Toki wo kakeru shojo [Girl Who Leapt Through Time] (2006)

RATING:	60%
FORMAT:	DVD

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Despite the cleverness and technical sophistication on show, this is not much of a movie. The story is rather slight and the characterization fuzzy. It simply states that teenagers cannot wait to grow up yet yearn for the apparent certainties of childhood. This is not enough to sustain a feature-length movie and yet the visuals certainly are impressive. Moreover, the mood of the entire animation is surprisingly mature despite the one-note thematic content.

This is a time-travel movie trying to be as emotionally sophisticated as La Jetée or Twelve Monkeys but not being able to overcome its need to appeal to a less-than-sophisticated audience. Although it gets the mysterious magical powers that young women seem to have from men's point-of-view, it does not exploit them as fully as it might. The desire to go back and right an error made is a common one but here it is trivialised to allowing a boy one shunned to express his love.

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