Review of The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (2006) by Richard T — 24 Jan 2009

This started off as pretty standard stuff as far as time travel movies were concerned, but it did not take long for the film to pick up steam and develop an identity of its own. The animation is not ground breaking, but seems perfectly simplistic, with the exception of the brief time leap scenes early on that are absolutely beuatiful, but this more restrained style actually reinforce what is going on in the film, so I am glad that the artists did not overwhelm the screen with too many bright colors because it did help in making the characters feel a bit more realistic, not that that was much of a problem because the personality of each of the three main characters was developed excellently, with Makoto being a very compelling and engaging character.

It was nice to see her handle the time leaping thing how I assume a normal person would, doing nothing too huge and instead keeping things simple. There are a few really touching scenes scattered throughout the film as well, and the two final scenes are capped with some beautiful shots, no to mention the extended story/song in the credits is a really nice moment and caps things off perfectly.

The film is beautiful, perhaps not the best animated film ever made, and certainly not the peak of Japanese animation, but on fine film and well worth a viewing. 4.193480321857.