The Girl Who Leapt Through Time - "Time Waits For No One"

For the past few months, I have been watching several anime movies from Japan that were quite good. The best ones I can remember right now would be Paprika, Perfect Blue, Your Name, and Ghost in the Shell. I was expecting this lesser-known movie "The Girl Who Leapt Through Time" to be as cool as Your Name but sadly this is not the case.

In Your Name, the movie is about a boy and a girl who somehow start changing bodies at random times. They begin to know each other and the entire movie was very epic and touching, one of the greatest ones when it comes to its genre. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, on the other hand, is about a girl who suddenly discovers she can travel in time to the past.

She starts to use this newfound ability to solve some silly issues but then it gets a bit more serious. The movie could have been great but I felt it was very childish and its intensity was lacking. I eventually concluded that I wouldn't care too much what happened at the end, which is completely different from how I felt when watching Your Name. I remember that film had all my attention to the final second. It really was a great anime movie.

The animation was good but nothing out of the ordinary and the character development isn't that great. The main ones are the time-traveling girl and her 2 friends. There is a nice twist but that didn't save the movie for me, I was still disappointed even after the twist.

Even though the story is very different, the setting reminded me of the videogame Life Is Strange, which was an awesome experience. In the videogame we control a girl who can also travel to the past, it is a story with a lot of drama set in a high school and we can take decisions that will alter the future in ways we cannot foresee.

I mention this videogame just to make the point that is is possible to create a cool time-traveling story with a teenage girl highschool student as the main character. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time failed in providing a properly rewarding experience for me. Maybe my expectations were too high after watching all the awesome movies I mentioned in the first paragraph.

However, I am not saying it is a bad movie. It can easily be considered a good one with the proper expectations. Maybe it is not fair to compare it with the masterpiece that is Your Name but it is the more similar one of the Japanese anime movies I have watched. If you like anime movies and don't care too much seeing excessive childish reactions from the main character, you might enjoy this film but have in mind Your Name is a superior movie in every sense, if you haven't watched it make sure to go see it.

The best

• Good movie but I think it is meant to be watched by younger audiences.

The worst

• Too childish.
• Not as intense as I was hoping. Time-traveling stories will always have potential but this one didn't take advantage of it.

More information:
Review: AA
In numbers: 6.5/10