Funimation Licenses The Girl Who Leapt Through Time Anime Film

Funimation to ship film in "special home video edition" later this year
FUNimation Entertainment announced via press release on Wednesday that it has acquired the North American rights toMamoru Hosoda's The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (Toki wo Kakeru Shōjo) anime film. Funimation will release the film in a "special home video edition" later this year to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the film's theatrical release in Japan.

Funimation briefly listed the title on its online store last month, before removing it. At the time, Funimation stated that the listing was an error and that it did not have the rights to the film.

Funimation describes the film:



After waking up late, flunking her pop quiz, embarrassing herself on numerous occasions, and starting a fire in her home economics class, high school student Makoto Konno figures she's just having one of those days. And just when she thinks she's made it through, the brakes on her bike malfunction putting her on a collision course with a speeding train. The life-ending accident would have been the perfect end to the worst day ever, but the strangest thing happens—she leaps backwards in time.
After unlocking her new ability, Makoto does what any teenager would do. She re-takes tests, corrects embarrassing situations, and sleeps in as late as she wants, never thinking that her carefree time travelling could have a negative effect on the people she cares about. By the time she realizes the damage she's done, she only has a few leaps left to make things right.

Hosoda and Madhouse Studios' award-winning The Girl Who Leapt Through Time film opened in Japan in 2006. Bandai Entertainment released the film on Blu-ray Disc and DVD in North America before closing its North American distribution in 2012.

The film is based on Yasutaka Tsutsui's 1967 original novel. The book has also been adapted into multiple live-action works.

Funimation has licensed Hosoda's The Boy and The Beast film and plans to release it in theaters nationwide starting on March 4. Funimation also released Hosoda's Wolf Children and Summer Wars films in North America.