I must say that with all the raving reviews of Toki wo kakeru shoujo, I was expecting a much better movie. I usually like anime, and I agree that on the technical aspect, this movie is near flawless: The style is nice and simple, the animation is excellent (though some 3d scenes look a little rough), the backgrounds are amazing, and the music is nice ( maybe just a little on the generic side). But I'm trying to be as objective as I can here.
However, I think that there are serious problems on the pacing and the story. The pace rushes through the beginning of the film, but halfway through, it abruptly stops, and very strangely finishes in a slow, anti-climatic fashion. In the same way, the story begins very lighthearted, comedic approach, and progresses nicely to a more serious situation building up tension, but there are some events in the end that simply mess up the whole basic idea. Being a time travel story it should be very careful with paradoxes but it ends up being overly complicated, with no explanations about several conflicts, and still doesn't manage to avoid inconsistencies. I understand that the movie is a part of a series of stories about the subject, and maybe reading them all, the final twists might make more sense.. But as a stand-alone story, its very far from coherent.
In my opinion the romantic comedy + subtle science fiction elements were enough for the movie to be very good. I must say I was very interested halfway through the film. But it tries to go further adding complexity and fails. By itself, the characterization and the script of the different situations is very good. It feels more natural than many other anime films I've seen, and I did find most characters endearing, -I do give the movie credit for that-. But I had a very hard time understanding why did the writers decide to go in a different direction by the end of the film, the main idea was already solid and very clear, story had progressed in an intelligent manner. Nevertheless after all that, it's as if the film had an identity crisis, and didn't know what goal to pursue. The tone of the final act clearly attacks all of the previous achievements of the movie, it takes itself much too seriously, throwing in an additional half baked sci-fi plot, transforming the whole experience into a melodramatic, confuse and eventually meaningless mess. Needless to say, I was very disappointed.
(and I did understand the movie, in case someone was wondering)
However, I give it a 6/10, because of what it could have been, and what it does achieve halfway through the movie.
However, I think that there are serious problems on the pacing and the story. The pace rushes through the beginning of the film, but halfway through, it abruptly stops, and very strangely finishes in a slow, anti-climatic fashion. In the same way, the story begins very lighthearted, comedic approach, and progresses nicely to a more serious situation building up tension, but there are some events in the end that simply mess up the whole basic idea. Being a time travel story it should be very careful with paradoxes but it ends up being overly complicated, with no explanations about several conflicts, and still doesn't manage to avoid inconsistencies. I understand that the movie is a part of a series of stories about the subject, and maybe reading them all, the final twists might make more sense.. But as a stand-alone story, its very far from coherent.
In my opinion the romantic comedy + subtle science fiction elements were enough for the movie to be very good. I must say I was very interested halfway through the film. But it tries to go further adding complexity and fails. By itself, the characterization and the script of the different situations is very good. It feels more natural than many other anime films I've seen, and I did find most characters endearing, -I do give the movie credit for that-. But I had a very hard time understanding why did the writers decide to go in a different direction by the end of the film, the main idea was already solid and very clear, story had progressed in an intelligent manner. Nevertheless after all that, it's as if the film had an identity crisis, and didn't know what goal to pursue. The tone of the final act clearly attacks all of the previous achievements of the movie, it takes itself much too seriously, throwing in an additional half baked sci-fi plot, transforming the whole experience into a melodramatic, confuse and eventually meaningless mess. Needless to say, I was very disappointed.
(and I did understand the movie, in case someone was wondering)
However, I give it a 6/10, because of what it could have been, and what it does achieve halfway through the movie.