The Girl Who Leapt Through Time” is an award winning anime from Madhouse Studio directed by Mamoru Hosoda, who also gave us the more recent “Summer Wars“. Released in 2006 to rave reviews, theaters in Japan were soon thronged with folks wanting to catch the film.

“Tokikake”, as the film is called in Japan, brings back good memories for me, as I was then a film student studying in Tokyo, and also because many of the anime’s background settings were based on real locations in West Tokyo, where I used to lived. ( see this older article on anime’s love affair with train tracks. )

(above) The cover of the art book is designed to look like notebooks commonly used in Japanese schools, and I had a couple of them myself when I was in film school. ( see below )

(above) A major plot point in the film occurs at a train crossing, which is based on a real crossing in Nakai, West Tokyo on the Seibu-Shinjuku line.  ( see image below )

Character design for the film was entrusted to Yoshiyuki Sadamoto. If the drawing style looks familiar to you, that’s because he’s also the character designer behind the massively successful Evangelion series.  ( and also Summer Wars )

(above) A small section of the book contains interviews and a photo gallery of the actress who voiced Makoto. ( Naka Riisa )  To plug the film, a photo book tie-in was also released. ( below )

Stay tuned for part II, we’ll take a closer look at the background art and storyboards.

“The Girl Who Leapt Through Time Art Book” artbook details :

– Dimensions – 10.2 x 7.3 x 0.4 inches
– Softcover with jacket, 109 pages
– Color, b&w, in Japanese

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