TimeWorld-Class
No. 027
Time Travel
Jump back or forward to another point in time, then live with what your changes break.
12 Holders · 5 Medialistofsuperpowers.com
Time Travel.
Also called Time Leaping · Chrononautics · Time Jumping · Temporal Displacement
Jump back or forward to another point in time, then live with what your changes break.
At a glanceWorld-ClassTime12 Holders · 5 Media
- Best known
- Tim LakeAbout TimeNumber FiveThe Umbrella AcademyKang the ConquerorAvengers (Marvel Comics)
- Main Drawback
- Changing the past can remove people the user loves from the present, so every fix has a body count of lost moments.
- Main Weakness
- Some events are fixed points: no matter how many times the user goes back, the same disaster happens in a new way.
What is Time Travel?
Time travel is the power to leave the present and arrive somewhere else on the timeline. Some users jump their whole body into another year. Others only send their mind back into their younger self, or rewind to a save point when things go wrong. It is not the same as chronokinesis: a time traveler moves through time, while a chronokinetic stops, slows or speeds up time where they stand.
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Writers reach for it because it turns every story into a second chance. The hero who saw the bad ending can go back and try again, and the reader gets to watch the same day play out in new ways. The catch is that the power can erase all tension. If the character can always rewind, nothing is final, so most good time-travel stories add a price, a limit or a rule that some events will not move.
The theme that keeps coming back is regret. From About Time to Erased to Tokyo Revengers, the traveler is usually trying to save one person or undo one mistake, and finds that fixing it breaks something else. If your character can go back, decide what they want to change, what it will cost them, and whether they will learn to stop.
Variants · 6
Physical Time Jump. The user's whole body vanishes from one moment and appears in another. They can meet other people, carry things across and, in some stories, run into an older or younger copy of themselves.
Mental Time Leap. Only the user's memories travel. They wake up inside their younger body, knowing what is coming, but stuck with a child's size, rules and reputation.
Death Reset. The user returns to a fixed checkpoint every time they die. Powerful, but every failure has to be lived through and remembered, which grinds the user down.
Trigger-Based Travel. The jump only happens through a ritual or object: a journal, a handshake, a sword in a stone, a dark cupboard. The trigger becomes a plot device that can be lost or blocked.
Messages to the Past. The user cannot go back in person but can send information, like a text message or a letter. Small changes ripple out into big ones, often in ways nobody planned.
Time Machine. The power lives in a device rather than the person. Anyone who steals the machine can use it, which makes it a great target for villains and thieves.
Drawbacks & Weaknesses
Drawback = the price the Holder pays. Weakness = what stops it from outside.
Drawbacks
Changing the past can remove people the user loves from the present, so every fix has a body count of lost moments.
Seen in Tim Lake (About Time)
Each trip back leaves damage behind, and the user's own mind and body start to break under the weight of the timelines they remember.
Seen in Evan Treborn (The Butterfly Effect)
Some versions only reset when the user dies, so every attempt costs real pain and fear that only they remember.
Seen in Subaru Natsuki (Re:Zero)
Jumps can be limited in number, and wasting them on small things leaves none for the moment that matters.
Seen in Makoto Konno (The Girl Who Leapt Through Time)
Weaknesses
Some events are fixed points: no matter how many times the user goes back, the same disaster happens in a new way.
If the power depends on a trigger or another person, losing that link strands the user in one time.
Seen in Takemichi Hanagaki (Tokyo Revengers)
Organizations that police the timeline can hunt down travelers who change things they should not.
Seen in Number Five (The Umbrella Academy)
A traveler who relies on a machine is helpless without it, and anyone else who finds it can follow them.
Characters with time travel
12 Holders across Game, Film, TV Series, Comics, Anime & Manga. The same character in another Work is listed separately, because the rules can change.
Showing 12 of 12 Holders · tap a Holder for details
How the rules differ
Pick a question to see how different Works answer it.
- Number FiveHis whole body
- Evan TrebornHis adult mind, into his child self
- Rintaro OkabeText messages, not people
- Booster GoldHimself, in a museum time sphere
- LinkHis body, between two fixed ages
- Subaru NatsukiDying
- Evan TrebornReading his old journals
- Satoru FujinumaDanger nearby, not his choice
- LinkTaking or returning the Master Sword
- Tim LakeHis own choice, any time
- Tim LakeRisk of changing who his children are
- Makoto KonnoA limited number of leaps
- Subaru NatsukiEvery death, remembered
- Barry AllenA whole new timeline to repair
- Rintaro OkabeRemembering alone what others forget
Writing your own time travel character
- 1Write down the rules before the first jump: how far back, how often, whether the body or only the mind travels, and what happens to the old timeline. Readers forgive odd rules but not rules that change when the plot needs them to.
- 2Give every trip a price. A limited count, physical damage, lost memories or a changed present keeps the reader worried even though the character could, in theory, try again.
- 3Decide what your traveler regrets. Most famous time travelers are trying to save one person; the story is really about whether they can let that go.
- 4To avoid feeling like a copy of About Time or Tokyo Revengers, change who travels and why. A historian who can only visit dates in old photos, a grandmother who rewinds one minute a day, or a villain who goes back to make sure bad things still happen are all fresh angles.
- 5If your character also freezes or slows time, that is a second power. Keep time travel and chronokinesis separate in your notes so their limits do not blur together.
FAQ
What is the power to travel through time called?
It is called time travel, and anime often says time leaping. Controlling the flow of time without leaving the present, such as stopping or slowing it, is a separate power called chronokinesis or time manipulation.
What is the difference between time travel and chronokinesis?
Time travel moves the user to another point in time, such as last week or the year 2050. Chronokinesis controls how time flows where the user is, such as freezing a room or slowing down a bullet. A character can have both, but they are separate powers with separate limits.
What is a time leap in anime?
In many anime, a time leap means sending someone back to an earlier point in their own life, often with their present memories. Tokyo Revengers, Erased and The Girl Who Leapt Through Time all use this idea, and each gives it a different trigger and limit.
Can time travelers change the past?
It depends on the story's rules. In some works the past can be changed but the change creates new problems, as in The Butterfly Effect or The Flash. In others, certain events are fixed and keep happening no matter what. Pick one model and stay consistent.
Is time travel real?
Not in the way fiction shows it. Physics does allow a tiny kind of travel into the future, because time passes slightly slower for fast-moving objects, but there is no known way to go back into the past.
Use Time Travel in a generator
- JoJo Stand GeneratorRoll a Stand that may get time travel as its ability, with six stats on a hexagon.
- My Hero Academia Quirk GeneratorRoll a Quirk that may get time travel as its effect, with a Drawback and a Weakness.
- Superpower GeneratorRoll any Power on our list with its own Drawback and Weakness.
Sources and how this page was written Updated October 23, 2026 +
Each Holder links to a page that confirms the Power in that Work. The descriptions, comparisons and writing tips are our own; we drafted them with AI assistance and checked every Holder by hand. Spotted a mistake? Tell us and we will fix it.