Here we go again,

going off track.
I got myself started with Japan Countryside Guide last week, but I’m afraid I’m going off track again.
This is all because I went to see this movie called Toki o Kakeru Shojo which is a hidden boom in Japan right now.

Do any of you guys know this movie?

It’s a sequel to the movie with the same title shown in 1983, only that this one is an animation whereas the initial one was a live movie. Anyway, it’s shown in only nine theaters in Tokyo including the ones that aren’t really showing it yet but is going to. At this very moment, there’re only three places where you can see it.
As a country as a whole, 43 theaters is showing /are going to show it (not to mention it was 17 until a little while ago... in the entire country, believe it or not) and so, that naturally makes this a mini-theater mini-film.
Nevertheless, it proves to be the longest-running animation hit in theaters this summer, when there were other big ones like Gedo Senki (Tales From Earthsea), Brave Story (another good one), Pokemon and Cars all shown in more than 300 or 400 cinemas.

It wasn’t even advertised in a huge manner to begin with, but rumors and reputations by those who went to see it spread surprisingly rapidly, and well too, especially on the Internet. So some of you outside of Japan may have heard about it.

I was one of those who were influenced by word of mouth (or net) and being a film person I had to go see it. It was actually my second time heading to the theaters when I really got to see it: the first time I went there a couple of weeks ago, I had know choice but to stand and watch it even though I was there half and hour before the movie started. Now, I knew it was popular and one of my friends told me that he went twice and he couldn’t get a seat so he never got to see it. So I did expect some line even thought it has been a month since my friend went... but holy... I haven’t seen theaters be like that for a loong time. This is when I committed to take revenge.

Anyway, with the lesson from my last visit I learned to get there way ahead of time. Forty-five minutes before showing. I wanted to get there earlier, but with work that was the best I could do, and with great luck I slid myself into the line to get a seating ticket.

Um, this has become a long preamble... think I’ll go into the contents tomorrow.