Moritani Misuzu is an average high school girl with a decidedly un-average ability: for three minutes each day, she can stop time. Despite this amazing power, Misuzu still lives a rather ordinary life, mostly stopping time to get out of awkward situations or spy on other people. But one day, her ordinary life comes to a screeching halt when she uses that same power to peek at a beautiful classmate’s underwear— and said beautiful classmate calmly asks her what exactly she's doing. As it turns out, this classmate— Murakami Haruka— is immune to Moritani’s time-freezing technique. Bound together by their odd powers, the two girls begin to grow closer…and find that it’s more than their strange abilities attracting them to each other.
Fragtime is a Japanese yuri manga series by Sato. It was serialized online via Akita Shoten's Manga Cross website between 2013 and 2014, and was collected in two tankōbon volumes. In 2020, Seven Seas Entertainment published the manga in North America as a single volume omnibus.
An Original Video Animation adaptation directed by Takuya Sato and produced by Tear Studio was released on November 22, 2019 in Japan. Sentai Filmworks distributed the OVA to North America in 2020.
Fragtime provides examples of:
- Adaptation Distillation: The subplot with Yamaguchi-sensei was almost entirely removed from the anime, apart from a scene where the class gossips about him and Murakami. Additionally, the scenes in which Moritani realizes she's unable to stop time as long as she used to were compressed into a single voiceover where she explains what's happening.
- Dirty Old Man: Early on in the manga Murakami tells Moritani about a teacher who's been molesting her, forcing her to strip in private and blackmailing her into silence, and asks Moritani to use her power to help her escape him. This is then subverted when Murakami admits she was lying and made that story up to make Mortani stop time so she could get test exam answers... and then immediately subverted again when Murakami casually admits that Yamaguchi does touch her sometimes. It's ultimately left ambiguous just how far Yamaguchi's behavior goes— notably, the manga does have a few shots of him placing his hand on Murakami's waist and hip, and the students gossip about the two of them in one scene.
- Questionable Consent: After Moritani goes over to Murakami's apartment to get to know her better, Murakami suddenly offers to have sex with her if that's what she wants. Moritani is disturbed by her behavior and doesn't take advantage of it.
- Required Secondary Powers: A subtle example, but Moritani reveals to Murakami that thanks to her powers she's learned how to perfectly track the passage of three minutes without any aid (joking that she doesn't need a timer to cook instant ramen). This lets her immediately realize when her time stop is shorter than usual one day.
- Riddle for the Ages: It's never explained how Moritani got her powers or how they work, and subsequently it isnt't explained why they start disappearing. The closest thing the story gets to explaining things is through metaphor— Moritani is a person who dislikes being involved with other people, so her power lets her escape others. A similar "explanation" is given as to why Murakami is immune to the time-stop— she wanted to get to know Moritani, so she is able to enter her "space."
- School Idol: Murakami is beautiful, likable and popular. Of course, her friendliness and helpfulness is all an act.
- Shout-Out: Haruka Murakami seems to be named after famous Japanese author Haruki Murakami, who often writes magical realism (much like this manga).
- Slut-Shaming: Other students talk badly about Murakami behind her back, accusing her of liking Yamaguchi's inappropriate touchiness, and some go as far as to write "Murakami Haruka is a huge slut" on the chalkboard one day.
- Time Master: Moritani has the ability to freeze time for three minutes a day. By the end of the story, she loses this ability entirely.
- Time-Freeze Trolling Spree: When Moritani sees how upset Murakami is by seeing her boyfriend with another girl at the mall, she freezes time to shove a pair of panties on his head and encourages Murakami to write on his face. Later in the story they occasionally exploit Moritani's power to write messages to their classmates to their bemusement.
- Time Stands Still: This is Moritani's power in a nutshell.
- Yuri Genre: Despite the light sci-fi aspect of the premise, Fragtime is primarily a love story between the two female leads.
