First Impressions / Natsu no Arashi!

「時をかける少女」 (Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo)
“The Girl Who Leapt Through Time”

From the quirky introduction dialogue between Kanako and Yayoi to the “getting up early” preview line, it looks like the series is finally going back to its roots.

Throw in some time slip comedy revolving around “which came first, the chicken or the egg?”, animation quality on par with usual levels, midriff shots of Arashi, and we have all the nuances of the first season that I enjoyed. In the first half, we had everyone helping Yayoi try to find someone to connect with so that Kanako would stop sucking Hideo dry for enough energy for two ghosts. While that was amusing enough with the appearance of the ideal candidate, Yamashiro Takeshi (Sugita Tomokazu, who’s also the “salt please” guy), and the eventual connection Yayoi made with his pet dog, things took a turn for the better in the second half when Arashi had no idea what Hajime was referring to about the time they first met.

Time slip back to that day, and we see the Hajime of the past trying to deny Arashi’s ghostly existence with any scientific explanation he can pull out of his ass. Despite Sayaka’s earlier suggestion that Arashi was “doing it” with Hajime until she passed out and totally forgot about it (which was hilarious), it anticlimactically turned out to be a simple hug and a cheap feel that made Hajime fall for Arashi. Regardless, the timeline theory they use here — which assumes that everything is already set in stone from the past to the future — is always amusing to me. i.e. The idea that Arashi traveled back in time because Hajime brought up what happened when he only would’ve brought it up if she traveled back in time in the first place.

This is an example of the prevalent predestination paradox (a.k.a. causality loop) we see in the series. The other one we often see is the ontological paradox. For whatever reason, the concept of time travel and the potential paradoxes that come with it has always interested in. It just racks my brain, so I’ve continued to enjoy Natsu no Arashi because of that. The fact that they mix it in with humour and idiocy (e.g. spoiled milk) makes it even better.

While I wasn’t intending to write about this series anymore, I just couldn’t help myself after (finally) seeing everything I liked about the first season in this episode. If the next one compels me to do the same, I’ll probably say a few words about it. On a separate note, the episode title “Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo” seems to refer to the movie of the same name, so I decided to translate it as such.

 

Preview

13 Comments

  5. I’m glad someone at RC is covering this series, thanks. It’s nice to see we’re back to some of the time travel, the time paradox humor is great. Also, img 33.
    @Cecelia: Hopefully never. =P

    Meery
    Reply

  6. Meery:
    Image #33 was definitely one of the nicer shots this episode. It’s not often we see Arashi kind of annoyed either, so she was pretty cute there.

    Also, I don’t know if I’ll be blogging about this series regularly after this episode, but we’ll see I guess.

    divine
    Reply

  7. hahahahaha @middle preview pic! they got FU@ked up hahah! that would make a great wallpaper. . .however something is stopping me from engaging this series “like an invisible force field stopping me from dbl clicking the media icon” same with last 2 eps of basquash..wtf is up wit dat? fear of commitment??

    BROOKLYN otaku
    Reply

  11. I love the introduction dialogue. It makes the show feel like the characters are real and there are a lot of interactions we don’t see. I get involved in the shows I watch, I guess.

    Mark
    Reply

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