Time Travel Girl

"Edutainment" series, ones that both exist to teach and to entertain, are something not everyone enjoys. While I think Time Travel Shoujo would not be completely immune of this from some people, I do think it's possibly the strongest Edutainment series I've seen to date, and could still be something those that generally don't care for them would enjoy. ~STORY~ (7/10) Believe it or not, this is easily the strongest part of this series, as it actually manages to tell a quite adept story all things considered. While it's not immune of plot holes and logical flaws, as nearly every time travel story is, the other aspectsmanage to prevent it from being a frustrating mess. For what I can only assume is an anime directed at younger audiences give it's educational touch, it throws some relatively darker elements at the viewer in some unexpected ways. While the specific single episode stories with each scientist Mari visits can be hit or miss, the over-arching plot manages to remain interesting and keep the viewer hooked from a fairly early point in the anime. ~CHARACTERS~ (6/10) With a few exceptions, the whole cast is quite likable. For younger audiences they seem like they'd be quite easy to relate to and provide as decent "role models", which is good for an Edutainment anime, while for older audiences they play off the events and lessons well to bring you back to younger days. When it comes to how they work with the more serious, over-arching plot, they do tend to shine a little less though, as most fall into fairly standard roles. And while the primary antagonist brings about some pretty adult themes for an anime directed at this kind of audience, he still doesn't manage to be anything all that special compared to most villains in anime. Still, the characters are not by any means bad, they simple just don't stand out as much as they could've. ~ART~ (4/10) The art and animation of this series can get pretty lazy at times. When characters are just standing around and talking it's usually not that noticeable, but in any high action moments it becomes much more obvious as the inconsistencies begin to shine through. Heck even the opening sequence, which usually in anime has some of the best animation, is quite questionable. It doesn't manage to distract from the enjoyment of the show too much, but once in a while you take notice, and there's really never any moments of impressive animation to make up for it. ~SOUND~ (5/10) While I don't have much negative to say here, I also don't have much to say positively either. The voice acting and music do their job and that's about it, nothing more or less. The only thing that really stood out to me is one insert song that sometimes plays before a character travels through time. It's actually quite nice, but it loses it's charm after you've heard it a few times. ~ENJOYMENT~ (6/10) Despite some iffy aspects to the production side of things, this was still a really nice watch. I didn't have terribly high hopes for it going in as Edutainment stuff generally doesn't have a lot to offer, but the surprisingly well written story it offered outside of those educational elements definitely deserves a bit of praise. Hopefully we see more anime like this in the future, as it might be enough to open the doors of anime as a medium to more audiences.

History of physics - the anime. An edutainment show through and through on magnetism and electricity. Story - 7 Girl's father went missing. Girl discovers father's time travel machine and goes back in time to find her father with the help of her neighbours. Evil organisation is hunting down her father as well. Not the most original plot, but it's a mere device to explore the history of science in every episode, with a real life explanation of how the theory works at the end of the episode after the credits. The writer made it as close to history as possible, and kept the small details (Thingsyou never knew you never knew) like Michael Faraday forgetting to credit Davy and Wollaston for his thesis, Ben Franklin arguing with the local pastor over installing lightning rods on churches, and Thomas Edison marketing the first commercial toaster as CEO of GE. I'm giving the writer props just for the research alone. That said. This isn't just science. This is history AND science. There are some parts which only adults will understand and make little sense for modern kids like Mari, like the existence of uneducated black slaves in 1800s America, and the suppression of heretical scientific discoveries by the Pope before the Enlightenment era. Art, Sound - 6 (Fair) Standard fare. Nothing particularly good or bad stands out. Character - 7 Nothing too annoying in the beginning considering the main characters are just children. Over the series, they learn the value of hard work for different motives altogether, and how hard work applies to everything in life. MC starts to like science but she's bad at science. The message is clear. If you start loving something but you're bad at it, just start learning and you'll get good at it. Another kid likes football but his grades are bad, and he got banned from football until his grades pick up. After some whining, he picks himself up, studies hard to improve his grades and learns how awesome it is to play all the football he wants without adults breathing down his neck over bad grades. Overall - 7 I'm giving it an solid "7" just for this breath of fresh air in the anime industry which lacks educational shows like Time Travel Shoujo. I'm hoping this show will encourage more anime studios to start developing more educational shows in the future. It's a passable family-friendly show to watch with your children if you've studied physics in high school and want to show them how science can be fun too. In fact, after every show, you should go to the local store, buy the same stuff they used and conduct an experiment at home and watch your kids go "Woah. Science." It'll make the world a better place for science.

Kids Show. well, adult may be able to relate it because it's basically about the history, specifically on how the Electromagnetic waves or electricity was invented. (woo) Characters are well-made. but i hope the focused more with them, ...(T_T) like, they put more importance to them. story line - 7/10. they just focus on the story of those inventors on how they created their inventions. (just read your history/science books then .. lol :D) though ,it's kind of a refresher for me either, well its been a long time since i read my science book., i dont even remeber their works. voice actors --- wellsince i love Toyosaki,aKi, (sphere group -all of them), thumbs up :D

Time Travel Girl at the start was a pleasant surprise among the Summer anime season. By the end, I have some major criticisms, but still, I enjoyed the ride. It had a likeable set of characters and interesting premise. It was strict to formula, but was never overly ambitious. Each episode left me feeling satisfied and a want to continue, for the first nine episodes at the least. Then, I just trekked through the rest. The formula is usually one episode focused on one of the eight scientists, though sometimes two for a certain few of them. There's a certainsituation or issue happening that concerns the protagonist Mari in the present. Her issue will "coincidentally" match with the scientist in the past, even sometimes with the scientist giving her words of wisdom, providing the lesson of the day. Lastly, when she returns, she takes the words to heart and moves forward. It's pretty straightforward in it's approach, not surprising since this anime is targeted for kids. However, even as mostly a kids show, the series had elements even a 26 year old like myself could invest into. The level of accuracy in the portrayal of the history presented is astounding, really showing the work on the writers' part. The only disappointing one was the last one where the story shifts to resolving a subplot that's been built up throughout the series. The characters are also enjoyable. The main duo Mari and Waka are easy to get behind. They have enough personality to where they aren't just a stereotype of a overused cliche. Even the businessman Mikage who serves as the main antagonist has shades of a personality and isn't a caricature one-dimensional bad guy, that is until the climax when he's degraded into the latter. However, for this storyline to work while taking into account child viewership, some contrivances were taken. When the time traveling occurs, the people of the past that witness Mari or Waka suddenly appearing in a gulf of blue light react only with a seconds worth of shock before accepting it, and take the idea they are from the future at face value at first before accepting it later on. The dress of both Mari and Waka in the past only gets a few comments that it's shameful due to the short skirt, but it doesn't draw as much attention as you would think it would. And again, this is so the show can focus on what's intended. There's plenty of plot convenience as well. I already mentioned the coincidence on how each issue introduced in the beginning of the episode manages to coincide with the scientist the protagonist would be meeting later on. In addition, Mari, for the first six trips, always accidentally activates the time machine. Shun, the oldest of the group and Waka's brother, is the one to suggest Mari shouldn't tell her mother about the time traveling. Furthermore, no sane wife would still be married to a husband who she has not seen or heard from for 3 YEARS. The climax is also pretty weak. The antagonist who was morally grey beforehand jumps of the slippery slope to be the "bad guy" of the series. He's evil because he wants to use the time machine for profit, and intended to use the protagonist as a hostage against her dad to make him cooperate, but then midway, he changes his mind to instead prevent her dad from returning, which doesn't make sense since he himself said he needed the dad to work and maintain the time machine. And even that becomes unnecessary as plot happens to make sure one of them can't get back anyway. Guess who? The guy ends up being a poor antagonist, as in the end, he really doesn't do anything, and is just an excuse to add conflict in the story where there were other alternatives. For instance, actually have the future change because of the interventions of Mari, Waka, or Mari's father. Mentioned before, it's pure plot convenience, how nothing they said or did changed the future e.g. appearing right in front of people after time leaping, letting the scientists know they were going to make a difference, the clothes they're wearing, showing off future technology, etc. And then the confrontation concludes with Mari recalling each scientist, and preaching essentially the theme of the series. Again, it's marketed towards kids; it's understandable, but comes off as a forced way to spread the show's message, one that was already iterated quite a few times already throughout the series. Also, there's the blatant diversion off of Mari's dad's misuse of the time machine by making Mikage act caricaturely evil. Even if some good came out of it and he fixed any time inconsistencies he unintentionally caused, Eiji was still time hopping for his self interest to witness major scientific discoveries and in the end, these events lead to his family having no contact with him for three years. The anime tries to lesson it with time travel "logic" by the one we meet being the one from three years ago and it's this version that returns to the present. Also, it tries to mitigate it by having the wife unleash her fury at him. However, all of it is to simplify and handwave the main issue, not to mention adding the plot hole of why Mari's dad from three years ago doesn't return to his timeline but instead jumps to the present. For a kid's anime, Time Travel Girl is fairly average. It wants to provide education and inspire children to take an interest in science. In that aspect, it does things well. After each episode, there's a cute segment with chibi versions of Mari, Waka and Mari's dad that explain what was discussed in the episode in more detail, with real life presentations and examples. On the other hand, it also tries to add a deeper story subplot with Mikage in an attempt to add tension, but fails in this regard. In the end, he becomes an inept villain meant to act as scapegoat to divert attention away from Mari's dad, and the confrontation ends with a speech that wasn't natural to reiterate the story's theme.