So I’m still catching up on movies I’ve missed out on. This time it’s The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, loosely based on a book, released in 2006 and winner of several titles.

When the movie was released in Japan, it was to a small number of theatres. Not much advertising took place. But it did get great reviews and it’s reputation grew until the theatres were literally full. There were even people standing to watch the film, since there were no seats left.

This movie is a sequel-of-sorts to the novel, there are many references to the original which has left many viewers with the wildest of plot-theories, all of them nonsense because they didn’t know that this is a sequel. I haven’t read the book either, just knowing that this is the sequel is enough to make it a great stand-alone.

The girl who leapt through time is about a girl leaping through time. Duh. She discovers her ability during a near death-experience and then starts abusing it for her own gains. TGWLTT is obviously meant to be some kind of chick-flick, but fails at achieving this since TGWLTT doesn’t suck. Instead, we’re served an awesome time-travelling story, with focus on characters rather than time travels, neat animations and functioning music. It is somewhat fun at times but not really as sad or gripping as it tries to be. There are a lot of plot details left to you to think about and you’re left in the dark on a lot of things, but in a good way since this gives the movie a kind of depth and mystique.

I didn’t think that it was quite as incredible as it’s been made out to be, mainly because I expected some kind of twisting philosophical flick, rather than a romance. The music wasn’t all that great, but it was all-right, it’s mostly sweet J-pop and stuff like that, with cheesy lyrics and melodies. The voice actors had their flaws (the laughs!) but were good all-around. So, even though I expected something completely different, it worked out all right. I liked it and I would recommend watching it to most of you guys.