The Girl Who Leapt Through Time

A famous anime film, which was produced by Mad House Ltd, is "The Girl Who Leapt Through Time". It was a released in 2006 and it has had a great deal of influence on the society due to its incredible message, which we will talk later. Now we are going to talk about the story of the film in order to understand the meaning.

Makoto Konno is an outgoing high school girl. She's not the best student in the world, but she has two of the best friends in the world: Kousuke, who's strong, smart and dependable type, and Chiaki, who is a fun-loving slacker. One day at school, intrigued by a small object on the floor, she falls on her back when someone enters the room. As her left arm lands on the object, a series of strange images fly past in her mind, before she eventually finds herself lying on the ground alone. She hangs out with her best two buddies in class and tells them of the incident.

After school, Makoto goes to see her Aunt at an art museum. However, the brakes on her bike give out as she races down a hill, and she ends up hitting a guard-rail, flying into the path of an passing train. However, instead of dying, Makoto finds herself lying several yards on the way to the train crossing, and watches as the same train goes by. Her Aunt explains that Makoto experienced a 'Time Leap'. Makoto now starts to exploit more personal gains using her new power, such as turning a one-hour karaoke session with Kosuke and Chiaki into ten hours, and leaping back to have her favorite meal. Just when she feels to be at the top of the world, an unexpected awkward event occurs.

At a moment when she is alone with Chiaki, the boy asks if they should be a couple. Embarrassed by the question, Makoto chooses to time leap to unsay his words, and starts to avoid Chiaki in school. After that, her aunt cautions her to be careful with her powers. Makoto soon finds that her actions definitely have an effect on others. After some days, he finally realizes she cares about Chiaki and regrets missing the previous chance to accept his confession. Makoto tells her aunt that she will no longer play with other people feelings by time leaping. Makoto is however satisfied that she finally achieves something good, while noticing the number tattoo has changed to '01', indicating one remaining leap.

Makoto goes back to the science room, hoping to figure out who entered the room that day. However, her attention is diverted when she gets a message from Kosuke, who borrows Makoto's bike to take Kaho to his Dad's clinic. This fills Makoto with dread, because she recalls how she nearly got killed by the failed brakes of that bike last time. An unexpected call from Chiaki delays her plan to warn Kosuke by phone. When Chiaki suddenly asks her if she has been time leaping, the shocked Makoto uses her last leap to undo his question. As she finishes the call, Kosuke and Kaho ride by, and Makoto chases after them in a mad panic, watching as Kosuke struggles to brake, before both he and Kaho hit the guard rail, flying into the path of the oncoming train. Makoto shuts her eyes in desperation, pleading for time to stop. Opening her eyes, she sees the world is frozen in time, and Chiaki is there to meet her, with her bike in hand.

Chiaki then explains that he can time leap as well, and that he took Makoto's bike to save Kosuke and Kaho. Chiaki then explains that he is from the future, and that he originally travelled back in time to see a destroyed painting, but has been kept waiting as it was being restored. Chiaki mentions that the strange object that Makoto saw on the floor in the science lab was a charger. This gave Makoto the ability to time leap. Because of the use of all the time leaps, he has no way to return to the future, and because he has revealed these secrets, he tells Makoto he has to disappear. When time unfreezes again, Makoto finds Chiaki has vanished.

The message of the film is that basically, people tend to continually think about the consequences of our decisions and think that if we had the opportunity to go back to the past and change things, we would do it. We think that is very easy, but we do not realize that things would be altered. In reality, the problem is that society is always aware of the past and stops living the present. In the film, Makoto for thinking a lot about the past and her decisions, stops living the present and, in fact, ruins her future with the boy she likes. For this reason, the message that the movie wants to convey us is that, sometimes, we have to live life without thinking about what could have happend and without eating our heads because if not, we are missing the life of the present and possibly the life of the future.