Makoto Konno is seventeen, bad at cooking, late for everything, and spends every afternoon playing catch with Kosuke and Chiaki. One day she falls in the science lab onto a walnut-shaped object. On the way home her bike’s brakes fail at a railway crossing and the train hits her, and then she is back on the bike, before the crossing. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is the film that made Mamoru Hosoda, and it is a sequel to a 1960s novel told from the next generation.
What Happens With The Leaps
Makoto uses the leaps for nothing: ten more hours of karaoke, eating the pudding before her sister does, avoiding a boy’s confession. Her aunt, who was the girl in the original story, tells her it is normal. Then she notices the number on her arm, counting down. Every leap she wasted was one she will need, because someone else has been using them too, and the railway crossing is going to happen to someone else. The last leap is the one that matters.
Why It Is The Starting Point For Hosoda
The running scenes, Makoto sprinting through Tokyo with her arms flailing, are the signature. The sky and the summer are drawn in the flat bright style that became his. Riisa Naka plays Makoto and later played her in the live-action version. Chiaki’s last line is the one people get tattooed. It won every animation award in Japan that year.
Watch The Girl Who Leapt Through Time On GoMovies
98 minutes in HD, Japanese with subtitles. Press play above. Free, no sign-up.