The Girl Who Leapt Through Time

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The Girl Who Leapt Through Time

DVD cover for the film.
時をかける少女
(Toki o Kakeru)
Genre Drama, Romance, Science fiction, Slice of life
Manga
Author Yasutaka Tsutsui (original author)
Satoko Okudera (film screenplay)
Illustrator Ranmaru Kotone
Publisher Flag of Japan Kadokawa Shoten
Flag of Australia Flag of New Zealand Madman Entertainment
Demographic Shōnen
Magazine Shōnen Ace
Original run April 26, 2006June 26, 2006
Volumes 1
Animated film
Director Mamoru Hosoda
Producer Takashi Watanabe (Kadokawa Shoten)
Yūichirō Saitō (Madhouse)
Writer Yasutaka Tsutsui (original novel)
Satoko Okudera (screenplay)
Composer Kiyoshi Yoshida
Studio Flag of Japan Madhouse
Licensor Flag of Japan Kadokawa Herald Pictures
Flag of the United States Flag of Canada Bandai Entertainment[1]
Flag of the United Kingdom Manga Entertainment [2]
Flag of Australia Flag of New Zealand Madman Entertainment[3]
Flag of Germany Anime Virtual[4]
Flag of France KAZE[5]
Flag of Russia Reanimedia[6]
Released Flag of Japan July 15, 2006
Flag of Canada November 19, 2006
Flag of the United States March 3, 2007
Flag of the Republic of China March 9, 2007
Flag of South Korea June 14, 2007
Flag of France July 4, 2007
Flag of Hong Kong August 23, 2007
Flag of Russia February 25, 2008
Flag of Malaysia July 20, 2008
Runtime 98 minutes
Anime and Manga Portal

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (時をかける少女 Toki o Kakeru Shōjo?), also referred as TokiKake for short, is an animated Japanese film produced by the animation studio Madhouse and distributed through Kadokawa Herald Pictures, first released in theaters in Japan on July 15, 2006. The film was later released on DVD on April 20, 2007 in Japan in regular and limited editions. A German RC2 DVD (with German and Japanese dub and German and Polish subtitles) was released on September 24, 2007 by Anime Virtual/AV Visionen. A manga story, set as a prelude to the film, was serialized in Kadokawa Shoten's Shōnen Ace manga magazine between April 26, 2006 and June 26, 2006; the chapters were later collected into a single bound volume which went on sale on July 26, 2006.

On December 9, 2007, Bandai Entertainment announced that the anime film will be released as a region 1 DVD in the United States for the first time. The scheduled release date will be November 18, 2008. Bandai released it theatrically in New York City on June 13, 2008.[7]

Yasutaka Tsutsui's novel is used as the basis of the film, but it is not a direct adaptation. Instead, the film is set as a continuation of the book in the same setting some twenty years later. Tsutsui Yasutaka praised the film as being "a true second-generation" of his book at the Tokyo International Anime Fair on March 24, 2006.[8]

Contents

[edit] Plot

Makoto Konno (Riisa Naka/Emily Hirst), a girl attending high school in Tokyo's shitamachi, realizes she has the power to go back in time and re-do things (called a "time-leap") when she impossibly avoids a fatal accident at a train crossing one day.

Bewildered, she consults with her aunt (Sachie Hara/Saffron Henderson) throughout the film, who then implies that she is the protagonist (Kazuko Yoshiyama) from the original novel. At first, Makoto uses her power extravagantly to avoid being tardy and to get perfect grades on tests, and even relive a single karaoke session for about ten hours. However, things begin to turn bad as she discovers how her actions can adversely affect others.

Makoto ends up using up more of her leaps to recklessly prevent undesirable situations from happening, including an awkward confession of love from her best friend Chiaki Mamiya (Takuya Ishida/Andrew Francis). Eventually she discovers a numbered tattoo on her arm which counts down with each leap. She determines that the tattoo indicates that she can only leap through time a limited number of times. With only a few time leaps left, she attempts to make things right for everyone, but impulsively uses her final leap to prevent a phone call from Chiaki asking if she knows about time-leaping. As a result, she is unable to prevent her friend Kōsuke Tsuda (Mitsutaka Itakura/Alex Zahara) and his girlfriend from being killed in the accident at the train crossing that Makoto was originally involved in. As Makoto watches the accident in horror, time suddenly stops.

Chiaki reveals that he is a traveller from the future and leapt through time in order to see a painting being restored by Makoto's aunt, as it has been destroyed in the future. While walking in the frozen city, Chiaki hints that his original era occurs after a world wide catastrophe decimates mankind. He then reveals that he has used his final leap to prevent Kōsuke's accident and has stopped time only to explain to Makoto what the consequences will be. Having revealed his origins and the source of the item that allowed Makoto to leap through time, and being unable to return to his time period, Chiaki must disappear. Makoto realizes too late that she loves him as well.

True to his words, Chiaki disappears when time begins again and Makoto is upset. As she tries to come to terms with losing him, she discovers that Chiaki's time-leap had inadvertently restored one time-leap to her: Chiaki had leapt back to before Makoto used her last leap. Makoto now leaps to the moment when she gained her powers, at which point Chiaki still has one remaining time-leap. She reveals everything that he told her in the future concerning who he is, the ability to leap through time, and his reasons for extending his stay in her time frame. Shortly before returning to his time period, Chiaki says he will wait for her in the future and Makoto replies that she will run towards it.

[edit] Theatrical run

TokiKake was released to a small number of theaters in Japan, taking in approximately 300 million yen (US$~3 million).[9] The film wasn't advertised as frequently as other animation features from 2006 (such as "Tales from Earthsea"), but word of mouth and glowing reviews[10] generated interest. At Theatre Shinjuku for days in a row, filmgoers would fill the theater, some even standing to watch the film. Following this, distribution company Kadokawa Herald Pictures took unprecedented measures to increase the number of theaters showing the film across Japan, and sent the film to several international festivals.

TokiKake, translated as The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, premiered in Canada on November 19, 2006 at the Waterloo Festival for Animated Cinema and went onto premiere in US on March 3, 2007 at the 2007 New York International Children's Film Festival. The movie received a limited theatrical run in the USA, being shown subtitled in Los Angeles in June, and in Seattle in September. Also a dubbed version was shown in New York City in July. Its Boston area showings in August were subtitled. The film has also premiered in the UK as part of the Leeds Young People Film Festival on April 2, 2008. More US showings are planned in other cities.

[edit] Awards

Even though it was not a massive hit at the box office, the film did exceptionally well at the various festivals into which it was entered. TokiKake took home the Gertie Award for the best animated feature film at the thirty-ninth Sitges International Film Festival of Catalonia.[11] It won the Animation Grand Award, given to the year's most entertaining animated film, at the prestigious sixty-first Annual Mainichi Film Awards. It was also awarded the first annual Animation of the Year prize at the thirtieth Japan Academy Prize.[12] It was nominated for, but did not win, the twenty-seventh Nihon SF Taisho Award.[13] It received the Grand Prize in the animation division at the 2006 Japan Media Arts Festival.[14] At the sixth annual Tokyo International Anime Fair, which opened on March 22, 2007, TokiKake was recognized as "Animation of the Year" and won several awards.[15] It won the Special Distinction for Feature Film at France's thirty-first Annecy International Animated Film Festival on June 16, 2007. It played to full-house theatres during a screening in August 2007 at the ninth Cinemanila International Film Festival in Manila, Philippines.

[edit] Soundtrack

The theme song to the film is "Garnet" (ガーネット Gānetto?), and the insert song used in the film is "Kawaranai Mono" (変わらないもの lit. Unchanging Thing(s)?). Both songs were written, composed, and sung by singer-songwriter Hanako Oku, however the latter song was arranged by Jun Satō.

[edit] References

  1. ^ "Bandai Entertainment Gets Girl Who Leapt Through Time" (in English). http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2007-12-09/bandai-gets-girl-who-leapt-through-time. Retrieved on 2007-12-09. 
  2. ^ "Girl Who Lept Through Time, Starship Operators UK licenses" (in English). http://animeuknews.net/news/1655/girl-who-lept-through-time-starship-operators-uk-licenses. Retrieved on 2008-05-03. 
  3. ^ "Madman Entertainment March 2008 Newsletter". http://www.madman.com.au/htmlmail/newsletters/2008_03_mar/#acquisitions. Retrieved on 2008-03-25. 
  4. ^ "Anime Virtual licenses The Girl Who Leapt Through Time" (in German). http://www.anime-virtual.de/news/detail.php?SNID=1&DID=65. Retrieved on 2007-07-03. 
  5. ^ "KAZE's official website" (in French). http://www.kaze.fr/. Retrieved on 2007-08-22. 
  6. ^ "Reanimedia's official website" (in Russian). http://store.reanimedia.ru/catalog/product/3.html. Retrieved on 2008-02-18. 
  7. ^ "The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (2008)". Rotten Tomatoes. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/girl_who_leapt_through_time/. Retrieved on 2008-06-15. 
  8. ^ "Tsutsui Yasutaka talks about Toki o Kakeru Shōjo" (in Japanese). http://plusd.itmedia.co.jp/games/articles/0606/20/news060.html. Retrieved on 2007-05-05. 
  9. ^ "Tokikake Wins "Animation of the Year" at Japanese Academy Awards: Follow Up". Anime News Network. http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2007-02-20/tokikake-wins-animation-of-the-year-at-japanese-academy-awards-follow-up. Retrieved on 2007-05-05. 
  10. ^ "Gedo Senki Panned by Online Critics". Anime News Network. http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2006-07-26/gedo-senki-panned-by-online-critics. Retrieved on 2007-05-05. 
  11. ^ "Toki wo Kakeru Shōjo Wins at Catalonia". Anime News Network. http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2006-10-23/toki-wo-kakeru-shoujo-wins-at-catalonia. Retrieved on 2007-05-05. 
  12. ^ "Toki o Kakeru Syoujyo Wins Japan Academy Prize". Anime News Network. http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2007-02-19/tokio-kakeru-syoujyo-wins-japan-academy-prize. Retrieved on 2007-05-05. 
  13. ^ ""Toki wo Kakeru Shōjo" Nominated for the twenty-seventh Japan SF Grand Prize". http://comipress.com/news/2006/11/23/1057. Retrieved on 2007-05-05. 
  14. ^ ""Toki wo Kakeru Shōjo" Japan Media Arts Plaza in 2006". http://plaza.bunka.go.jp/english/festival/sakuhin/sakuhin/anime01.html. Retrieved on 2007-05-05. 
  15. ^ "Results of sixth Annual Tokyo Anime Awards Announced". Anime News Network. http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2007-03-19/results-anime-awards. Retrieved on 2007-05-05. 

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