Ask John: How Many Anime Are There About Time Travel?

Question:
Are there any anime that deal with time travel besides Inuyasha?

Answer:
Inuyasha may be the only major anime dealing with time travel that most English speaking anime fans are familiar with, but it’s certainly not the only one. Although there are quite a number of anime that deal with time travel, very few of them are particularly well known. Before providing some examples it’s necessary for me to stipulate and clarify that I’ll exclude titles that don’t certifiably deal with time travel. The common shoujo genre conceit of a heroine being transported to another world doesn’t really count because it’s frequently not specified that the heroine has actually traveled through time. In anime series like Rayearth, Fushigi Yuugi, Juuni Kokki, Escaflowne and Strange Dawn the characters are teleported to other dimensions and worlds that appear to be archaic, but there’s no conclusive evidence that these worlds aren’t contemporary ones that just haven’t evolved technologically. Thus, the exclusion of similar titles.

Inuyasha is not creator Rumiko Takahashi’s first story to deal with time travel. The origins of Inuyasha may be found in Takahashi’s earlier manga story Fire Tripper, adapted into an anime OAV in 1985. Just like Inuyasha, Firetripper is the story of a contemporary Japanese schoolgirl transported back in time to feudal Japan.

Not very well known in America is the famous (in Japan) Time Bokan series that began in 1975 and broadcast its eighth TV series in 2000, “Time Bokan 2000: Kaitou Kiramekiman.” While the “Time Machine” series anime shows do contain some time travel, their focus is primarily on comic adventure & parody, not science fiction.

A pair of the most prototypical anime features dealing with time travel are the 1986 movie Time Stranger and the 2003 movie Ougon no Hou: El Kantare no Rekishikan, both of which are about characters that use a time machine to visit different eras in Earth’s history.

One of the best examples of a television anime series about time travel is 1998’s Jiku Tantei Genshi-kun (Time Detective Genshi-kun) which was broadcast on American television as “Flint the Time Detective.”

The 1992 Yoju Sensen Adventure Kid adult anime series sends its characters briefly back in time 50 years to World War II.

The 1996 Shin Kimagure Orange Road movie takes a unique approach to time travel by having only Kyosuke’s consciousness, not his physical body, travel back in time to affect the past and future.

There are also a number of anime series that include time traveling characters. Some of the most significant ones include Karin from D.N.A.^2 and Trunks from Dragonball Z, who both use time machines to travel from the future to the present. Chibiusa in Sailormoon also hails from the future, but time travel itself isn’t a significant plot element in the Sailormoon animation.

I’m sure that this list isn’t complete or exhaustive, but hopefully it will give you some idea of the number of anime series about time travel that exist.