I have become attracted to anime feature films lately. First 5 cm/s now this. Anyway. I don't watch crap, and it's about time I actually said something about this movie. In short, recommended. It's a romance/comedy/sci-fi film and a definite must-see if you liked 5cm/s.
The story is about a young girl, with short hair that looks like a tom-boy who is just another average girl on the block and doesn't attract as much attention as Haruhi or Ryoko. Actually, when I first saw her, I thought she was a boy. But it turned out she was a girl, and I actually think she's kinda cute after seeing the way she becomes surprised. Yes, I have a thing for short haired girls. The person in the middle is her, Makoto Konno, the main character of the story. To her left are her two best friends Chiaki and Kousuke. They hang out together quite often.
Makoto, being the average girl she is gets caught up in daily ups and downs, but in the story she actually gets some really bad luck and causes a huge mess for herself. Little did she know that after all that, she would get into an accident that would change the day, or rather days around her forever. While cycling back from school, she realized that the brakes of her bicycle weren't functioning. The resulting accident caused her to discover the ability to leap back through time. Well, I'm not gonna spoil the whole thing, so just watch it. The girl on the left is her sister by the way.
The people in this story are definitely much better drawn than in 5cm/s, and reminds me of Spirited Away. The sceneries are also relatively satisfying and the story is really captivating at times. I had a few moments watching it when I really chewed away at my chips really fast because it was pretty intense seeing how things tended to unfold as Makoto continued to go back through time to try and fix her problems, and run away from reality. Though, sometimes it ended up with the same thing happening no matter what she did, or she would cause something really bad to happen and she would quickly run back and try and make it right again, usually with disastrous results.
After a long and great ordeal of trying to fix what she has done wrong, at the same time attempting to not get into trouble herself, Makoto starts to realize the little things in life that she was always oblivious to. Eventually, with the help of her aunt the Witch, she finally starts to understand why things happen the way they happen, and take much wiser steps to make the world a better place for everyone. However, little did she realize that someone must bear the suffering that she never wanted anyone or herself to have.
Makoto realizes that time waits for no one, except for her, and that caused her to nearly rend her friendship with Chiaki and Kousuke, as well as her close friend Yuri. She tries her best to help everyone, but realizing that it all just ends up in a disaster, nearly killing Kousuke and his new girlfriend. Chiaki however, steps in and helps her out and tells her all the reasons for everything that happened, which came as quite a surprise. The story ends with a slight cliffhanger, something that could warrant a second installment or could just leave viewers pondering.
Overall, the characters were pretty well developed, and the supporting characters were really welcome spices to the mix. The show was hilarious at times, and sad at times, giving the impression that time really went by and things really did change. It also showed how sensitive people can be at times and how insensitive they can be too. It seemed that the characters also weren't too good at keeping secrets, which I think nearly spoiled the story. But they did manage to make up for it by introducing little elements in the characters' passion for certain things that really made the story quite wonderful.
In all, great story, great characters and nice background. It managed to make me think quite a bit, and become curious as to what they meant when they said certain things. The story takes things slowly, and reveals small things part by part. Due to her ability to travel through time, Makoto's past is not revealed as flashbacks, but as visits by herself. Then things start to skip, but it's perfectly alright because they skipped all the right parts, bringing you to the very thing you want to see next. The story is very well directed overall, and I'd give it a 7/10