Crossing Time

Crossing Time

Crossing Time anime short cover art featuring Ai and Tomo
Crossing Time Cover Art

Overview

Crossing Time is an anime short (3 minute episodes) about people living their best lives while waiting at railroad crossings. I’m not sure how the author came up with this concept for a manga, and then anime, but when I saw it on Crunchyroll I knew I had to watch it.

I was hoping this series would be pure comic genius, but unfortunately that wasn’t the case. The good news, however, is that watching all 12 episodes takes under 40 minutes, so it’s not too much of a time commitment.

Episodes

Episode one is titled “Their Youth” and is about two high school girls, Ai and Tomo who walk to or from school together each day. Today, Ai suggests the two girls shout out the name of their crush as the train passes. Much to Ai’s surprise, Tomo shouts her name which makes things pretty awkward.

The second episode is titled “Majima Eriko Is Sexy” and is a tale about a boy who stares at his classmate from behind every day at the railroad crossing. It appears that this boy, and the rest of the boys in his grade, see Majima Eriko as some sort of higher being, when in fact, she’s just a pretty, nice girl.

My favorite episode was number three titled “Together With Sensei.” This episode is about a teacher and student who end up stopped at the railroad crossing together. While the teacher wants to greet the student, but doesn’t know how, the student hopes the teacher will ignore her.

Episode four is titled “SNS Siblings” and follows two siblings who solely communicate through texting while out in public. It appears this is the idea of the younger sister because she doesn’t want people to see her talking to her brother in public. It was pretty good.

“Goth Ordeals” is the title of episode five which tells the tragic tale of a girl dressed up in what appears to be gothic cosplay. She sprains her back at the railroad crossing, and then is seen wearing her outfit in public by one of her classmates who also happens to follow her cosplay social media account.

The sixth episode, “Mr. Hassaku and I” is one of the stranger episodes. This time, a high school girl comes across a man who’s stuck hiding under a bridge with no pants. She gives him a variety of items to cover himself with, and in return he gives her an orange she doesn’t want.

Episode seven is titled “Railroad Crossing Poet” and is about a high school poet who writes poems about railroad crossings while the trains go past. While some of her poems are obviously bad, there are others which could actually be mistaken for serious poems.

The SNS siblings are back in episode eight, “SNS Siblings 2.” The siblings are still texting each other as they were before despite standing right next to each other. This time, however, we learn the brother is the popular one and the sister is the one with no friends.

Episodes nine and ten are two parts of a story titled “Heart of the City Train” and tell a story spanning decades. A high school boy gives a love letter to a girl he saw at the railroad crossing everyday, but never spoke to.

Decades later, he sees a girl who looks exactly like his teenage crush standing at the same crossing and holding the letter he wrote. It turns out this is his crush’s daughter and she found his letter to her mother in a stack of her mother’s belongings, showing she kept the letter all those years.

“Majima Eriko Is Sexy Part 2” is episode 11 and simply continues the same plot from the first part. The boy is still staring at Majima Eriko from behind without ever actually trying to talk to her. Instead, he resigns himself to thinking about what she does in her spare time.

The final episode comes full circle with “Their Youth Part 2.” Once again we’re back with Tomo and Ai and it appears their relationship has become quite awkward ever since Tomo confessed her love for Ai. However, that’s just what the springtime of youth is all about, as Guy Sensei from Naruto would say.

Tomo and Ai from the anime short Crossing Time
Tomo (left) and Ai (right)

Conclusion

Crossing Time could have been a 5, but I decided a 4/10 was a better rating for it. There’s no overall plot, and the individual plots really aren’t that good. In fact, some of them are extremely creepy such as the episodes about Majima Eriko.

I’d have to say that this is the worst of the anime shorts I’ve seen. Love To-LIE-Angle is better than this, One Room is better than that (maybe), and Space Patrol Luluco is the best of them all.

The first episode of Crossing Time is available here.

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