The film is about Makoto Konno who has just experienced the worst day of her life, which ends with her dying in a train accident that led her to discover that she have the ability to go back in time, and re-do things which later be known as the Time Leap.
Because of this newly discovered ability, she used it to ace exams, make her bad day good, sing karaoke repeatedly until she losses her voice and fix some situations that you might find embarrassing like being confessed by her friend, Chiaki that he likes you.
However, she later discovers that her actions affect others. She later on discovers a tattoo in her arm and she concluded that her ability to time leap is limited. She uses the last of her time leaps to help Kaho to express her feelings towards her friend, Kousuke. But when she knew that it was the day that she almost died, and Kousuke along with Kaho is using her brakeless bike, she wants to prevent the event from happening, causing her to loose a time leap on a event that never happened.
After Chiaki contacted her and talked about her if she knew anything about Time Leaps, she carelessly used her last one to redo the event. However, little did she know that Kousuke and Kaho are going to the same road that she almost died. With no more Time Leaps, can she stop them from dying? That is what I want you to find out.
On to the review, if you haven’t read the original novel, you don’t have to worry cause the only link that the original novel has with this film is the assumption that Makoto’s aunt was the original protagonist of the said novel and of course, the Time Leaps.
Watching the film with no background knowledge whatsoever about the original novel never gave me the hard time in understanding this film. The film is about Makoto who just learned that she has the ability to leap through time and undo the things she wants to undo that is the basic plot of the film. This plot gets a little complicated when Makoto learned that her time leaping escapades affects others. The perfect example was the student that Makoto switched places with in their cooking class. What adds the complication is that her ability is limited!
One of the best things about this film, since it involves time is the plot twist at various points in the film. One of the my favorite plot twist is the one at the near end of the film which I will not tell you guys due to the fact that it is the best plot twist on the said film!
Aside from the plot, the animation was stunning. It was something in my own opinion, quite advanced in Madhouse standards that once again, they did a great job with the animation. It was fluid and the use of CGI gels well with the 2D animation found in the film. Those CGI clock gears are stunning that in some point in watching it, felt like it out staged Makoto’s presence in the entire film.
One of the things that I liked about the film is the soundtrack. The soundtrack fits well to the hyperactive time traveler girl that we have in this film! The musical scoring was brilliant, and it perfectly fits in the time traveling sequences that this film has. Also, the melancholic score the film has fits properly with the sad scenes.
The fun thing about the series is that they played a lot with the time traveling concept that we have a couple of scenes of the scenario with various variations of it, which is fun to watch because you can compare and contrast those said scenes. Boy, watching Makoto’s worst day then later, watching her fixed her worst day was fun to watch.
Since this film focused on Makoto, let’s talk about her. She was in my opinion, the standard shonen lead hero except that she is a girl. That when I first saw her, I thought he is a guy due to her haircut! She is energetic, carefree that she doesn’t care what will happen to others due to her actions till the later part of the film when she learned her limitations. The twist that she had limitations spiced up the film, with that in mind, she must be careful in using her time leaps. This twist gives Makoto the needed character development. Because of this, she uses the last of her leaps to help Kaho to express her feelings towards Kousuke, Makoto’s friend. This is where we saw her good-natured side.
Since of the most important plot twist happened when she has fewer leaps, I will only sum up to it into this. The last plot twist gave Makoto the perfect period with her character.
Overall, this film really deserves the praises the critics gave to it. It was a fun film that even the original author of the novel loved it! He also thinks it is the perfect sequel of his original work. If the original author loved this film, then you have more reasons why you should watch it.