The films of Nobuhiko Obayashi occupy a particularly satisfying and surprising niche within Japanese cinema. His filmography is bracketed by dazzling works that blend the exuberance of adolescence with discoveries of historical suffering—starting with House in 1977 and concluding with Hanagatami in 2017 and Labyrinth of Cinema, which was released months after the director’s passing in 2020.
During the 1980s, Obayashi directed several adaptations of sci-fi books and travelogues for entertainment conglomerate Kadokawa. Now, boutique Blu-ray label Cult Epics has released The Girl Who Leapt Through Time in 4K, giving audiences the opportunity to discover an underrated gem from a director who crafted fantastical teen films like no one else, and which predated Mamoru Hosoda’s work.
How was The Girl Who Leapt Through Time received upon release?
Obayashi had an early success with young audiences in 1977 with the strange and exhilaratingly original , a haunted house film featuring a cast of lively and sensitive teenagers and dizzying optical effects. In the early ’80s, Obayashi was attempting to settle into a more commercial style without sacrificing his cinematic daring, and he struck gold with the time travel romance The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (also known in English as The Little Girl Who Conquered Time). While it wasn’t Obayashi’s first adaptation of popular juvenile literature, it was his most successful—the film was one of the highest-earning Japanese movies of 1983, turning its lead, Kadokawa idol Tomoyo Harada, into a star. It remained notable, not least because it was set in his birthplace, .
Why is The Girl Who Leapt Through Time important to see now?
In the film, Kazuko Yoshiyama (Harada) is cleaning after class with her two friends, Goro Horikawa (Toshinori Omi) and Kazuo Fukamachi (Ryōichi Takayanagi), when she passes out in the school laboratory after inhaling lavender-scented smoke. From then on, the young student begins to experience time in an abnormal manner—a speeding cyclist zooms through the air in front of her, and during archery class, her arrow hits the target before she releases it.
When the entire day resets to the previous one, Kazuko excels in class because she knows her teacher will spring a test on her, but she also worries about loose tiles and unexpected earthquakes harming her friends before they occur. She grows closer to the sensitive, intellectual Fukamachi, falling in love with him without realizing how he’s connected to her time-slipping condition.
Obayashi’s films traverse a rich range of emotions—his heightened, energetic, and earnest sensibilities enable him to delve into surreal fantasy and deftly shift between comic and melancholic tones. By adapting the popular 1967 novel by Yasutaka Tsutsui, the director was able to incorporate surreal, magic trick-like editing and absurd optical and chroma-key effects. At the core of the story is a young girl on an unconventional journey of discovery, and the story of past colliding with future is reflected in the world around her; Onomichi’s narrow streets, stone steps, and tiled roofs feel firmly historical, but the prominence of springtime blossom trees and colorful lavenders evokes a constant sense of renewal and possibility. The film’s notably impulsive form of time travel is perfect for characters navigating the trickier stages of adolescence, and the later, tragic revelation that Kazuko’s most poignant childhood memories have been supernaturally altered is a clever parallel for how imperfectly we process our personal attachments during our most inexperienced years.
The “love triangle” aspect of Tsutsui’s novel is prominent in the story’s most well-known adaptation: Mamoru Hosoda’s 2006 animated film, which brings the story into the 21st century as a loose sequel to the novel. , but due to an English dub and Hosoda’s continued success as a director, it continued to attract new audiences.
The animated version expands on the relationships and dilemmas of high schooler Makoto (Riisa Naka), who gleefully and frivolously uses her time-travel powers to erase classroom mishaps, play matchmaker with her schoolmates, and have a delicious family dinner a second time. There’s far less striking atmosphere than Obayashi’s film, but a much busier relationship plot, and the way Hosoda plays with the line between serious and silly reasons for altering the past makes Makoto’s self-actualization funny one moment and serious the next. And yet Hosoda works hard to match the powerful, overwhelming emotional pathos that Obayashi conjures with ease.
Despite the cult status of House, fewer of Obayashi’s films have reached an international audience compared to Hosoda’s, but this live-action version of The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is a striking, confident precursor to the animated version, as it effectively captures how mystery and sci-fi enhance the adolescent experience through Obayashi’s unique style.
What new features does The Girl Who Leapt Through Time Blu-ray have?
is a brand-new 4K restoration directly from the camera negative, with remastered Japanese audio tracks and improved English subtitles. Cult Epics commissioned two new visual essays for the blu-ray release, one by Obayashi scholar Alex Pratt (who has also recorded a commentary track) and one by his biographer Max Robinson—the perfect introduction for anyone wanting to delve into his unpredictable body of work. There are also archival interviews with Obayashi and a featurette on lead actress and music idol Tomoyo Harada. For early buyers, Cult Epics includes a reproduction of the original Japanese 24-page souvenir program that accompanied the film’s 1983 release.