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This will cover both versions
There was a short lived period/phase in my life at the beginning of 2014 where I would read a bunch of yuri manga altogether, Citrus which I dropped, this one that I never finished, Netsuzou Trap, one of the worst, most toxic pieces of shit I’ve read in my life that took me years to finish, and Girl Friends, the only one I loved at the time. It never went completely away though, as I would watch a title from the genre from time to time. So anyways, I wanted to kind of reread and finish this one now, nine years later, since now I have a very different criteria than I used to back then.
There isn’t really much plot to talk about besides what’s already given in the premise, a girl stops time when she feels pressured and finds out some other can move alongside her while everyone else remains stopped. This plot device is weird, since it actually happens in its story, yet it’s not meant to be seen as that being literally the case. Stopping time is just a metaphor for the protagonist running away to her own secluded world whenever she has to socialize, which is why it’s never explained how she got that power, even though the reason why she ends up losing them is implied in story.
Anyways once the setup is established, the two girls just fool around in their school, and later on become a couple, while the main character does everything the other girl wants. And that’s when the manga begins to feel weird, as one of the girls is seemingly being used by the other just for her convenience and amusement, something which thankfully would later on be addressed and subverted, actually. And that would lead to an actual confession near the end which was presented in a very corny and nonsensical way, but honestly the whole story is like that.
The real meat here are the main characters which although simplistic at first, have some kind of background stories and internal monologues to explain why they are the way they are, and how necessary it becomes for them to change, as they are both secluded within themselves with a very twisted view of the rest of the world, that’s when they sincere with each other and have their expected confession and learn to show themselves for who they truly are and not run away from the things that bother them. Unfortunately neither their backdrops nor inner thoughts are very big of a deal, and their catharsis made it seem that all they needed was to have someone to love to solve all of their problems, but it was an ok catharsis for both of them, even if they never faced any real consequence for whatever they did prior and thus the conclusion doesn’t feel that impactful.
There isn’t much to say about the art either, it’s just your typical average shoujoish look and presentation.
The anime adaptation tried to cram the whole manga in just an hour and it failed, the visuals remain as equally average, even more so if possible, with an equally very standard directing, and the sound department goes completely unnoticed, except for the ending which the seiyuus sing in unison, it was quite cute.
The main issue with the adaptation is that it shortened both all of their interactions and their backdrops and even their inner monologues, thus you don’t get to see much of the girls together nor understand what troubles each one of them, something easy to notice even if you are an anime only, which prevents the conclusion from feeling genuine. It tried to incorporate its own things by having them question themselves a little about dreams and time in an attempt to seem deeper, but no added line really says anything meaningful, and those dialogues are very short anyways. There’s also an original scene where the protagonist blushes for having a typical anime “indirect kiss” with a random girl, and really, what was the point in adding that? At least it changed the confession scene by changing two things which I found an improvement, the first was not having anybody else when that happens, whereas the whole school was present in the manga, adding to the cheesiness, and the other was cutting off the line of a friend of the love interest, since that girl badmouthed her at a previous point and thus it didn’t make any sense for her to encourage her friend at the end.
In conclusion, a perfectly average quick read with barely any plot which in turn feels unimportant and quite nonsensical and corny, but there is at least enough character immersion and a good albeit simplistic message in it. The anime movie stripped the first thing away from the plot, thus it prevented it from carry the second with the same strength, which was already not much in the original, thus it’s a poorly made adaptation, despite its minor improvements.
Manga 5/10
Anime 4/10
