Girl Who Runs Through Time 2
Posted: March 25, 2009 Filed under: Girl Who Runs Through Time 6 Comments »Oddly, I had a hard time getting ahold of this volume. It’s been too long between the first and second volumes, because I’ve sort of lost the plot of the story other than the obvious theme of the girl being able to time travel. I remember the first volume being quite good though, and I was a little disappointed to see that the story wasn’t going to be developed past this volume since it comes to a close here.
Kazuko’s time travel abilities continue to be a mystery, but she uses them to help her friend get through a bad break-up in the first chapter (I didn’t quite understand why she had to jump back through time to do this, but her time-stop at the end was understandable). Later, the love triangle between Kazuko, Goro, and Kazuo gets some more focus, and some mysterious jump forward abilities that don’t belong to Kazuko are revealed.
The climax of the series is pretty great, though I can’t say I was all that happy with the conclusion. A crisis that will injure either Goro, who finally admits his feelings in a picture-perfect moment, or Kazuo plays out, and the time travel abilities seem to injure one or the other. Kazuko attempts to go back to what she assumes is the source of all her time-travel problems, but then all is revealed. The conclusion is only disappointing because one of the romantic interests is totally eliminated, and rather than getting together with the other, who is very sincere and a more normal match, it’s implied that Kazuko will wait for the other boy to sort things out. It’s a little weird.
All in all though, this is really a pretty good 2-volume series. It’s subtle and does some interesting and understated things with its time travel theme. I think it’s based on another property (novel, movie, anime, I’m not sure), and I imagine it making a better movie or drama series than it does a manga, but it’s really quite a good story for being an adaptation.
[...] Flower Garden (Manga Recon) Snow Wildsmith on vol. 2 of Future Lovers (Fujoshi Librarian) Connie on vol. 2 of The Girl Who Runs Through Time (Slightly Biased Manga) Casey Brienza on vols. 1 and 2 of Kieli (Graphic Novel Reporter) James [...]
I like this series, too, even though when I’ve thought about it more, it’s a bit creepy – altering her memory stuff – may be it’s just me. It’s based on a novel. I’ve watched the anime adaptation and it’s also pretty interesting.
That’s cool. For some reason, it struck me as drama series material. You’re right about the memory altering stuff though. One of the reasons I was a bit sad that the main character decided to go with the future guy was because all her memories of him were fabricated, whereas the classmate that liked her was the one she had the memories of growing up with. I mean… why fall for the faker?
If you have a chance, watch the anime version. I like it much better – it’s almost a different story. The gist is the same that the girl leapt through time.
Well, I kind of hope that she went for him because of the new memories they’ve made together instead of the fake one. I have to reread it to be sure. My heart went out to the other guy, even though I have a fetish regarding bi-spectacle guy ;) so I was really torn.
I don’t watch anime very often, but I might have to put this on Netflix. I liked the story enough to watch a movie version of it. Actually, looking at the history of the title, I’m a little surprised that the original novel came out in the 60s. Maybe that accounts for the somewhat simple and nostalgic flavor of the story, too.
I should clarify that the anime is somewhat a sequel of the manga/novel story (the main character in the manga is the aunt of the heroine in the anime.)
“… the somewhat simple and nostalgic flavor of the story, too.”
I like that.