Drawing on Time - Sandglass of Summer: Episode One

Let’s talk about the time travel anime which had its origins in a visual novel video game, one involving matchmaking. No, not Steins;Gate – the one that came before it. Natsuiro no Sunadokei or Hourglass of Summer (aka Sandglass of Summer Colours) had a 2002 game release in Japan by Princess Soft. It became a two episode OAV (Original Animated Video) in 2004.

That’s a full five years before the Steins;Gate game release. Interestingly, there are a number of parallels (stereotypes?) between the main characters. The time changing protagonist here is Koutarou Makimura (not Rintarou Okabe), his male buddy is Takeshi Tokieda (not Daru), the time expert tsundere is Ligene (not Kurisu Makise) and there’s a childhood friend involved named Ai Senou (not Mayuri).

The time travel itself is very different though (no microwaves), and that list of names didn’t even mention the main female protagonist. So let’s have a look at episode one, and see what this time travel story is all about.

THE TRUTH BURIED IN SAND

The anime’s opening sequence shows us images of the three main characters (starting with Kaho), and then has them walk as the secondaries move by in the background. Those characters now get their own scene. It builds well, and after this we get some foreshadowing images of the situation to come. It captures the character personalities, and has things you can pick up on in retrospect.

After the opening, we begin with a visual of an hourglass breaking, and of the main female lead, Kaho Serizawa. She seems to be holding some sort of sand, and a clock is ticking. Cut to our protagonist, Koutarou, getting knocked out in his boxing match.

Walking home later, Koutarou’s friend Takeshi chastises him for spacing out like that in the last match of their school year. It’s July 14th. We learn here that Koutarou has made up his mind – with summer vacation starting tomorrow, he will confess his love to Kaho.

Koutarou’s childhood friend Ai is also with them, and she is friends with Kaho. So Koutarou asks her to deliver his love letter. Ai begrudgingly agrees before they part ways, saying she won’t care if he gets rejected.

Before getting to his house, Koutarou spots a mysterious figure (who has been tailing them) and gives chase. The figure claims she’s not suspicious, but she IS wearing a trench coat in July.

As he grabs for the mystery girl (and accidentally gropes her), she hits him. A miniature hourglass in her hand shatters, powder going everywhere. Koutarou feels dizzy, and the girl escapes.

When Koutarou wakes up the next morning, it’s somehow September 1st.

Everyone around him is worried if he’s okay. When he gets to the school gym (for the new school year) he learns why they’re concerned – the day before, August 31st, Kaho died in an accident.

Kaho’s friend Ai is blaming herself. A teacher, Tomomi Yanagihara, remarks that since Koutarou and Kaho were going out, it makes sense that he’d have trouble getting over it. Koutarou is naturally confused. He then passes out, seeing sparkles.

I’ll note that it’s at this point in the game that the intro theme plays. It’s quite different from the anime, flashing through the alternative girls before settling on Kaho at the end. Thus the reverse of the anime. It also uses locations, more than still images of the characters.

Incidentally, this is the point where the game and the anime begin to wildly diverge.

In the anime, Koutarou wakes up outside, and checks his phone. It’s July 17th. Kaho shows up, making him think what he just experienced was a dream.

She says she got his love letter, but thinks it’s bad that he used Ai to send it, and then runs off. A confused Kotarou gives chase, only to run into Ai and Takeshi around the corner, falling and bumping his head.

He sees more sparkles. Now he’s on a park bench, and it’s July 29th.

Kaho arrives, apologizing over being late for their date. Koutarou decides this is the best dream, and a montage follows of them spending the afternoon together (including Ai noticing them from afar).

At the end, Koutarou asks about how she got over the love letter issue. Kaho admits she’s afraid of violent guys (Koutarou is in the Boxing Club) but when she saw Koutarou rescue that bird yesterday, it convinced her he was a nice guy after all.

If you’re asking yourself “what bird rescue?”, don’t worry – Koutarou is wondering about it too, and ominous music plays in the background.

We then meet Kaho’s father, Gahaku Serizawa, waiting outside for her. He is not pleased that his daughter missed curfew.

That night, after Koutarou falls asleep, he finds himself back on July 14th at 11:50pm. The mysterious girl from earlier is now in his room, blaming him for breaking her hourglass.

He grabs for her, wondering if she’s real, and she punches him in the face.

The girl is Ligene (also translated to English as “Lee Jane”). She’s a time patroller from the future, who came here to correct Kaho’s timeline.

On August 31st at 1:30pm, Kaho will have been going to get on the train to meet Koutarou. But the train will have been late, so Kaho will have been taking the bus instead, and that results in Kaho going to have been hit by a car. Ligene is here to make sure Koutarou doesn’t date Kaho, meaning none of that will happen.

And, having been to September 1st, Koutarou knows Ligene’s not lying.

DAY DROPS

Koutarou does protest to Ligene that there must be another way to save Kaho here. For instance, what if the train had been on time? Ligene checks her time device (which looks like a cell phone).

She determines that the train was late because of Mana Kawamura, a junior at his school. On August 24th, Mana injured herself practicing for a diving competition, putting her in a wheelchair. The wheelchair got stuck in the train tracks, causing the delay.

Koutarou thinks fixing Mana’s injury is the key, while Ligene cautions him – “2 out of 10 cases succeeding” is apparently a good rate for the time patrol. She then leaves, telling Koutarou to protect the girl he loves, though she’ll try to come back and help.

When Koutarou wakes up next, it’s already August 24th, the day of Mana’s injury. He races to the school, seeing Kaho rehearsing for a play en route, which hardens his resolve.

But outside the girls’ change room he is accosted by the teacher from before, Tomomi. (Koutarou calls her “Tomo-chan” even as she insists on “Yanagihara-sensei”.)

He comes clean with her. Tomomi considers the situation, and reasons that Koutarou was hit with tachyon particles, causing his body to jump randomly to different dates. Koutarou is now living his life out of order. A phenomenon she christens “day drop”.

Moreover, supposedly, “the original you who is supposed to exist here, due to the time paradox that there can’t be two identical people at the same time, has been repelled outside of time”.

So Tomomi believes him? Well, she’ll be convinced if he saves Kaho. As it is, she won’t directly help, because the more people in regular space-time who know about this, the more chaotic the system becomes.

Koutarou finally gets to the pool, where Mana has stayed behind for extra practice. She’s pushing herself too hard; he steps in as she nearly hurts herself, saying she’s being reckless.

They talk. She pushes him into the pool. They talk again, and he gets Mana to agree she’s been losing sight of her enjoyment for the sport. She should be diving for herself, not answering the expectations of others.

Mana takes it easy, and performs in the competition on August 25th as Koutarou watches.

Ligene returns at last – a day late – and Koutarou says things should be fine now, right? Ligene checks her device. No, in fact Kaho’s still going to die. This revelation ends episode one. The closing sequence is merely an image of Kaho standing in silhouette, as a train goes by.

We’ll look at the second (and final) episode next time, but first let’s consider some of what’s been presented here in terms of the time travel, and how this adaptation holds up to the original game.

ANALYSIS

I believe the “day drop” phenomenon is one that I haven’t seen anywhere else. The idea of living six weeks of one’s life out of order is a fascinating concept. I think good notes would be an absolute necessity. Of course, when you jump to earlier times, fewer notes would exist, and you’d have to rely on your memory of the future to handle things in advance.

Related, there is the idea that Tomomi brings up, that Koutarou’s actually displacing himself “out of time”. Is that truly the case physically? Or is this more like a “mind leap” phenomenon? The show (and to my knowledge, the game) never tries to answer that, which is probably wise, but it’s interesting to think about.

Now, the trigger for the “day drop” is when Koutarou falls unconscious. This happens alarmingly often in the anime. But this is to be expected, as it’s not easy to turn over twelve hours of gameplay into an anime that’s less than an hour long.

However, this means that the issue of Koutarou tracking which days he’s already lived, and hence which days are left for him to take action, is not a factor. The other big change happens with Tomomi (the teacher), a fan of supernatural phenomenon, who (in the game) had injuries on September 1st. She also has her own planner to track Koutarou’s “day drops”.

This would make no sense in the anime, as he only tells her on August 24th.

In fact, the game has Koutarou speak with Tomomi on July 15th, not Ligene. The time patroller conversation doesn’t occur until July 19th, after a number of other day drops. The order of those conversations is thus reversed here, and Tomomi’s role is diminished. Ligene also reveals in the game that the time powder from her device will wear off on September 1st, which explains the six week window.

Amusingly, Ligene doesn’t speak to you before the July 19th conversation – unless you make a particularly bad decision. In that case, she’ll appear, scold you for being stupid, and reset your game back to the beginning of the current day. Though there are also “bad endings” to the game, so don’t assume she always saves you.

So where will the anime go with this concept? How faithful can it really remain to the game upon which it’s based? And what more will Koutarou have to do, to defy the 80% failure rate of the time patrol? We’ll find out next month. For now, the comments are open for your theories.

As always, thanks for reading. If you have any thoughts, please do let me know, if you have the time.