Why does Chiaki say to Makoto at the end..."I'll be waiting for you." What does that mean and how is it possible? He's the one who would be able to go back to the future and then get another charging device so that he could re-visit her in the past. So shouldn't he have said, "I'll be back for you"...??? I didn't get this part? Please someone explain.
share[deleted]
Ok, these are not my words, but when I read this person's explanation, it made a lot of sense ... unfortunately (I would have prefered a more romantic ending, but I guess I don't have to believe what I read.)
"For those of you who thought the ending was beautiful and "want a sequel", you need to watch the anime again. And I'm not just saying you missed a pretty obvious plot point, I'm saying the sequel to this anime is essentially this anime! Do you remember the aunt who could *also* time-travel when she was young? Do you remember her occupation? Art restorer! And not just any art restorer - the art restorer who has been working on Chiaki's painting for years. The art restorer who could once travel through time and whose heart was broken by someone who told her to wait for him. Look, all of the events of this movie were clearly of Chiaki's design. The only unknown here is his motive for having the painting restored. But for those who still don't get it, here's how it goes:
Chiaki, person of a distant future, wants this certain painting restored, but restoration of fine art takes a long, long time (evident by the amount of time the Aunt has been restoring the painting, and yet it still is not finished). He goes back to the earliest known time that the location of his painting is known. He finds a high school aged girl who is about to graduate and doesn't know what she wants to do with her life (no strong outside ambitions). Then, he 'accidentally' loses one of his time devices in just the right place so that the girl gains the time travel abilities. Having no strong ambitions, she wastes most of her charges on trivial things. Along the way, Chiaki lures her into loving him. Then, after she runs out of charges, a critical event happens that makes her wish she could go back and change it (like the accidental loss of a friend).
At this point Chiaki 'reveals all': that he's the cause of her time traveling, everything about the painting, and the fact that he used his 'last' charge to save her/prevent the terrible event/etc. Afterwards, he disappears telling her that it's because he's broken the law about revealing time travel to people from the past (IMPORTANT) and she now wishes she could have him back, sick with love for something she now knows she can never again have (don't we always want most what we can't have?), and sick with guilt over being the cause of his inability to return home.
Eventually, she realizes that the events of her final leap were reversed by Chiaki and so she still has 1 remaining charge. Thus, she uses it to go back in time to a point where she can accept his confession of love (likely close to the time of the initial incident ensuring she doesn't alter the future too much beyond this painting business...). There, she reveals all she knows and assures him that he can go home (out of concern that he won't ever be able to again) and that she will take care of his precious painting so that he can see it again. Of course, she's secretly hoping he will do the obvious thing for someone in love (which she 'knows' he is, even though he hasn't at this point revealed that to her), and say “No darling! I can't leave you! I shall stay in your time with you, forever, and love you!” and so on, and so on, and so on. But nope – he actually already has what he really wants: Someone to devote the rest of their loves to restoring his painting.
Now, because the restoration of this painting will take longer than a single persons life, and also because his original target may lose interest and move on, he has to continually baby the painting all the way to his time, art restorer by art restorer. So, he goes back and repeats the process with another girl. Rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat. My friends, this is one of the most sadistic endings to a chick-flick anime I've ever seen. Sure, it's been sugar coated for all of you who are easily blinded to what is actually going on, but in reality this man is a terrible con artists, guiding victim after victim into wasting their lives for his selfish ends. Truly a marvelously thought out anime plot: Much more sophisticated in the end than the beginning would suggest."
Lengthy, not pleasant, but what do you think? Could be? Could definitely be.
(BTW, this was posted by drbold from the veoh.com comments after part 5 of TGWLTT)
@OP
what he meant was that he will wait for makoto to get old & meet him in the future......
@delaford
i personally dont think that is correct!(its not that i hate these kind of twists!)
if what you are telling is correct then all the emotional scenes in the movie wont make sense to me(especially those after the aunt reveals about her love)...& i would simply call the movie of bad direction.....
i cant fathom what you said for two reasons:
-the aunts boyfriend has black hair while chiaki's are orange(if you look closely at the photo)
-there is no evidence in the entire movie which shows that chiaki is cheating on makoto
if you would have said that the aunt's boyfriend is chiaki's father then i might have believed you....(but thats just me)
i also wanted to point:
"Eventually, she realizes that the events of her final leap were reversed by Chiaki and so she still has 1 remaining charge"
actually she has 1 remaining charge because when chiaki crushed the walnut thing it released the remaining charge of walnut (which otherwise couldnt be utilized) & gave it to its users....
Inevitablesudesh: That doesn't make sense if Chiaki meant that he was going to wait for Makoto to get old and meet him in the future. The time period that Chiaki came from was most likely at least 100 years into the future. So if Makoto waited all that time, she would be either dead or really really old in which case, that's just creepy. I just don't get why he said that at the end? Was it a translation error from Japanese to English?
Delaford: Interesting and twisted hypothesis, but I don't think that's true. And besides, that still doesn't answer my question of why he says what he says at the end..."I'll be waiting for you."
Delaford - that is genius - thanks for taking the time to post. Unfortunately it does makes the most sense so far.
A ginormous but though - the painting has been restored by the aunt as shown at possibly the furthest time in the future shown (the next week at most). And the aunt, I thought that she'd had her heart broken by her own time traveller - but would she really want her niece to sacrifice her life to the same guy she had? I think she'd warn Makoto and burn the painting in rage.
Accepting the devilishly twisted ending or just reading it straight this is not a beautiful ending - unless you happen to think that this girl improbably invents the time travel nutshell - even then that would be most of their lives spent apart, while the fly-by-night git probably has a girl in every time-zone.
I want to believe that all unresolved Manga endings have a clever and not immediately apparent meaning but right now 'I'll be waiting for you' is just another vague and flaky cop-out and worse it makes it seem that Chiaki doesn't have the guts to be honest and is giving her false hope.
EDIT - this film is a kind of sequel to the novel - which has been adapted many times now in Japan. The aunt is apparently Kazuko Yoshiyama in the original story - her time-traveller was called Ken Sogoru so it seems the couples are four different people. So considering Chiaki is the one with the technology (and from the 27th century so waiting/aging is not an option) he deserves a good kicking.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Girl_Who_Leapt_Through_Time
on the dvd i have the director says there was originaly no dialogue and that this was then added so i guess you can say it's a "just another vague and flaky cop-out".
Though personnaly I don't mind the line,took it as saying he'd see her through the painting that will now exist in his time because she helped preserve it.
I also don't think that just because they won't see eachother it means the ending isn't beautiful,makoto has really grown as a person and is a lot more mature and in the last scene you see that after all is said and done,she's quite happy.
Giving a young impressionable teenager false hope is not a beautiful ending - if you have any doubts about where Makoto is heading look at her aunt.
Makoto has grown - but only to a higher level where she is still mixed-up.
She might have grown as a person, but she will inevitably be crushed by this experience and more than likely end up like her aunt.
shareDelasford/
Haha that is one smart interpretation and makes a lot sense, but I don't think the directors intended it to be.
The anime's supposed to be a chick-flick... hence the romantic images and cutesy soundtracks and loveable, endearing characters. An ending like that is TOTALLY out of the place.
Interesting theory.
When the Aunt said that the painting was painted during famine and war, this to me shows that the painting is a symbol of hope.
Chiaki (later) implied that it was destroyed before he (his future self) could see it. There are implications that he 'broke the law' by travelling into the past, but he did it because he really wanted to take a look at the painting before it'd be destroyed before his time.
Now that Makato became aware of the painting's significance, she promised him she'd protect it, no matter what. In other words, she'd not let it destroyed during a future war-and-famine event.
There are many clues that there would be another war-and-famine event in twenty years' time. So Makato will become an art restorer and curator, like her aunt, and she'll devote her life to the protection of the painting - the symbol of hope - through something devastating. I mean, the war-and-famine event could change the concept about time and erase the life as we know it (remember, baseball no longer exists in the future).
Perhaps she'll meet Chiaki at a half-way point after the war; when the past and the future meets that conjures the present, somehow. I don't know how this could work, but that's the idea, maybe?
Maybe it's just a symbolic comment to each other while knowing they won't see each other again, because Makato wasn't supposed to know about time leap anyway.
About the painting:
The woman in the painting is the heart of the universe therefore 'Hope', but I don't know if anyone noticed this but there are three seasonal flowers - winter, autumn, and spring (die, born, blossom) - in the painting. These flowers appear at Makoto's house, walls, and some places around her.
Significantly, only 'summer' is left out of the painting and the story except in Chiaki's comments about 'summer'. I don't know what this could mean, but it's worth pondering.
@McVillian...I didn't notice that before about the painting, but then if that painting was from the past and Chiaki is from the future, how could he have painted it if that was his painting? If he did it, it would be in his time era. Right?
I'm so confused.
I'm not sure why you got the idea that it was Chiaki's painting because it isn't.
As Chiaki (or Makato's aunt; I can't remember) explained to Makato when they were in the museum, looking at the empty space on a wall where the painting should be, it was painted to represent Hope during the first war-and-famine disaster. The painter presumably died, but the painting survived long enough to be restored by Makato's aunt.
But as Chiaki says, it didn't survive the second war-and-famine disaster, which is why he (in his own time) never saw it in person and the reason why he travelled into the past (Makato's present day).
He tried to mess with the timeline in order to see the painting, but he actually never got to see the painting, which means his own past is left unaffected. Although Makato promised she'd protect the painting no matter what, it's possible Chiaki knows she'll fail and that the painting WILL be destroyed anyway.
Perhaps poetically, Makato become Chiaki's symbol of 'hope' instead of the Hope painting. So the fact that the painting will be destroyed doesn't matter any more, because Makato is 'hope' now - regardless of whether he'll be there or not.
----edited---
It's just a speculation because I haven't seen the story of Makato's aunt yet. Seeing it or reading it will probably change my mind. :D
--
Last film seen: Bushinsaba (2004)
Lol oops. I know he didn't paint it. I'm not sure why I said that.
shareThe aunt was not "conned" by Chiaki. The aunt was the character from the original novel from which the anime is adapted from.
In the original novel, Kazuko (Makoto's aunt) gains the ability to time leap also and she winds up falling in love with a time-traveller from AD 2660 (where Chiaki is likely to be from as well, so there goes that theory of waiting for an old Makoto to show up one day) who erases her memory (remember that Sunday that was over before she knows it?) before he leaves.
Since Kazuko wasn't conned by anybody, there's no real evidence that Makoto is being conned as well, so everything else is baseless speculation.
Until further explanation is offered, we'll have to take that line just for what it is--Chiaki's promise that they'll one day be reunited.
In case you're wondering how, I believe it's as MDSR said--that Chiaki was referring to Makoto's future and that he'll come back one day. That or he'll bring Makoto to his future. Needless to say, that's just baseless speculation as well. The movie's writer probably intended it to have an open ending. After all, Chiaki's reasons for wanting to see the painting are also unrevealed and is left open to interpretation.
[deleted]
The reason why this interpretation doesn't make sense is because the Aunt has almost finished restoring the painting Chiaki was looking for. In the movie, he even knows it'll be ready in a few days but refuses to stay around because the girl has found out about his time-traveling abilities. There's no point for him to trap the girl into restoring the painting since he knows it will be restored in a few days.
share^^That. Not to mention that the Aunt was already restoring the piece of artwork by the time Chiaki started to "manipulate" Matoko.
It's one thing to speculate on the events in a film, it's quite another to fabricate a speculation that is contradicted by events in the film.
You'd feel cocky too if you were full of myself.
[deleted]
Very interesting hypothesis, but what if Chiaki isn't form the future, but from the past?
He doesn't explicitly talk about an era of femine and war (if I'm not correct), but his so called future is very gloomy. The painting, which obviously plays a very important role in this movie, was made in an era of famine and war.
What if Chiaki made that painting back in his era because it reminded him of Makoto, which would mean that the painting would already exist when he leapt forward through time?
Quite obviously the fact that Chiaki will disappear for revealing the future is a lie, because after Makoto turns back time and reveals everything to him, leaving him with the option to return back to his time, there are no further consequences. Unless Chiaki never returned to his time, but disappeared. (Although I would've expected more hints towards this).
So what exactly does the painting mean? I'm not sure. It's just speculation, but there's a girl depicted in it and the orbs may indicate what one sees when traveling through time.
In this case, though, the ending might indicate that once Makoto restores the painting she might discover something that only she could discover. Also, the words "I will wait for you" make more sense if he's from the past, though still not enough sense ;)
Also, the item granting these time traveling powers is a walnut, it doesn't look like a complicated futuristic device, nor did Chiaki carry any other futuristic items (such as a book with the sports results!). Might as well be some magically enchanted object.
Granted a few things contradict this: In the entire movie no one moves forward in time (except in the silly explanation by Makoto's aunt). The leap through time shows a bit of a futuristic cogwheel background and the number of her arm doesn't look old, though on the other hand "auntie witch" who knows about time traveling and isn't amazed by Makoto's stories might indicate it's magic, rather than technology. (This might also be attributed to Makoto's aunt not taking the time traveling bit seriously).
So yeah, we'll probably never know :D No sequels to this one though, I think it has had a proper ending that leaves you to think about something.
ok, what delford posted makes a lot of sense, for those of you who still have the dvd, take a look around 1hr17min20sec into the movie (although this might be different depending on your DVD, i downloaded a DVDripped version on BT) for those of you who cant find it, remember when chaki said "no one in the past can know abt time travelling i have to go back ... blah blah blah" and later on she goes and talks to her aunt, around that time, the "camera" zooms into a picture of auntis high school years, and theres a picture of her and two guys standing beside her. the taller guy, although the face is not drawn, has a similar figure/hair to chaki...
delfords explanation makes a lot of sense, but that is an elaborate scheme to make someone restore/perserve a painting -_- i mean, im sure he can come up with better ideas to see the painting in the future..
No, you're both reading too much into it. The theory has nothing to really support itself, so no, it doesn't make any sense at all. The picture is already explained--it's the original story of "The Girl Who Leapt Through Time," certainly not involving Chiaki at all.
shareHoly *beep*, if true, which it seems to be, this is friggin genius. Missed it completely!!!
Somebody here has been drinking and I'm sad to say it ain't me - Allan Francis Doyleshare
No, it's not "friggin genius." The "theory" (if you want to call it that) has absolutely no basis from the story whatsoever. It's just something he pulled out of his ass and he twisted the details to suit his "theory."
Really, all the important details of the story are given straightforwardly. The deal with her aunt, that's all from the original story and is ultimately just a minor reference. It doesn't have anything to do with Chiaki and it's a complete stretch to assume that it does.
could you give a more brief info about the ending? i mean so many people are baffled by the last words chiaki said.
shareI think the oh-so-important painting might be a big piece of the puzzle.
Furthermore i'm sure he genuinely loved Makoto, and both have genuine intentions to see eachother again.
I think that the painting holds a secret about time and time travelling (as makoto already mentions at some point)
Also the vortexes and universe-like pictures included on the painting could point to this.
So i think once Chiaki has seen this painting, rules about time-travelling or time-travelling itself may change and/or it will give him power/knowledge so that it will become possible to see Makoto again.
The painting and the witch-aunt may also help Makoto herself to start time travelling, who knows? It might make her start 'running' again.
But no way he was *just* using her or anything, it was clearly meant that they genuinely like eachother. Even if he is using her as you pointed out, even if he would be some kind of incarnation or son of the aunts time-traveler-lover, all of that doesn't mean he couldn't have truly fallen in love with her, after all he has a teenage body containing teenage hormons :)
He is simply sure that they will somehow, someday find a way to meet again, and so is Makoto, by joking about the running, she makes clear she'll do whatever she can to make a reunion possible, even if at that point neither one exactly knows how yet.
Have a little trust in lurrrrve, buddy ^^
[deleted]
[deleted]
LOL!! dude that was one of the best interpretations I have read on this forum! i give you my respect! LMAO i'm still laughing at "My friends, this is one of the most sadistic endings to a chick-flick anime I've ever seen"...i like your interpretations better than the rest!! kudos! AHH HAHAHAHHAA
shareOh My God!! It all makes sense now. I kinda understood that there was something darker beneath with considering the Aunt Witch caharcter and her story and her advises to Konno. But I still dont want to believe this. It is so selfish and sadistic and melancholic and many things at once. I makes you question the nature of love. Thank you for sharing this.
http://tinyurl.com/3kzhuvx GENTLEMEN!! Shall I win BEST ACTRESS?
It seems your story makes real sense. And I think you're probably right. But what I don't understand is why he said 'I'll be waiting for you' when he said to that other woman 'I'll come back for you.' If Makoto really was just one of his victims then why wouldn't he say the same to her?
It could be because maybe they can figure out a way to meet somewhere in the future, but that still doesn't make real sense because there probably would be a huge age difference.
It's all quite strange, but it's truly one of the most amazing movies I've seen.
If that person (whose theory I posted here) has the right idea, then Chiaki saying, "I'll be waiting for you in the future" would be just another thing he did to ensure that Makoto would indeed want to keep restoring the painting.
Again, I don't know if I believe that Chiaki is a futuristic bastard or not, but if he is, then of course he would just be lying to Makoto.
:( Even though I don't know which theory to believe, I still love this movie. ^^
That theory was really cool and fun to read but it's impossible. No picture restoration would take that long. And that phrase about waiting - I think that was just a heart-warming stuff or something like that.
share@pokrishka: It's not necessarily about restoring the picture. The picture has to survive many centuries to get to the future. Makoto's aunt was supposed to restore it, and now that it's restored, someone simply has to continue taking care of so that it wouldn't get lost or destroyed or whatever.
shareMy own opinion is that Chiaki's future isn't too far from the present, less than a human life so Makoto might still be alive when the catastrophe happens.
Chiaki said that the painting had been destroyed/dissapeared right after the summer they were spending together, so not after auntie's death or Makoto's death at all.
If she finds a way to protect the painting from whatever was supposed to happen in this year's fall, the painting might be fine.
I don't think it fits Chiaki's character to choose some girl and manipulate her to keep a painting and wait after him for her whole life.
But sure I might be wrong, it's just that I've seen this movie 3 times and I always thought that Chiaki's future was near. The end of the world happened because of pollution or an other world war. 2050 :P
ok so i've had a long think about this because it really bugged and this is how the ending might work.
when makoto goes back to the past to tell chiaki all thats happened she says she's from the future, when she says this, i at least was taken aback because we think of the future as a long way away not just a couple of months.
so chiaki might one day (after talking to those he left back in his time) travel to makoto's not too distante future (so there isnt too much age difference between them) and stay with her there.
thats the only way i can make it work, i love the ending but wish they had said something explanatory, i would of perfered him to just leave her forever than give us this very ambigious saying.
That's actually a pretty good alternative MDSR - it must be what Makoto's hoping for, I suppose we have a choice and can believe like her or look at the aunt and shout at the screen that he's up to no good.
share[deleted]
As much as I wish that was right, I can't forget what Chiaki told her. In the future, from the era he's from. Baseball doesn't exist. So even if it was 15 years that he was in the future, there wouldn't be that much devastation or advanced technology.
sharei personally, am leaving it where it should and i want it to be, im making my own sequel in my head, they will be together in the future. end of my story.....
i LOVE chiaki!!!!!!!!!!!!
I wanted to add my interpretation because it's a little different than most...
I just finished watching it for the first time. I got the impression that Chiaki is coming from a future after some kind of catastrophe/tragedy has happened, and had wiped out a lot of people. This future could be only 10-20 years in the future, rather than hundreds or thousands. Because of this catastrophe, that's why there's no bikes (he mentions that this past timeline is the first time he's ridden a bike), why the painting was destroyed, etc.
So when he says "I'll be waiting for you...", he means it at face value.. he'll be waiting for her in the future, after the catastrophe occurs (only a short time away). And she will run towards it, meaning she will live life to the fullest until she meets him in the future.
It's possibile... riiight?
--Josh--
I could see it more a 'tragic' ending, in that they say they'll meet again, but they never will.
It's kind of that sad feeling you get at the end of movies like 'Roman Holiday,' 'Once,' or 'Spirited Away.'
It becomes a bit more touching knowing that you had this one encounter with a special person, but you have that moment to hold onto.
"Wow! The White House really is white!"
[deleted]
"I'll be waiting for you." I think it was meant to be ambiguous so that everyone could have their own interpretation. For example, it could mean waiting in the timeless afterlife, when people from all ages can meet and be at one. This is what happened in the ending of the romantic time travel movie, 'Somewhere In Time' (1980) with Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour.
shareThe whole point of an ambiguous ending is so that everyone can have their own interpretation. For example some people see life as tragic, some like to see it through eyes of hope, etc. May I suggest that your interpretation is just a reflection of your mental/emotional state when watching and analysing the film! Just my opinion :-)
share"The whole point of an ambiguous ending is so that everyone can have their own interpretation. For example some people see life as tragic, some like to see it through eyes of hope, etc. May I suggest that your interpretation is just a reflection of your mental/emotional state when watching and analysing the film! Just my opinion :-)"
That's so true, guy-mickel. But uggghhh I really hate ambiguous endings in movies like this lol. I really want one correct interpretation that we can arrive at with enough analysis. I often find these ambiguous endings somewhat disappointing... it's like... helllooo I don't get paid to write movies, so the writers should write the ending for us! Lol but yeah I know that's a really bad way to look at it, and these types of endings can also give satisfaction if you look at them in a certain way.
So... how did YOU interpret the ending? Hehe
--Josh--
> It's kind of that sad feeling you get at the end of movies like
> 'Roman Holiday,' 'Once,' or 'Spirited Away.'
or Millennium Actress, in spades: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0291350/ .
"This future could be only 10-20 years in the future, rather than hundreds or"
Might be the case, but do you think there would be a time machine existent then?
I interpretted it that Makoto or the painting had some significance in the future and Chiaki was trying to change things, he'd researched a time when everything could be changed. I don't know how correct that could be scientifically speaking. Perhaps Chiaki is travelling through the past to see if he could do anything small that could prevent the war or famine, without telling anyone of time travel of course. Maybe when he's managed to alter the future he will return to Makoto, so he will wait for her?
shareThe problem with such an ambiguous ending like the one in this film is that people look into it too much and try to manipulate scenes in the film so that the ending makes sense.
Just accept that up until the ending everything made sense and it was the writers mistake to end on such a terrible line that left the viewer confused.
Personally the ending really bugged me, but i am just going to accept that it makes no sense. Don't let it spoil for the most part a brilliant film.
Any remember, if the ending did make sense, then there wouldn't be so many people including me that got confused and bugged by it.
p.s. i don't think the aunt could time leap. She proved she was joking about it when she said she woke up on a sunday and before she knew it, it was evening. We;ve all procrastinated and wasted our day in bed wondering where the hours went.
Actually, Aunt Maho's comments about time leaping were direct references to the original novel, of which the movie is more or less a sequel. It's heavily implied that she's the girl who was the protagonist of the novel.
"You always know where the X-Men have been, because it's always on fire."
- Pete Wisdom
> Maybe when he's managed to alter the future he will return to Makoto,
> so he will wait for her?
"I'll return to you" would make a lot more sense in that situation.