Once springs arrives and the mild wind blows through cherry trees, the small pink petals let themselves separate from the blossom and fly away at the speed of 5 centimetres per second. Wait a few minutes and you'll see how distant those petals have become. Such is the reality of life even for us human beings. As we grow older we realise that is impossible to live on a standstill and we need to move forward. Obviously this has some implications both on an emotional and on a practical level. We may have to separate from people we used to be with every day and distance as well as time may affect us and the relationships we with our loved ones.
This is basically what 5 centimetres per minute is all about . Crunchyroll is currently offering a freeview for 24 hours only to celebrate the Makoto Shinkai's global day. I read the message by sheer chance yesterday and I'm so happy I did because this story is really worth watching.
The graphic is simply stunning, the scenery accurate to the detail is simply breathtaking. The story is divided in three episodes which are interconnected as they narrate different moments of our protagonist life, Takaki
We meet him when he is young, just in junior high and coping with the departure of Akari - his closest friend, a girl for whom he has developed feelings he cannot express - the year before while also preparing for his own move away from Tokyo and to a remoter part of the country. We then move to Takaki at the final stages of high school, preparing to move on to the next stage of his life and completely, blissfully ignorant of the feelings Kanae, a girl in his class has for him. Finally, we meet Takaki again as a young adult, twenty six and giving in to disillusionment. ( source http://twitchfilm.net/site/view/5-centimeters-per-second-review/)
My favourite episodes are the first and the third one as I found them to be the most emotional from Takaki perspective. The second one was very intense but it focused mainly on Kanae's struggle. Having said that I have to admit that plot-wise the ending of part 3 left me unsatisfied. Maybe it's just me being a total sucker for happy endings (I held my hope and my breath until the very end the last scene at the cross level was killing me..) I felt all my emotional involvement to Takaki and Akari's love story was a bit betrayed. ;_;
On a different note, I really love the music soundtrack in particular the song "One more time, one more chance". by Masayoshi Yamazaki. below you can watch the anime finale which features this track. The song wasn't created specifically for the anime. This is an old piece and was selected by the director just because he was looking for a song that that the Japanese audience was familiar with. The whole purpose is in fact to represent life and reality as we know it. The images used also refer to objects, scenarios we see everyday and thus look familiar to us . Images and the music fits just perfectly together and the emotional impact of the editing just add more beauty to it.
Overall is definitely worth your time even if you are a (hopeless) happy endings fan like me..
4 comments:
Hmm...the first time I saw this anime was few months back. At that time I searched for BGI videous and this poped out...
http://www.animemusicvideos.org/members/members_videoinfo.php?vid_id=151845
Really a great piece, dunno why I hesitated to download it. Not to mention the superb animation O.o Too shiny for my eyes :D In a good way that is... Downloading the anime as I speak ^.^
Yes the anime has something that reminds me a little of BGI. probably because even here the focus of the story is the timing and distance. Of course I hope that BGI will have a much more satisfying conclusion. Anyway i'd like to know your opinion about 5 cm per second once u have watched it
Superb !!! That's the only thing I could say after watching it. It's the second time I got sooo emotional this week :D First after watching the ending of an anime called "Sola" which I recommend ;)[has 13 epi.]. And now this... The scenery and animation were just breath-taking ! Sometimes I didn't know if I should read the subtitles or just watch the animetion :D Was watching it in blue-ray quality so that talks for itself.[great detail] If we look on the story side, well it showed that life is one big struggle...and love is not an exception. Poor Takaki, after such a long time still hanging on her. Dunno why he didn't search for her as he got independant. And talking about jobs, he was a programmer ! O.o OMG!, I could clearly see database instructions there... as I would see myself writing them :D *I say only this...a life of a programmer is really short*. Overally a great piece... i would give it 9/10. One minus point for the sad ending, atleast for Takaki.
p.s:found a lil error in your review..."This is basically what 5 centimetres per >>minute<<< is all about ." :D now that's slow motion !
Oh my gosh XD!! Thanks for pointing that out!! guess 5 cm/s wasn't enough for me !!
Yeah I already thought that the scenery was simply amazing but I can imagine that in blue ray it would look just stunning!! Thank you so much for your comment ( i loved your expalnation about the programming part cos I was clueless about it!!) and I completely agree with you 100%. I think that he didn't look for her simply because he had no means to track her down ( now with facebook, that would have been a completely different story..)
Anyway I would also rate it 9/10 just because I costantly crave happy endings..
I haven't watched Sola, I wonder whether there is a good site that hosts in on streaming?
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