It drops you into a crimson full moon and a magician's sleight of hand, and by the time Mei Ayazuki lands in Meiji-era Tokyo you've already agreed to the terms. This is otome logic played straight: a girl who has always seen things nobody believed in, suddenly surrounded by men who take her at her word. Charlie's magic is the door, but the real pull is the roster, Ogai Mori's teasing bedside manner, Kyoka Izumi's prickly devotion, Yakumo Koizumi's ghost-story hush, Goro Fujita's old blade-edge quiet. As a film it runs on romance rather than plot mechanics, so the mood, gaslamp light, festival noise, that moon, does the heavy lifting. What lands is smaller than the time travel: being strange somewhere that finally has room for it.

On a night lit by a crimson full moon, ordinary high school girl Mei Ayazuki meets Charlie at a festival. He calls himself a magician, and his magic sends her back in time to Tokyo in the Meiji era. There she crosses paths with a number of famous historical figures from that period and falls in love with them. The film is a supernatural romance drama.