It’s been a while since I’ve discussed a movie that I had finished watching. In fact, it’s been a while since I’ve watched an anime movie period and I would like to change that this year. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen Seishun Buta Yarou wa Bunny Girl Senpai no Yume wo Minai, so I don’t remember much. I only really remember Mai and Sakuta. Going into Seishun Buta Yarou wa Yumemiru Shoujo no Yume wo Minai, I knew that I would be confused at multiple points throughout the anime.
I will make one thing abundantly clear, though, in the anime (pre-movie), it mentions and ran on the premise that each character was suffering from a form of Puberty Syndrome, something I still do not fully understand. With that being said, Seishun Buta Yarou wa Yumemiru Shoujo no Yume wo Minai is in a way my worst anime because it combined Puberty Syndrome, something I do not understand and the concept of time travel which is somehow linked to the syndrome itself. Which is what the movie did.
As great as this movie was, it was also extremely complex and something I won’t ever understand given the topic’s nature. Changing past events that’ll alter the future will go back into the past once again when the future isn’t something that you (Sakuta) want. Sakuta, in the movie, is stuck between a rock and a hard place. We find out that the heart within his present body (the scarred chest) was also given to Shoko (future), a person he had to meet three years in the past. A transplant won’t have happened if future Sakuta doesn’t get run over by a car on Christmas Eve. As Sakuta (present) learns more about Shoko (future), he also meets the present Shoko, who is the younger version of the future Shoko and feels the need to save the present Shoko. This is when everything slowly starts to become more and more confusing.
This movie presents three timelines that are all played out in the movie.
- Timeline One: Mai sacrifices herself to save Sakuta from getting ran over. Mai then becomes the organ donor to Shoko.
- Timeline Two: Future Sakuta saves Mai from sacrificing herself, and also saves his past self from getting ran over, resulting in Shoko passing away.
- Timeline Three: Future Shoko creates an alternate timeline where she doesn’t meet Sakuta on the beach three years prior to him getting ran over. Resulting in him not suffering from physical and emotional pain.
What’s interesting about each timeline is that each one feeds into one another. When timeline one plays out, Sakuta is so distraught by the death of Mai that future Shoko tells him that he can save her by going back in time. This leads into timeline two, where the future Sakuta is in the past, he convinces Mai against going on a date with his past self, then future Sakuta sacrifices himself to save his past self. However, that results in Shoko not getting the heart transplant needed to keep living. This feeds into timeline three, where the older Shoko doesn’t meet Sakuta on the beach three years prior by creating an alternate timeline.
This timeline, of course, is what we see at the end of the anime where Mai and Sakuta are standing in front of a poster. A post that advertises a movie which Mai stars in, a movie about a girl with a heart disease awaiting a donor. Which I assume is a result of timeline three. Instead of Sakuta being Shoko’s donor, Mai, starring in that movie, allowed for the Shoko he didn’t meet to get the transplant needed to live, and that’s why we see her at the end. But since we’re operating under the third timeline, then that meets Sakuta wouldn’t know who the girl dancing along the waves would be. Until the tide coming in and washing up onto the shore causes a rush of memories of Shoko to fill Sakuta’s mind.
Sakuta screaming, “Makinohara-san!” with the girl immediately recognizing the person and responding with “Yes, Sakuta-san!” I thought was a nice touch. While this would be the first time that they had met under this timeline, the memories from their ‘past’ selves are still alive within them.
What’s even more interesting is that before we got to the third and final timeline, the other two timelines, all the characters involved had remembered what happened in their ‘past’ lives. Sakuta remembered everything up until the last timeline. Mai knew what was going to happen to Sakuta and still tried to stop him in the second timeline, and it seemed that Rio Futaba had known of every event that had happened in both timelines.
Overall, while extremely confusing, the movie did strengthen the bond between Mai and Sakuta because they’re both willing to die for each other, quite literally. They’re also willing to go to great lengths to protect one another too. Seishun Buta Yarou wa Yumemiru Shoujo no Yume wo Minai shows that while Sakuta is perverted, blunt and anti-social at times, his selflessness and the fact that he cares so much for others is the biggest takeaway for me. Throughout the movie, he wanted to do what was best for both Mai and Shoko, even at his expense, and I love that aspect of him.
Seishun Buta Yarou wa Yumemiru Shoujo no Yume wo Minai is a movie where you experienced every emotion within a span of 1 hour and 30 minutes. The movie made you love the three characters, then crushed you, then gave you a happy ending. An ending where no one had to die, and everyone got to continue living, which is something that everyone throughout the movie kept mentioning; that they wanted each other to keep living.
Overall, Seishun Buta Yarou wa Yumemiru Shoujo no Yume wo Minai was a great movie despite its complex story.
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One response to “Seishun Buta Yarou wa Yumemiru Shoujo no Yume wo Minai | It’s movie time”
Rio Futaba is still my waifu. When she talks science I get all excited. 🙂