The Girl who Leapt through Time - English Dub

Returning to the blog with my favorite anime movie seemed like a good place to pick up where I left off.  With the kids older and also apt to complain about having to read subtitles I figured it would be a good idea to show them this incredible piece of animation.    
                Quick recap: Makoto Konno is a 3^rd year high school student trying to figure out what to do with her life after graduation, but she’s a bit of a slacker.  All she cares about is idly flowing through her days concentrating on eating and hanging out with her two best friends, Kosuke and Chiaki.  After a day filled with unfortunate accidents and clumsiness Chiaki ends up getting the power to leap through time at her own will.  Hiding it from everyone but her aunt, she redoes anything she desires; second helpings at dinner, 5 hour long karaoke marathons, acing exams, etc.  But when those around her start to be hurt through her constant time leaping she begins to question her choices.   When she needs the ability to rewrite the past the most she discovers she can no longer use her ability.  Now she faces a loss that she doesn’t know if she can deal with, with or without the ability to leap.

                I absolutely love this movie.  I feel this is a great story for people who may not even be into anime.  Aside from the common themes found in school life anime and typical cultural reference points, this is a story that audiences not familiar with Japan can easily relate to.  It’s a story of lost love and the difficult choices one faces when growing up, which everyone has experienced.  Add in the fantastical idea of being able to redo periods of your life to change their outcomes to suit your wishes and you have even more relatable material.  The only thing keeping this from a wider audience is the fact its anime.  If it was redone live action with an American cast, it would probably see some modest box office returns, but wouldn’t be any sort of door buster.  The idea that it would take that kind of treatment to reach a wider audience is a bit sad and telling of xenophobic tendencies.

                With that said, after having only watching the fansub version of the movie since it came out and my distaste of English dubs I was mildly hesitant to watch this…especially in the first couple of minutes where the voice actors mangle Japanese words…like yukata and Makoto.  But once I got over the mangled words and went with the flow the voice acting proved its self to be pretty decent.  In fact it made me remember what it was like in the 80’s and 90’s and appreciate how far the industry has come and what its capable of doing.  Not saying that I will prefer the English dubs over the subs, but I think from now on I’ll be more open to the idea of a dub being quality as well.

                In short, whether the moves in dubbed English or Japanese it’s still my favorite anime movie and one of my favorite movies in general.  I’m a sucker for creative uses to time traveling and romantic comedies.  This is a movie you don’t have to be embarrassed about showing to your non-otaku friends.