Time loops, a fascinating concept frequently used in anime that captures the audience’s imagination by repeating events and allowing characters to change their fates. Characters often have to face their past and feelings, leading to self-discovery and change.
In this article, we’ll explore anime that feature time loops, illustrating how this concept enhances the story and traps the viewers. By looking at how time manipulation affects characters and their journeys, we can better understand the creativity and depth these stories bring to anime.
10Iroduku: The World In Colors
Iroduku is a really beautiful anime done by the studio P.A Works. The world in this anime is overflowing with magic, and the main character, Hitomi Tsukishiro, born to a family of witches, has lost her sense of magic and the ability to see colors. In order to help her restore what she had lost, Hitomi’s grandmother sends her back to the year 2018, when her grandmother was still young.
Her experiences in this timeline with a younger version of her grandmother and all her friends make her rather fond of the world. Her encounter with a boy, Aoi Yuito, whose paintings were oddly capable of seeing colors again. Will this be Hitomi’s solution to all her problems?
9The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi
This is an anime about a normal high school student, Kyon, who gets dragged into the life of the eccentric and energetic Haruhi Suzumiya, a girl with an obsession with time traveling, espers, and aliens. However, the biggest trait of Suzumiya is her ability(an ability that she isn’t aware of) to somehow alter reality.
They make a club called the SOS Brigade and invite more members, who are all dragged into the mess Suzumiya creates accidentally due to her mysterious powers. One of the most popular scenes in this anime is the time loop that Suzumiya accidentally made, trapping everyone and the loop repeated over multiple episodes.
8Link Click
Combine elements of the supernatural, mystery, and time travel, and you get Link Click. The story revolves around Lu Guang and Cheng Xiaoshi, who work at a shop called “Time Photo Studio” and have unique abilities that enable them to travel back in time to meet their clients’ needs.
Lu Guang has the power to enter pictures and, through the eyes of the photograph, experience the events that take place when the picture is taken. They use this ability for work and make the world a better place by saving many people.
7Vivy: Fluorite Eye’s Song
In a world where humans were conducting countless experiments on AI, they came to the realization that AI could only be 100% efficient if they were given only a single task to devote their lives to. This was when the first autonomous AI, Vivy, was given the task of making all humans happy with her songs.
However, one day, an AI called Matsumoto comes from 100 years in the future with the goal of stopping the great war between humans and AI. He joins forces with Vivy in order to stop this war.
Vivy Fluorite Eye’s song is an anime based on the manga by
Nagatsuki Tappei and illustrated by Yamataka Morito. It received its manga adaptation in 2021, and it was animated by Wit Studio (popular for its work in Attack on Titan).
6The Girl Who Leapt Through Time
“The Girl who Leapt Through Time” is an anime sci-fi movie written by the popular author Tsutsui Yasutaka and animated by MADHOUSE(popular for its work in Parasyte and Frieren). In The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, a teenage girl named Makoto Konno accidentally discovers that she has the ability to travel back in time, allowing her to relive the same day over and over again while making different choices.
Makoto begins to experiment with her unpredictable time-travel powers. At first, the unintended consequences of her actions lead to some funny moments. However, as she continues to use her ability without thinking of the effects, things start to take a darker turn. Her selfish decisions end up causing harm to her friends and classmates, ultimately leading to tragic outcomes that she could never have anticipated.
Through her journey, Makoto learns important lessons about responsibility, the impact of her choices, and the value of the people in her life.
5Tokyo Revengers
Takemichi Hanagaki, a 26-year-old shut-in, learns about the death of his middle school ex-girlfriend, Hinata Tachibana, who was killed by the Tokyo Manji Gang. After he comes to know about this incident, he is pushed in front of a moving train by somebody with unknown intentions and gets thrown back 12 years into the past. He has to alter the past to prevent Hinata from being murdered and, in turn, prevent his demise in the future.
The anime showcases how children tend to make immature and rash decisions that come back to bite them in the future. The stark contrast between Takemichi’s personality in the present and his attitude 12 years ago is very much evident throughout the anime. The anime shows how life is a series of decisions that one must take, and sometimes, there is no undo button.
4ERASED
The story follows Satoru Fujinoma, a 29-year-old adult who is gifted with the ability to foresee certain events, giving him a feeling of Deja Vu that helps him prevent disastrous events, although in doing so, he puts himself in harm’s way. He named this phenomenon as ‘Revival’.
Things took a turn for the worse when his mother got murdered, and he realized that her murder was tied to a certain case that happened in his childhood. To prevent this from happening, he has to prevent the kidnap and murder of his classmate from eighteen years ago.
Satoru alternates between his 29-year-old adult self and his 10-year-old child self while retaining his consciousness throughout the Revival. This anime has a bittersweet ending and it gives the viewers a false sense of hope, but that is what makes this anime worth watching.
3Rascal Doesn’t Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai
Sakuta Azusagawa is exposed to a series of weird incidents after his encounter with Sakurajima Mai in the library. As he comes to know more about the Adolescence Syndrome from Mai, he meets more and more people exposed to this weird power. One such person he meets is Tomoe Koga, nicknamed “Laplace’s demon”, who is capable of altering reality by creating simulated events.
In the anime, Sakuta gets stuck in a time loop initiated by Koga, who harbors feelings towards Sakuta and wants to relive the same day over and over again. However, Sakuta confronts Tomoe and manages to stop the time loop.
This anime dives into the supernatural world and never fails to entertain its audience throughout the entirety of the show. Breathtaking animations combined with incredible storytelling make this anime a fan favorite.
2Re: Zero, Starting Life in Another World
The plot revolves around Subaru Natsuki, a 17-year-old teenager who stays within the comforts of his room. He is suddenly summoned into a fantasy world by an unknown entity. There, he discovers that even if he dies, he revives at a checkpoint, and this keeps happening over and over again, granting him infinite chances.
The anime has an intriguing plot that forces Subaru to make some difficult decisions despite having the ability to respawn every time he dies. You are filled with mixed emotions as the story progresses, but that is the beauty of this anime.
1Steins;Gate
This anime delves into the intricacies of time traveling and the complexities that arise with it. The story revolves around Okabe Rintarou, a self-proclaimed “Mad Scientist”, who has a weird obsession with time travel. After meeting Makise Kurisu, a young science prodigy who is skeptical about the concept of time travel, Okabe becomes one step closer to creating a time machine.
The duo, along with Mayuri Shiina, his childhood friend, and Suzuha Amane, who is later revealed to be a time traveler from the future. After a few episodes of lighthearted comedy, the anime takes a dark turn when Okabe and his team manage to send a message to the past using their homemade time machine.
They meddle with the past and this puts their timeline into disarray. Okabe has to time leap multiple times to save the lives of his beloved friends all while trying to undo the changes that happened in his current timeline.
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