+ The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (Theatrical Cut) (2025) (Sub) + x265.mkv +
+09/07/2025
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+ Time waits for noone.
++ It's a common refrain through Mamoru Hosoda's first original + film. (OK, it's not strictly original, being based on a + novel, but this helps distinguish it from the one piece film + and digimon short films he made beforehand). It's a phrase a + lot of the characters seem confused by. It's unclear if this + is because it's in English, or if it's because they're + teenagers and aren't really comfortable with the passage of + time yet. That's kind of the point, of course. +
++ As The Girl Who Leapt Through Time ages, though, it has taken + on something of a different meaning. The film came out in + 2006, when I was but 12 years old. The characters use gorgeous + keitai phones. Makoto, Chiaka and Kousuke play baseball + in the summer heat. Yuri and Koho harbour secret crushes in + the schoolyard. Crickets chirp in the evenings. +
+It's nostalgic.
++ The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is the first anime I ever + watched that wasn't Pokemon, Digimon or Beyblade. I was 15, + going through a puberty I didn't want, in a brand new + relationship with a girl I liked a lot. We sat in her living + room and she showed me this film, this gorgeous, pale-hued + dream of a summer half the world away, the winter's bite + chased away by that haze on the screen. I fell in love + immediately. +
++ A lot of Hosoda's magic is taking a high-concept premise, but + then using it to find the magic in the mundane. Makoto is a + time traveller, but she's a daft one, using her leaps to eat a + pudding, to catch pitches, to avoid an awkward confession. + She's an everygirl, unburdened with responsibility, her whole + life ahead of her to try over and over again. She's everything + I wished I could be, then. I didn't know why I identified so + much with her. I guess I do now. +
++ We broke up soon after. I still don't really know why - I was + probably too immature, or maybe she knew there was something + wrong with me that I wouldn't work out myself for another half + decade. But the film stuck with me, and every rewatch takes me + back to that winter evening. Our first kiss had only been a + few days prior - my very first - and I still wasn't sure how + to handle being a 'boyfriend.' I mean, I still don't, that's + why nowadays I'm a girlfriend. But Makoto's love resonated + through me like a tuning fork, that pure love that for a long + time you think can only happen on screen and in books. She + promises to come running for Chiaki, to find him through time + himself. I wondered what it felt like to know you'd chase + someone to the ends of the Earth like that. +
+I'm lucky enough to know that love, now.
++ I always come out of a Hosoda film with a renewed appreciation + of the beauty of the world. They're beautiful stories, but + they're also films that obsess over both natural and man-made + majesty. The flowers and the bees. A tower of clouds. The + diffused sunlight through a classroom window. A level + crossing. It makes the world you live in feel so much more + bright. +
++ There's a line, from The End of Evangelion, one that never + fails to make me cry. It's the same sentiment as this, this + reverence for the world around us, that we should take time, + every day, to truly see that beauty. "As long as there + is the Sun, the Moon, and the Earth... it'll all work out." +
++ Our world gets harder and harder to live in, every day. I + spend so much of my time worrying, whether it's over people I + love in America, terrorised by a regime that grows more + terrifying by the hour, or whether it's at home, living as I + am on TERF island. But works like this, art about normal + people just doing their best... It reminds me we can all do + that, too. +
++ I feel honoured to have seen this film in the cinema. I often + feel like that, seeing films that I didn't or couldn't see in + theatres the first time around. I think the cinema is kind of + a sacred place, I guess. It makes a movie whole, complete. +
++ Time waits for noone. So we should make the most of it while + we still can. To everyone out there who might need it - and + everyone who doesn't, too. I love you. It'll all work out. +
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