Anime timeline

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The timeline[edit | edit source]

The flow of time itself is actually fairly straightforward, but it rather raises a lot of questions.

The story starts out in Chu (which presumably happens after the main series still; at any rate the characters are noticebly older), "rewinds" to the start of the original series, then returns to apparently the same point in Chu it left off.

The opening Chu scenes seem to be based off chapter 7, but Love Evolution is mentioned, meaning either it takes place later or the group learned about it earlier- either way, the course of events isn't quite the same as the manga.

Episodes 8 and 22 involve characters from the future stepping back into the past/present, mainly to help Karin along.

  • Suzune in 8 is from before the start of Chu, and still looking for "mama' to give her the Aphrodite ring. He gets quite lost and ends up appearing first about a year earlier than he was aiming for, and then way earlier than that (taking our present Karin with him that time). He obviously found his way to the actual beginning point of Chu after that; maybe Jin and Micchi dropped him off.
    • Jin and Micchi from 8 aren't confirmed to be from the same future, but it's likely they're mean to be the same people from the opening/ending scenes.
  • Kazune and Suzune from 22 are definitely from the beginning-and-ending future.

Finally, once the original series has run its course, the way back into the future is opened again (probably by the future boys) and Karin "returns" to the time she came from, immediately aging back up and seeming to seamlessly getting her memories back.

The first question would be, why didn't the boys get Karin back earlier in her timeline? Kazune says "You did well" as she returns, implying she had to accomplish something while back there, probably repeating the original ending by beating Kirihiko (again). Apparently everything after that is left intact even if Karin is pulled out of the past, making it seem like the "present" events of the show no longer lead to the beginning of Chu.

  • My theory is that Rika sent Karin back (or recreated her past entirely) to trap her and keep her from stopping her (Rika), with the intent of making her lose to Kirihiko. Some changes from the manga's timeline that're involved with time travel can be explained with this (see below). This then leaves the question of how the boys knew Karin had to complete her past, though.

Also, how much time passed in the future while Karin was in the past? The Seed of Chaos still seems to be there, so I imagine it can't have been too long, but the way Kazune acts in 22 makes it feel like he's been separared from her for a while (or so I interpret it).

Where would we got from here?[edit | edit source]

So all questions regarding continuity aside, how exactly would a Chu anime continuing off of this work? The weird timeline makes it hard to pick out where to pick up.

  • Start at the beginning of Chu (continuing from the "original" timeine rather than the anime one... probably), take a random break to tell people to watch the first anime if they want to know what happened here, then pop right back like nothing happened?
  • Start after Karin returns, with the previous ~volumes worth of Chu recapped over time somehow?
  • Start at the beginning, but compress the first ~2 volumes into some sort of short recap arc, then start the actual story from where the anime left off?
    • Maybe start this with an episode or two of actual story before the recap, like FMA. (Note that I wasn't really a fan of that and probably wouldn't like it much for Chu. :/)

Project addresses this by performing a soft reset on continuity via time travel, then making that a plot point. I'll explain later.

How much effect did the time travel have on the original version of these events?[edit | edit source]

First, I'm assuming that certain, more fundamental additions/changes were unchanged by the timetravel, as just restarting time from a certain point wouldn't likely affect them (though as the next section shows, that might not be true):

  • Yuuki not having kamika potential (this is the most certain constant of these, given also that it added little to the original manga, wasn't really explained and could easily be written out with little impact to anything)
  • Karin's Suzuka flashbacks (while a few of the ones we saw were triggered by timetravel-related events, as a thing I'm assuming they're a constant).
  • The notes stored in the Himekas giving them (and the book) actual powers. (though the effects of the book seem to fall more under the "weirdness censor" type of thing discussed below).

Let's just go episode by episode...

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Time travel is like a dream[edit | edit source]

Time travel in this show has an odd tendency to be framed as "all just a dream" once it's over/undone.

It also seems to create changes that make no sense for merely time traveling- Micchi should have shown up in ep 8 as a transfer student, as he transfered in on the version of that day in ep 9... but he didn't. The moon phase is randomly different in the part of ep 22 where Karin is with future Kazune as it is in the rest of the episode (though that may just be simple inconsistency; see moon phases).

Furthermore, characters seem to exhibit a "weirdness censor" effect around these events:

  • 08: The city gives way to a bizarre alternate dimension before Karin's eyes, but though she's taken aback by it for a moment, she's more concerned with the ring Suzune has. Additionally, though she remembers meeting Suzune in 22, she doesn't seem to think of what happened as a dream anymore but still thinks nothing of all the oddities that happened (though this was during the "dream" portion of 22 itself, for what that's worth).
    • During episode 24, while in the Labyrinth but not timetraveling, Karin remembers her previous visit to the City as a dream or something similar.
  • 22: Karin freaks out over jumping a great height from Kazune's bedroom window (which now opens at about Clocktower height), but not the fact that the second floor of the Kujyou household is nowhere near that far up, or the fact that she, Kazune and Suzune start flying once they jump out, or that they then end up at the festival with little to no transition shown.

It's something like dream logic- the characters are aware of what's going on, but don't seem to think it unusual. A similar effect is seen with most of Karin's Suzuka flashbacks.

There's also the presense of odd little tidbits that just don't make sense- designs that mirror things they shouldn't, weird coincidences. Most of these are within the show's main timeline.

  • The dome on the Kujyou household resembles that of the Clocktower, and the face of the school's clock resembles the Clocktower's. (This could just be passed off as being designed by the same group...)
  • The Fountain at the school looks quite like the Chronos Clock. (... but this probably can't.)
  • The necklace that looks like the design on the Luna Dimidi is conveniently sold in two parts, seperately, so that one of each ends up in the hands of the Himekas... who the symbol is already connected to.
  • The die in episode 21 actually shows who Kazune kissed. (Though this may be an effect of Himeka's powers, or even an actual coincidence.)

And finally there's the messed up moon phases.

From this, it begins to seem like time travel in this series works... really weirdly. In some cases it's almost closer to reality warping on some level, as though time travel actually creates a little pocket dimension imitating the point in time being traveled to, but still has an effect on "normal" time's dimension. In this case, we'd expect to see time travel pockets within time travel pockets (as in the events of eps 8 and 22) be twice as weird... and that indeed seems to be the case.

Other notes[edit | edit source]

The series seems to take place over spring and summer, which are the seasons it aired in. Here's an overview of notable points in the timeline:

  • Eps 1 and 2: Take place in early spring before graduation (which would be early April in most japanese schools); aired 6th and 13th of April.
  • Ep 3: Takes place right after graduation and the start of the new school year (early April); aired 27th of April.
  • School festival in eps 6 and 7, not sure when this'd likely be in real life.
  • Switched from winter to summer uniforms between eps 7 and 8. Not sure when that's usually done in real life.
  • Ep 14 takes place during summer break; ep 15 marks the last day of summer break and 16 the first day back at school. Aired 6th, 13th and 20th of July. Summer break in japanese schools usually goes from late July to early September.
  • Ep 22 had a public festival.

Some of these (graduation, the school festival and other festival) happened in the manga in the same sequence, but others (the uniform change and summer break) are anime only.

Interestingly, in episode 08 Karin travels to a point in the past where it's clearly autumn, and the Labyrinth freezes over (winter?). So we've sort of seen all four seasons.