This movie is of a different sort of genre that I am having trouble placing. After looking up the movie for a while, it is worth noting that members of Ghibli Studios have had large parts in the making, art, and story of both this and Paprika. There are a lot of reasons why this is an almost amazing movie. It just gets stopped by the smallest of margins, so certainly don't look over it. As it turns out, Yasutaka Tsutsui directed both Paprika as well as The Girl Who Leapt Through Time.
Starting off, Makoto wakes up late and heads off to school with her friends, manages to make it to class but has a pop quiz that goes how most pop quizes do. The day continues to head down hill until finally, on her way home her bike breaks malfunction and cause her to flip infront of an oncoming train. At the last second however, she wakes up several feet away, and quite safe and not dead. In this way she discovers that she has the ability to travel back in time.
There are a lot of things that remind me of 5 Centimeters Per Second in this movie, other than having a much more positive feel to it. Again, I forget the specific style used, but the characters are drawn in a less detailed way that allows for cleaner and faster motion animation. This works perfectly with how the characters, and environments are portrayed. There are some really gorgeous examples of cg being seamlessly integrated with the animation at some points where it just fits. The characters are key and have some amazing voice talent in both Japanese and English dub. The move so right and pull off being a student really quite well. In terms of creating believable characters, this movie absolutely delivers. The soundtrack is likewise perfectly in tune with what is going on, and is at times the most important when there is just silence and an important conversation.
The ending may upset some people, but I thought it ended in a very very real way. You often don't have all the answers in life, and especially where time is involved things can get a little tricky and sometimes your timing just sucks. Despite a few questions never quite come to being answered, the more open ended feel for this movie fits more than it doesn't.
Very worth it, and while lacking at the end in plot, the rest of the movie picks up any slack. Beautiful art accompanied by characters who don't step out of their bounds, and amazingly smooth animation despite the style used all come together for a truly great movie.
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