm borrowing your bike. --Tsuda." She says out loud to herself, "Oh, please... Who do you think set it up for you?" A moment later, it dawns on her that Kousuke is taking her bike that has faulty brakes, and the failing brakes led to Makoto going over the guardrail and into the oncoming train.
Zip to Kousuke unlocking Makoto's bike lock and asking Kaho where she lives. He also suggests they go to the hospital.
Back to Makoto. She races out of the lab room, past Yuri, and out of the classroom in a panic, as Yuri tries to pass along, "come to think of it... I passed by a guy on my way here..." In a lower volume, she softly speaks, "It was Chiaki."
Makoto searches a classroom for Kousuke, and someone says, "He went home. Holding hands with that first year girl." She rushes out of the class to the bicycle rack outside. Her bicycle is gone. She uses her phone to call Kousuke.
Kousuke is riding Makoto's bicycle with Kaho. He is on his phone to his dad, about fixing Kaho's sprain.
Not getting through to Kousuke, Makoto sprints, and her inner-dialogue is deliberating whether or not she should go back in time. She decides nothing has happened yet, and she runs down the hill towards the train. Down at the guardrail, a train speeds by. She sees that no one got hit by the train. She looks around, and a male on a bicycle (not Kousuke) passes her. An unfamiliar woman and child walk up to the tracks, and Makoto asks, "Uh, um... Was there a bike accident here?" The woman says, "I don't think so."
Makoto picks up an incoming call, expecting Kousuke, but it is Chiaki. He fills her in: Kousuke is at home. Chiaki has been waiting at the baseball field for them. He breaks cover, "Have you been time leaping?" Makoto is stunned and doesn't know what to say, so she leaps through time. In another instance of the phone call, she blabs about her sister to avoid Chiaki's bombshell. The call ends and Makoto takes note that the numbers are now "00" on her left arm. No time leaps left.
At that moment, Kousuke bikes by with Kaho on the steep, sloping street. Makoto drops her phone and chases after them. The sequence of events leading to the train incident with Makoto is similar but not the same: the woman and her child are there and Makoto bumps into her, and they are both knocked down. Makoto gets up and continues chasing. One of Kousuke's shoes flies off and into Makoto's face knocking her off her feet and sending her painfully rolling and skidding down the street, leaving her badly scraped up. The brakes on her bike fail, the bike hits the guardrail, and Kousuke and Kaho are launched into the path of the train. "Stop! Stop! Stop! Stop!", Makoto repeatedly wails, staring helplessly at the horrific scene from the ground. Then time stops.
She sees Chiaki standing behind her in the crowd of frozen people, with her bike. Chiaki and Makoto are the only unfrozen elements in time.
Makoto asks, "What are you doing here?" and "Where's Kousuke?" Chiaki answers, "Probably still at home." Chiaki asks if Makoto would laugh if he told her that he's from the future. He goes on to explain that the device that brought him back in time is what charges a body, letting a person freely travel in time. The device was lost, and he panicked. He found the device in the science lab room, all used up, by an "idiot."
"Why?", Makoto asks. Chiaki explains that he wanted to see a painting that was no longer around in his time; it was destroyed. Before his time it was lost, but there was an accurate record of it in Makoto's era.
There is no way for him to go back to his time because the device was used up. Makoto asks why he would use it up. Chiaki explains that, "Kousuke and that girl did die at that crossing." Makoto blamed herself for their deaths, and couldn't be consoled. Chiaki used his last time leap to save Kousuke and the girl, for Makoto.
Chiaki fondly remembers all the firsts he's experienced in this era... "I saw a river flow across the land", "I rode a bike", "I learned... that the sky was so big", "I'd never seen any place with so many people."
Makoto asks if there is a connection between "that painting and the future" he comes from. Chiaki doesn't answer, only goes on to say, "I like this era. There's baseball as well." Makoto is following Chiaki as he meanders around the crowd in the time-stopped scene on the street. She points out that the painting Chiaki wants to see is being restored and he will be able to "see it soon." Makoto wants the three of them (Kousuke, and the two time leapers) to go see it together. Chiaki responds, "I'm going to disappear tomorrow." Makoto asks, "Why?" Chiaki replies, "I'm not supposed to let people who live in the past know about time leaps." Chiaki broke the rule, and that's why he'll disappear.
Makoto is sad as she loses Chiaki in the crowd, and time starts again. She stumbles through the moving crowd, across an intersection looking for Chiaki, but he's not there.
Gone
Rumors about Chiaki's disappearance circulate at school. Kousuke says that Chiaki had a thing for Makoto, so he doesn't understand why he didn't tell her where he went. Makoto blames herself for not taking Chiaki more seriously. Makoto cries on the roof of her school, completely devastated.
Miss Yoshiyama tells Makoto that she thought Chiaki and Kousuke and her were only friends and would remain so. Makoto thought so, too, "until yesterday." Auntie Yoshiyama tells Makoto how she "fell in love for the first time" in senior high, and that it "fell apart" before they became adults. Her love promised to come back for her. She never intended to wait for him. Time flew by quickly.
Makoto's younger sister, Miyuki, says to her parents that Makoto is heartbroken, while they're eating watermelon without the sister who leapt through time.
Makoto is in her room, wearing a t-shirt with the number "01" on it, lying back on her bed, hanging over the side, thinking over the things her aunt told her. She uncovers her eyes and hangs her arms down, and looks straight in front of her. On her ceiling there's a ladybug flying around her light. The ladybug flies around Makoto's face and lands on her upper arm. It crawls up her arm under the sleeve of her t-shirt. Makoto can feel the ladybug on her skin, so she lifts her sleeve up slightly. The ladybug is crawling around on her arm by the number "01". Looking over and seeing "01" on her arm makes her gasp and fall off her bed in astonishment; "It's supposed to be at zero", she yelps.
The one who leaps through zero tears down the stairs and out of the house. Her family beckons to her. Makoto keeps going, out of the house, and out of the gate, and down the road, without saying anything to her family.
Makoto narrates, "That moment, because Chiaki turned back time... Then it should be the same for him... "
She time travels, and remembers how she first met Chiaki Mamiya.
Makoto's classmate, Yuri, standing by the door, looks into the lab room, sees Makoto on the floor, and asks her if she's okay.
Yuri and Makoto are in an empty classroom. Makoto is loading the school notebooks up into two boxes. Yuri wonders about Chiaki, and what he does on the weekends. Makoto looks up to see the note on the chalkboard: "Time waits for no one."
Makoto confesses to Yuri that she really likes Chiaki, knowing Yuri likes him too. "Sorry", Makoto says. Yuri is surprised and disappointed, but expected that Makoto likes Chiaki. She says Chiaki passed by her earlier, and that Makoto should go see him. "Okay", Makoto says, and leaves the classroom.
Yuri is left in the classroom by herself, and the chalkboard is shown again. She reads aloud what's on the chalkboard in English: "Time waits for no one."
Out in a field, Makoto charges ahead of Kousuke, and asks him where Chiaki is. "He got tired of waiting and went ahead to the field", he responds. He mentions Chiaki being irritable, and that they should hurry. Makoto mentions Kousuke leaving his girlfriend, Kaho, alone, forgetting that time went back to before he got a girlfriend.
They both look over to a tree where three girls are sitting on a bench. Two of the girls quickly dart around, flustered when Kousuke notices them. Kaho stays seated on the bench saying nothing.
Kousuke asks Makoto if she knows the girls. Kaho gets up from the bench and hides behind the tree for a moment with the two other girls, before running around the bench and to the other side of the tree. Makoto says, "Kind of." She goes on to warn Kousuke if he uses her bike it will cost him 5,000 yen. He wants to know what Makoto's talking about. Makoto runs off and calls out to Kousuke to ask the girls nicely if they would like to play baseball with them.
Makoto rushes as fast as her legs will go to the baseball field.
Chiaki is throwing a baseball up into the air, to himself. He turns to his left and Makoto is standing there. He notes that she's late, and asks where Kousuke is. Makoto walks closer to Chiaki, "He's not coming." Chiaki wants to know why, as he walks past Makoto. She shows him the time travel device, which he lost. He stops walking, "I mean, do you even know what it is?" Makoto says she does, and that he told her what it is. Chiaki doesn't believe that he would ever tell her. Makoto spills that he told her all about the future he lives in and about the time travel device. She takes his hand in hers and crumbles the time travel device in his open hand, showing that the time travel device has no more power in it. She lifts up Chiaki's wristband and is relieved that he still has a "01" on his wrist. He has one time leap left.
Early evening, Makoto and Chiaki are sitting on a hill, with water, a bridge, and a city skyline in front of them. Kids are playing by the banks down below.
The friend who chats through time tells Chiaki that she'll do her best to not let the painting get lost or burned, so it's there for him in his era. Chiaki thanks her. He had a lot of fun with Makoto and Kousuke, and that's why he didn't go back earlier. Makoto tells him that's not how he put it before.
She gets upset that Chiaki doesn't confess his feelings to her, like he did many times before. Chiaki wants to know what he said, but Makoto won't tell him. Chiaki presses, but she turns away from him, still not telling. Kids nearby heckle, "Look at the lovers." Chiaki shouts at the kids, "Get lost", getting up. Three of the kids jump on their bikes and leave, a fourth kid runs on foot.
Chiaki asks Makoto to say goodbye to Kousuke for him. He also says, "There's something I've been meaning to tell you", with a bit of sweat on his cheek. Makoto waits for him to explain himself. In the end he says, "... be more careful." Makoto isn't expecting this answer and asks, "That's the last thing you have to say to me?" With tears in her eyes, she pushes Chiaki away from her.
Chiaki doesn't seem to understand what Makoto is going on about. She continues to push him away "thanking" him in an insincere way for "worrying" about her, and tells him to "Just go!" Makoto goes one way, and Chiaki goes the other.
A bicycle with a girl and guy passes her, and she turns around crying. Makoto cries and cries when she can't see Chiaki anymore.
Chiaki marches up behind Makoto, embraces her, leans in and whispers, "I'll be waiting for you in the future." Makoto agrees, "Okay, I'll be right there. I'll come running."
Chiaki leaves, and Makoto is left alone, sobbing.
A red band. A digital timer ticks up to another time. Makoto is playing catch with Kousuke. He's surprised that Chiaki is dropping out of school to study abroad and said nothing to him. Kousuke's even more surprised that he said nothing to Makoto.
Makoto mentions he didn't say much to her, but he must have found something he wanted to do. Kousuke is distracted by one of the Volunteer Club girls they are playing with. It's Kaho. Makoto goes on to say, "I've also decided on what I'm going to do."
Makoto keeps her future plans to herself, coyly, "It's a secret!" Kousuke asks, "Huh? What's that about?"
Makoto smiles and looks up into the clouds and says, "Maybe some other time."
folium's Thoughts:
Familiarity is often associated with comfort (positive), and extreme comfort has developed with time. Unfamiliarity is often associated with discomfort (negative). Thus, generally, those most familiar with time find comfort in it, and have a tendency to cling to time and ignore or overlook its confines, rejecting ideas challenging or questioning its boundaries.
As time silently pushes, pulls, grabs, and tears from life to life, this destination to that, there are momentary pauses, disconnects from the machinations, doubts of what has been told, what has been, what is, and what will be.
What is time? Does it hold any meaning at all? Is its meaning held in too high a regard? Does time exist at all? Have you spent much of your existence pondering the passage of time? Is time only a construct of men and women? Does it apply to all living beings? Is time itself living, and if so, how are inanimate objects viewed by time? Does anything govern time? What are your thoughts about time? Do your thoughts about time affect others' thoughts about time? Do thoughts exist in time? Is time relative? Would it be possible to go back in time and reverse outcomes for good, or would that complicate and destroy? Has the idea of time evolved? If yes, how so?
Who would say time began or it will end without a point of reference? Are we that point? Maybe we know. Maybe we have forgotten. In and out of time.
Without a point of reference, a pairing, an element in context, in a place, an element is non-existent, without meaning, unverified and without credit. Without reference, perspective is lost.
There is a technical juxtaposition in A Girl Who Leapt Through Time: it is the pairing and singularity meeting; a staccato jingle challenging the rhythmic flow, together from one scene to the next.
The well-aligned and easily relatable ensemble of characters are a measure against a tricky premise and the claustrophobia-inducing tension, pressure, and acknowledgment of the presence of time and its implications. The characters and animation are forever natural, believable, existing in supernatural intermittent boundlessness. Comedy arises organically, unexpectedly, and is finely tuned. Music is well-arranged, voice acting is good fun, and the conclusion certainly lends itself to discussion.