Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo

Japanese title: 時をかける少女

Some info available here:
1) ANN
2) Wiki

Fantastic movie. Gotta thank XX for introducing this to me :D The presentation is simpler than i had expected since from the title, i knew that it’s gonna mess with time travel of some sort. Pretty neat artwork to go along with such a great show, what more can you ask for?

I believe the concept of time in this story is kinda like 1 plane, meaning there’s no concept of “infinite us in infinite space-time dimensions” since changing something in the past will directly affect the events to come. I guess it’s easier to manage the story this way rather than complicating things with all the theories and stuff that’s being discussed nowadays. And of course, to be able to turn back time, (in the show) you just have to run really really fast which obviously isn’t going to work in reality but i guess this isnt much of an issue that would affect the viewing pleasure.

This movie clearly showed how an average person would use the ability to time leap back in order to have a more “perfect” life, with good grades, fewer screw-ups in your life, avoiding troublesome situations and even trying to make good things happen for your close friends. I guess i will definitely do something to that effect if i had this ability too. =P

However, it also showed that by changing the past to your liking, the people around you will be affected and they could be worse off than if things just happened as there were supposed to. I kinda liked this part as it reminded every viewer that it’ll just be a selfish act if everything went your way by changing things to suit you.

Then the concept of limited time travelling comes into the picture, which i think is good to keep the length of show in check and further development of the story. With a limitation, choices had to be made. Making not-so-wise decisions and taking such actions will eventually lead to something undesirable when time travelling is no longer an available option. But of course, to avoid a very sad ending, another person with the ability to perform time travel comes to “save the day”. In the end, it isn’t all that sad and life goes on for everyone, heading for a future that lies heavily on how they want it to be.

I guess this animated movie could be used to reflect real life too. Not that we all can do time travelling, but it’s more of like we can make choices about the things we do. Whatever we decide will eventually affect the way things happen in the future, just that we have absolutely no chance of undoing even if we made a major mistake though at times we might find someone helpful enough to bring us out of this misery. In the end, it is important for us to live our lives the best we can to avoid having much regrets later on. Maybe it’s kinda stretching it, but that’s I vaguely felt after watching the show.

Besides having these more “serious” issues, there also comedy moments in the show. It’s an element i find that ought to be present in most shows, be it anime or drama. It’ll make the show more light-hearted and easier for the viewer to carry on watching instead on having to concentrate on “heavy” stuff all the time.

Apparently, this story is already quite old, as this wiki article suggests. Wonder how these people manage to think of such ideas and stories decades ago. I guess they truly are more imaginative than most people around and creative in their creations. It has also been adapted many times but sadly I wouldnt even have gotten to know about it until XX pointed it out to me. Seems like i need to consider carefully every single anime title he points out to me in the future. Hahaz.

Go watch it if you are able to. I’m sure almost everyone will be able to digest this fantastic movie. :)