MovieChat Forums > Toki o kakeru shôjo (2006) Discussion > I hated the last 1/3 of the movie so muc...

I hated the last 1/3 of the movie so much...


It was just so incredibly disappointing for me. The first hour was an absolute work of art... time travel isn't a brand new idea but this was such a fresh take on it, with a unique story told in such a skillful way... it's just an absolute work of art.

And then- it's like the writer just ran out of creativity. Inexplicably, Chiaki can stop time. Somehow (and the audience is left only to guess about it), he sends Makoto back in time with her memory intact. For no clear reason this allows her to have one of her leaps back, and for no clear reason Chiaki does not have any memory of any of this taking place.

Really? After that absolute work of art in the first hour, we're given nonsense like this, without even the courtesy of Chiaki explaining to Makoto what he's doing and how it works? What a cop-out... even a bad Star Trek episode will at least come up for a reason for why they were able to save the day.

And during this section, we also get a pretty silly reason for why Chiaki first went back in time... to see a painting? I love the idea that he went back in time and then used up his charges to spend more time being with his friends, don't get me wrong. But the original trip was just for a painting? This really distracted me from the movie and made me think "what was the writer thinking, that's such a weird reason".

So anyway, after we swallow those bitter pills, we get a few nice moments of Makoto doing good deeds, and then the final scene.

Does Chiaki finally get to see the painting? Do we get a heartfelt goodbye and farewell? Do we get a conversation like "we could have had a great relationship together, but it just wasn't destined to be?"

Nope. We get Chiaki returning to the future (and it sounds like a distant future), promising to meet her there. Ummm... what? That makes no sense, and completely ruined the moment. What does this even mean? When Makoto is 50+, she's going to meet a 17 year old Chiaki?

I wish the movie had just ended with Kousuke getting hit by the train and dying. Everything was perfect up to that point.

It was just so disappointing to see something so great get ruined like that. It's as bad as the sequels to the Matrix. But at least the Matrix can stand alone by itself as a movie... but The Girl Who Leapt Through Time can't.

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I agree, though I am not as dismayed by the ending as you are. The thing that I loved about the the beginning was its simplicity. Makato is screwing around with time traveling and learning about the consequences in a very floaty curious way. When it turns out that Chiaki was a time traveling alien it sort of hurt the cute down to earth nature of the film with these complicated sci-fi rules and whatnot. I still liked the ending emotionally, but as a whole it was a bit vague and too discordant with the original setup of the movie.

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And then- it's like the writer just ran out of creativity. Inexplicably, Chiaki can stop time. Somehow (and the audience is left only to guess about it), he sends Makoto back in time with her memory intact. For no clear reason this allows her to have one of her leaps back, and for no clear reason Chiaki does not have any memory of any of this taking place.


I've always thought that Chiaki just went back in time and met up with the alternate Makoto. He mentioned something about stealing the bike himself so Kousuke couldn't. This could be an okay ending for me, and it's in line with the type of time traveling that was depicted earlier in the movie.

The part that gets me is how this alternate Makoto thought she had zero leaps left. She should have no knowledge of this just like she had no knowledge of the accident and deaths.

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The part that gets me is how this alternate Makoto thought she had zero leaps left. She should have no knowledge of this just like she had no knowledge of the accident and deaths.

I agree! This and how exactly she was supposed to see Chiaki in the future are the two things that bug me about this otherwise wonderful movie.

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I totally agree with you on this, except for one thing... I wouldn't have wanted Kousuke to die. He was the best character & made it worth watching for me (at least he had sense unlike the other two).

I think it should have ended with Chiaki disappearing in the crowd and never seeing her again. And he should have erased her memory like he was supposed to. The live action film version is completely different, but at least it gets the bittersweet ending right.

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Bump...finally watched this move after it was recommended to me so many times. The last 1/3 of the movie did indeed suck. Such a random side-plot.

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