MovieChat Forums > Toki o kakeru shôjo (2006) Discussion > What happened? Movie lost its groove at ...

What happened? Movie lost its groove at the end

posted 11 years ago by eric-wyche
1 reply | jump to latest

I'll start by saying on the whole I enjoyed this movie. I watched the english dub, which I thought was really good, but I understand some things can get lost in translation when you do this. If I missed anything major please clue me in.

Let me briefly touch upon the things that made this movie great: The animation, direction and the character design by Yoshiyuki Sadamoto were all top notch. The humorous atmosphere and sensitive tone were agreeable as well.

As the movie progressed the tightly knit story span out of control. The most offensive scene being that Chiaki Mamiya is revealed to be a time-traveler from the future and the time-travel rule discrepancies brought up by it.
From this point on any rules or consequences brought about by time-travel in this anime's universe are moot. Which really takes the wind out of the sails if your movie is about time-travel consequences.

The rest of this movie is a love story between:

Chiaki "Why am I here?" Mamiya - Time-traveler from the future. Whose motivation to go to the present is to observe a painting and yet he never sees it. Despite having ample time, and opportunity to do so.

and

Makoto "Doofy-McDoofus" Konno - While being generally selfish and negligent, begins learning the consequences of abusing time travel. Except in the end there are actually no consequences. As long your plot device love interest bails you out.

I didn't like this. I can't decide if it was more rushed, or forced.
She only cared about him once he started dating that other girl. Which is pretty fickle.
Should I chalk it up to cultural differences, or lazy writing?

Or maybe im way off base here. What did you think?

[–] plasterbrain 10 years ago

You have a point!

I couldn't address why Chiaki didn't use his "ample time and opportunity" to see the painting... It's one of the most fussed-over ambiguities in the movie.

>I can't decide if it was more rushed, or forced.

It does definitely shift focus after that scene and change the context of time travel from reliving the past for personal or social gain to a more science-fiction shaping of history (there are a couple of ominous comment dropped about the fate of civilization -- no nature, no baseball, etc). Maybe it wasn't so much rushed as it was an attempt to loan Auntie Witch some mystery/purpose in the story and to provide more serious, irrevocable consequences for Makoto -- losing her power and her friend(s) -- so she can attain greater personal growth?

At the end, she and Kosuke are playing ball with the shy girl and her friends, instead of maintaining their tight-knit circle, for example. Though that does make Chiaki seem like a parasite, which I know aligns with a certain plot theory (to some extent he is the antagonist).

>no consequences

Makoto doesn't get off scot-free with some the large things, since she does lose a love interest and has to cope with keeping his strange secret and relying on a promise that's at best, flimsy. She does get to wipe the slate clean with her own life and with Kosuke's, but to me that just aligns with the movie's theme of second chances (and third, and fourth, and fifth...). It's kind of like a little slap on the wrist so she learns to get her priorities straight -- e.g. spending more time with the people she loves versus reliving allowance day to buy expensive treats.

I would agree that this somewhat deflates the magnitude of the tragedies that could -- and can -- happen by chance, such as the Kosuke bike scenario. However, that event was caused most directly by the broken bike brake, not necessarily her time traveling. Even if she hadn't ever leaped, someone would have gotten hit by the train, because the bike was always busted.

Contrast this to Makoto's relationship with Chiaki; she used her leaping to get out of being in a relationship with him, because she wasn't emotionally mature enough to face the conflict of being asked out. I think she was implied to have a crush on Chiaki the whole time (and to some extent Kosuke -- it's a weird love triangle thingy) in her conversations with Auntie, but she was afraid to ever mess up, even if she could retry the scenario over again. Because this error was "internal" rather than "external," she was reprimanded by the powers that be.

...
I got carried away again, huh