The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is a 2006 full length Anime film. Hosoda Mamoru directed the movie as his first independent work with production by the legendary animation studio Madhouse. Considered as a sequel to the novel of the same name by science fiction writer Tsutsui Yasutaka (the same author of another turned into anime hit novel, Paprika), the Anime has a new story and characters. Sharing only the premise of the original about a school girl who gains the power to leap through time and ends up trapped in a loop, repeating the same day over and over.
Hosoda Mamoru at Studio Ghibli
The director was influenced by Miyazaki Hayao and Takahat Isoa since his days at elementary school. The two minds that later would found Studio Ghibli together with producer Suzuki Toshio were part of the reason to convince a young Hosoda Mamoru to work on Anime. In 1989, Studio Ghibli was recruiting trainees to work on its new production Only Yesterday, masterfully directed by Takahata Isao. The same director of the anime Anne of Green Gables. Hosoda cited this production based on a European classic as the most influential anime of all in his career. Being Takahata an unusual director who did not start as an animator, this taught a young Hosoda to see Anime beyond drawing.
He took the recruitment test for Ghibli but didn’t make the cut. Later that year he received a letter from Miyazaki Hayao himself praising his talent. He eventually got into Toei animation after graduating from Kanazawa Arts College in 1991. But Ghibli will give him a second chance. And in the year 2000 he started working on the production of Howl’s Moving Castle. Things didn’t go well and the film ends up directed by Miyazaki Hayao. You can read more about the production of Howl’s Moving Castle here.
Hosoda Mamoru met producer Saito Yuichiro
Hosoda returned to work for Toei Animation. Since his original projects were rejected he worked directing series episodes for Toei. Around the same time, Maruyama Masao, then president of all mighty Madhouse Animation Studio, acquired the rights to adapt Tsutsui Yasutaka’s popular novel The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. While still working at Toei, Hosoda Mamoru started working on the plot for the film. After directing One Piece: Baron Omatsuri and The Secret Island he resigned to Toei and started working as a freelancer with Madhouse. Saito Yuichiro produced the film. And Sadamoto Yoshiyuki of Gainax fame, was the characters designer.
The Girl Who Leapt Through Time: Japan Academy Prize for Animation of the Year
The film was released on 15 July, 2006. It was shown at only 21 theaters in Japan. But it was acclaimed by the audience and became a hit. After a humble start it led a forty week run over more than a hundred Japanese cinemas. Numerous overseas festivals included the movie in its line up and invited Hosoda to participate. He became the new face of Japanese cinema for Western film critics. Some of them even called him “the new Miyazaki Hayao”.
Hosoda Mamoru found a life time work partner in the producer, Saito Yuichiro. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time was his first work as a producer. And his first collaboration together. Later, the two will work on Hosoda’s first (and best?) original movie, Summer Wars. And founded Studio Chizu.