In the quiet doldrums of an empty high school in the peak of summer in mid-July, Makoto (Riisa Naka), a perennially chaotic teenager, inadvertently discovers a key to time travel. But what are the dangers of exploiting a gift that seemingly no one else can employ? What is the material moral difference between using time travel to eat teppanyaki and avoiding an awkward, but potentially important conversation with your best friend?

Nearly two decades after its release, Mamoru Hosoda’s The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is still brimming with a uniqueness in style and an appreciably astute understanding of teenage angst. Its lasting place in the anime zeitgeist is due as much to Hosoda’s reverie-like animation as to its trenchant themes: Makoto’s sudden powers could be read as an allegory for the coming of adulthood, for coming into womanhood, or for personal responsibility. As Makoto recklessly exploits her powers, time leaping very quickly deteriorates from the promise of possibility into the perils of avoidance.

With A Deceptively Simple Plot, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time Explores Esoteric Questions About Youth & Adulthood

Makoto is, at first, indistinguishable from any high school kid whose zest for life frequently outpaces the confines of a 24-hour day. Her legs seem to never stop moving, her upper lip is caked in the milk she chugged over breakfast, and the bag of peaches her mom put in her bike basket is at risk of falling out as she zips herself to school before the first bell. She and her two baseball-obsessed best friends, Chiaki (Takuya Ishida) and Kosouke (Mitsutaka Itakura), meet after school to play catch, and none of them is quite so sure what they want to study after graduating.

When Makoto discovers time leaping, she finds a natural excuse to avoid responsibility for the aspects of her life that she should probably change. She travels back to ace a pop quiz she had previously done poorly on; she does the same to avoid a lab station in culinary class she knows is going to catch on fire; and, perhaps most endearingly, jumps back repeatedly to extend her time singing karaoke with Chiaki and Kosouke.

But even seemingly innocent jumps have consequences, and Makoto soon learns that her choice to pᴀss on humiliation in the culinary lab to another student has devastating consequences. After catching fire, he is relentlessly bullied until he snaps and attacks his attackers with ruthless vengeance.

Things only get worse when she insists on avoiding listening to Chiaki’s confession of love; in a wild attempt to avoid facing him, her own feelings, and the potential ramifications of taking the next step with a friend, Makoto turns back time so much that she can no longer distinguish where she is. Soon Makoto is in a race against time and space — and herself — in a frantic attempt at restoring normalcy.

Sound, Color & Music Work in Harmonious Synchronicity to Help Make The Girl Who Leapt Through Time An All-time Anime Film Classic

Playing in a limited engagement in theaters from September 28-30 to celebrate its 4K restoration, Hosoda’s film is visually resplendent. At times, the sequences can give the distinct feeling of being sucked into the brushstrokes of Van Gogh’s Starry Night. At others, the soft quivering lips and moistened eyes of Makoto place us firmly within the anxiety-ridden body of our protagonist.

It also features a soundscape that consistently and distinctly plays with time and space, a mirror to a story about the inherent lack of separation between today and yesterday; we are always a possible version of ourselves. Piano music echoes through the halls of the high school and into the streets, as Makoto runs and leaps and dodges.

It’s an especially effective representation of the teenager’s worldview, capturing as it does the distinct mentality of young people whose lives are untethered by the demands of adulthood, yet whose lives are constantly caving, precisely because it is both small and simple. Which isn’t to say that teens’ lives aren’t packed with the same existential questions and poetry that adults must navigate through as well.

Through it all, Hosoda asks us to consider the beautifully limitless possibility of youth. Or, at least what seems like a limitless world for people so young they cannot yet see the full consequences of living freely. But, perhaps its most lasting message is in a question: what survives with us through the dimension of time? Can love pierce through the boundaries of the here and now? It is a question with no concrete answer, but like anything worth asking, its answers are filled with wondrous possibility.

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time will be re-released in 4K in select theatres from September 28-30.