December 2007

Have you ever gotten the chance to turn back time? To get a second chance at anything, even death?

Makoto Konno, a normal Tokyo high school girl, who spends her free time with her friends Kousuke and Chiaki playing baseball, has been given the chance to “time leap.” In order to time leap the person has to literally leap in order for the time travel to take place. Makoto was actually killed when the breaks on her bicycle failed to stop her from hitting an on coming train.

Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo
4 & 1/2 Stars

Have you ever gotten the chance to turn back time? To get a second chance at anything, even death?
Makoto Konno, a normal Tokyo high school girl, who spends her free time with her friends Kousuke and Chiaki playing baseball, has been given the chance to “time leap.”
In order to time leap the person has to literally leap in order for the time travel to take place.
Makoto was actually killed when the breaks on her bicycle failed to stop her from hitting an on coming train.

She sort of awakens a ways back on the street after running over an older woman who she had run over instead of dying.  The woman only slightly injured and Makoto still alive, she runs off thinking of the miracle that just happened. Makoto’s aunt, Kazuko Yoshiyama, referred to as Aunt Witch helps Makoto understand this power, and gives her advice. Kazuko was once also able to time leap, hinting that she had used it in relationships, where as Makoto uses it to right everyone’s wrongs, she uses it to be on time for school, to get perfect scores on tests and to resolve conflicts.

Makoto begins to hone her time leaping abilities, attempting to fix the outcome of several situations. Her friend Chiaki confesses to liking her, and she had no idea what to say so she time leapt back to try to change the outcome, eventually just skipping the conversation all together. She then realizes that time leaping has a cost, for every time she time leaps the actions still play out but another person could possibly be taking her place. She also learns that she will not be able to time leap forever, a tattoo shows up on her arm as a countdown to how many times she can time leap back.

Her friend Kousuke turns down a girl who liked him, and Makoto thinks he should give her more of a chance. Only wanting to help, Makoto leaps across the border several times to change the story with them, only leading to both of their deaths. Makoto was unable to save Kousuke and his girlfriend on her own since she had impulsively used her final leap to prevent a phone call from Chiaki asking how many times she has leapt through time. Luckily, Chiaki time leapt to bring back Kousuke and his girlfriend. Chiaki then explains to Makoto as time stands still, that he is from the future, and that he must leave, and when he goes back to his era Makoto finally realizes that she loves him too.

Makoto realizes that Chiaki’s time leap to save their friends allowed her to have one of her time leaps back. Makoto uses her final leap to leap across time to the very first day she received her powers and talk to Chiaki before he finally leaves for good. He travels back to his era, leaving Makoto with the words, “I’ll be waiting for you in the future.”

Well, I think this is one to be seen. This slice of life, romance, sci-fi anime movie is definitely unlike other romances. The romance is broken up in so many ways, making it comical. Makoto tries to use her time traveling abilities to solve many conflicts, most of them caused by herself. It is especially funny when she gets the fire extinguisher thrown at her by a boy who took her place in the Home Economics class fire. The love story in it is sweet and untold until the very end, but you can definitely see it earlier than verbally said. Chiaki, Kousuke and Makoto are a great set; definitely remind me of my friends.

Enter a worn torn empire that has it’s Government corrupted and it’s citizens on the brink of revolt. It’s been three years since the end of the war against the Republic of Frost. The Army is trying to bring peace and give aid to their citizens, but to no avail. Thus, the Imperial Army State Section III is created with the sole purpose to bring aid to the common folk. The setting of this series takes place in a Post World War One setting in Eastern Europe with many resemblances to Germany and the surrounding countries.

Pumpkin Scissors
4 Stars

The Imperial Army State Section III, also known as the “Pumpkin Scissors” is lead by a Noble named 2 LT. Alice L. Malvin. In the series, the population is divided into 3 main categories. The Army, the Nobles, and the Commoners. The War brought famine and poverty onto the Commoners, and hardly affected the Nobles’ way of life.

The Pumpkin Scissors team is often the butt of all military jokes. They are considered the easy team because they only do simple tasks such as distributing food and calming the Commoners, rather then doing and offensive military tactics.

The show starts off with the Pumpkin Scissors unit, led by Alice, on their normal runs of scouting out villages and sending back reports. When they scout out a group of Army deserters that terrorize the local towns. Her Warrant Officers, Officer Martis and Officer Oreldo , advise her to take the easy route and report the location and wait further orders. However, due to LT Alice’s head strong attitude and determination, she decides to lay siege to the marauders. They travel to a local town to seek reinforcements and and advise on the enemies fortress. The stumble upon a tattered soldier that is well over seven feet tall and has scars all over his body. He is Corporal Randel Oland from the 901-ATT unit. Not much is known about him at first, besides the fact that he is a giant man that carries a lantern around with him. Corporal Oland gives his aid to the Pumpkin Scissors unit and they successfully take down the insurgents. They report back to base and make the Corporal the newest member of the unit.

The rest of the series is dedicated to showing how the Pumpkin Scissors is criticized by everyone as either a waste of time, or just a propaganda unit for the government. They start facing very dangerous tasks that actually put their life in danger, rather then their simplistic missions in the past they start to face many challenges where Corporal Oland has to use his mysterious lantern and a large pistol he carries around with him. The strange lantern he carries emits a blue light when opened. Many say it’s the Will’O the Wisp and it possess the body. He rarely uses the lantern but it seems to be a deep secret that make the Army go through a lot of trouble to hide his past.

Along one of their fairly unorthodox missions, they stumble upon what seems to be a huge conspiracy that tries to make the Commoners revolt and disrupt the Noble’s activities. The Pumpkin Scissors unit springs into action, led by their fearless leader in hopes to save a war torn empire.

Overall this was a very clever series. I really liked the post World War One references that where placed in this series. Many references to trench warfare and the first usages of tanks on the battlefield. The setting of a destroyed Germany was also a pretty neat thing as well.

The series and unit being named “Pumpkin Scissors” was kind of a let down for me. With a name that awkward, there should be some deep significant meaning behind it. You find out about 10 episodes in that the pumpkin represents hard times with it’s hard outer shell and the scissors are a special tool used for harvesting pumpkins. Alice links that to their job to cut through the hard times and hard lies to expose the truth and finally bring peace and reconstruction to their beloved Empire.

As for the characters, they all seemed to have their odd quirks that made them unique. Lt Alice’s background of being apart of the more well known Noble Families makes her job extremely difficult. Commoners usually call her contradictive and no good. She tries really hard to be strong and lead the under funded, and commonly the butt of every joke unit.

Oland has almost his own subplot with his past. It’s revealed that the 9 Units are a taboo and where kept top secret using the code name Invisible Nine. He was part of a experimental unit designed to take out the new threat of tanks with a 13MM Handgun known as the “Door Knocker”. They run into other 9 Unit survivors, all usually being used for evil gains and to demoralize the commoners. His gentle nature is unfitting of his size and purpose in the Army, making it a desperate moral struggle every time he uses his powers.

Pretty much a World War One buffs anime. The story line is also very twisted and riddled with many unanswered questions that leave the series open up to other series or sequels. Well worth the watch!