If you’re looking for something incredibly nerdy with a hint of hilarious, check out Summer Timemachine Blues, it could be for you. Directed by Katsuyuki Motohiro, it takes a familiar concept (time travel) and makes it into something you probably didn’t expect.

It’s summer time, and a college Sci-Fi club (who you never actually see reading or watching any Sci-Fi) is hanging out in their clubroom before the next semester is set to start. On one particular day, a series of confusing occurrences take place that nobody can explain, leading to an incident where everyone falls over and a soda falls on the remote control for the air conditioner. It breaks, and everybody freaks out. Hey, it’s hot out, they need their cool air! Everything seems hopeless until a mysterious machine appears in the clubroom, which is at first identified as a joke. But when they decide to fool around with it, they discover that it’s a time machine, with the ability to travel up to 99 years forward or backward. What better way to get their air-conditioner remote back? They can keep it from getting soda spilled on it, after all. And thus begins a bizarre adventure that causes more problems than it’s worth.

Special note: Keep an eye out for the scene where they go to the movie theater. Can you spot the Back to the Future poster?


This blog posting is part of Rekuru’s Japanese Cinema Royale Special.