Absolutely Fantastic

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

5 Centimeters per Second (Byousoku 5 Centimeter) is a 2007 Japanese animated romantic drama film produced, written, and directed by Makoto Shinkai (Voices of a Distant Star, She and Her Cat: Their Standing Points). The film consists of three parts: 'Cherry Blossom', 'Cosmonaut', and '5 Centimeters per Second', which together have an hour of runtime. As in Shinkai's previous works, Tenmon (he composed many music pieces for Falcom games) composed this film's soundtrack. The film was awarded Best Animated Feature Film at the 2007 Asia Pacific Screen Awards. The DVD was released on 19 July 2007. A novel of 5 Centimeters per Second was released in November 2007. In the July's 2010 issue of the manga anthology Afternoon, a manga adaptation started serialization with illustrations by Seike Yukiko (Majime na Jikan, Tsuki ni Hoeran nee).Takaki and Akari, two very close friends and classmates, attended elementary school together. One day, they cannot be together anymore because of Akari's family. Their plans to attend the same middle school are now shattered. The two continue to keep in touch via mails. However, as time goes by, the distance between the two grows larger and larger, making the possibility for them to meet again almost impossible. What fate awaits Takaki and Akari, and will they be able to meet again?Indeed, the story-line is very SoL like: no magic, no forced drama, no superpowers, or anything like that. This movie is absolutely generic, and it might have been the truth, if not one (thing) person: Shinkai Makoto. That person, the creator of 5 Centimeters per Second, made a piece about reality. Yes, yes, it is about reality. Makoto Shinkai does not need to follow a cliché route (death, betrayal, or anything like that) to make his movie unique, he only needs realism, and I must say that this movie is unique. It might be slow, it might have no plot twists, but it is extremely tragic, dramatic, and beautiful at the same time. The last thing I want to mention is that you will never guess what will happen next, as well as the anime's ending, which you will surely like about this movie.The art is amazing, too. Every scene, every detail are just fantastically beautiful. They put so much effort in the animation that you can even make out labels of every product during the convenience store scene. But this is not the main appeal of this anime, the main appeal is its amazingly gorgeous sceneries; they are just impressive. Too bad character designs are not as detailed as sceneries are, but this is not the main focus of this anime; there is no need for some wacky character designs. Sound wise, both English and Japanese dubs are good. There are some minor defects in the English dubs, though; but you will not notice them, just turn off the subtitles. The OST is also good, it manages to fit the voices perfectly well and it does its magic. Tenmon did simply a great job here.There are three main characters in this movie, but I will not touch upon the third one just to avoid spoilers. The first one is Takaki Touno. He is the protagonist of this movie and is forced to move a lot, because of his family's job issues. He and Akari become close friends, but when Akari moves away, they end up attending different junior high schools. The second protagonist is Akari Shinohara. She is Takaki's best friend and love interest in elementary school. Just like Takaki, she and her family move a lot. After elementary school, she moves to another prefecture, which distances her from Takaki. The two, however, continue to keep in touch via mails. That said, all three protagonists are very human and realistic; their inner dialogues and development are just something you will surely appreciate and enjoy. All in all, 5 Centimeters per Second is definitely a must see for all fans of the romance genre. There are no cliché aspects you will usually see in anime like that, only a real life story. What is more, the creator also tries to let the viewer decide and think in many situations during this movie, which is another huge plus of this anime. So, if you really do believe that you are a true fan of this genre and want to see something new, you should definitely give this movie a shot. It is not that long, watch it.

This movie is beautifully animated. It has surreal backgrounds, cute characters, and a lighthearted atmosphere. The story focused on both perspective -- the boy and the girl's. It presented love in most of its forms, cheesy and romantic, that can sometimes be heartbreaking and dissatisfying. The story didn't live up to the hype of the beginning. But it's still worth a watch. After all, these are just my opinion.

This is easily one of the most beautiful movies I have seen. Simple yet powerful, the visual narrative is breathtaking. By the end, I was rooting for a happy ending, but it wasn't meant to be.This a simple love story powerfully told in an artistic way. One can see the artist's imagination working in the minute details that get captured in each scene. For example, Akari gets up from her seat in her office to go to a meeting, and her chair rotates slightly--empty--as the scene cuts. At that moment, the story is devolving into how Akari has moved on in her life, and this little ending drives the message home. Similarly, Takaki says to himself at some point that he didn't know when he started composing messages on his phone meant for nobody, meaning that loneliness has become a part of him. That standard of storytelling is hard to emulate.In short, a treat for the artist in you.

This is considered to be a romance?Here's a single-sentence summary of the film:Kids message back and forth about their lives, never actually doing anything to get together. The end.It was INCREDIBLY slow. I just thought, "There HAS to be a point to this." There wasn't. It just kept going on and on and on and on. This was utter rubbish. Avoid like the plague. I cannot understand why people like this.I gave it a 2 because the animation quality was superb. -Mitchell