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5 Centimeters per Second

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5 Centimeters Per Second
File:Byousoku5cm.jpg
秒速5センチメートル
(Byōsoku Go Senchimētoru)
GenreDrama, Romance
Anime film
Directed byMakoto Shinkai
Written byMakoto Shinkai
Music byTenmon
StudioCoMix Wave Inc.
ReleasedJapan March 3, 2007

Taiwan August 31, 2007
United States October 11, 2007
Canada November 15, 2007
Turkey December 5, 2007
Italy January 17, 2008
Estonia April 8, 2008

France July 10, 2008
Runtime63 minutes
Novel
Written byMakoto Shinkai
Published byMedia Factory[1]
Published19 November 2007[1]

5 Centimeters Per Second: a chain of short stories about their distance (秒速５センチメートルアチェインオブショートストリーズアバウトゼアディスタンス, Byōsoku Go Senchimētoru a chein obu shōto sutorīzu abauto zea disutansu), is a 2007 Japanese animated feature film by Makoto Shinkai. The film was finished on 22 January 2007.[2] The first part of the film was debuted on Yahoo! Japan as streaming video to Yahoo! Premium members from 16 February to 19 February 2007.[3] On 3 March 2007, the full length featured film had its theatrical premiere at Cinema Rise in Shibuya, Tokyo.[4] The film consists of three segments: Cherry Blossom (桜花抄, Ōkashō), Cosmonaut (コスモナウト, Kosumonauto), and 5 Centimeters per Second (秒速5センチメートル, Byōsoku 5 Senchimētoru), totaling about an hour of runtime. As in Shinkai's previous works, Tenmon composes for this film's soundtrack. The DVD was released on 19 July 2007. A novel of 5 Centimeters Per Second is sold on the Japanese market,[5] which includes stories that are not featured in the anime.

Characters

Takaki Tōno (遠野 貴樹, Tōno Takaki)

Voiced by: Kenji Mizuhashi (Japanese); David Matranga (ADV), Johnny Yong Bosch (Bang Zoom!) (English)

Takaki is the central character of the film. Because of his parents' jobs, he is forced to move a lot. He and Akari become close friends, but when Akari moves away, they end up attending different junior high schools. In the second arc, he is shown to be an apt kyūdō practitioner and a member of his school's kyudo club.
Akari Shinohara (篠原 明里, Shinohara Akari)

Voiced by: Yoshimi Kondō (Part 1) and Ayaka Onouei (Part 3) (Japanese); Hilary Haag (ADV), Erika Weinstein (Part 1) (Bang Zoom!) Tara Platt (Part 3) (Bang Zoom!) (English)

Takaki's best friend and supposed love interest in elementary school. Like Takaki, she and her family moves a lot. After elementary school, she moves to Iwafune. Apparently she suggests living with her aunt in Tokyo in order to stay with Takaki, but her parents disallow her from going on her own. For a while, she and Takaki keep in touch via post.
Kanae Sumida (澄田 花苗, Sumida Kanae)

Voiced by: Satomi Hanamura (Japanese); Serena Varghese (ADV), Kira Buckland (Bang Zoom!) (English)

A classmate of Takaki in high school. She has been in love with Takaki since he began attending her junior high school, but cannot express her feelings to him. Kanae loves to surf and rides a moped to school. She doesn't know what she wants to do with her future. Her older sister is a teacher at her high school.

Plot

The plot is set in Japan beginning from the 1990s and ending in modern day, with each segment centered on a boy named Takaki Tōno. It is important to note that the first episode takes place during a time period when cell phones are uncommon and e-mail has not yet reached the general populace.

Episode 1: Cherry Blossom

Takaki Tōno quickly befriends Akari Shinohara when she transfers to his elementary school. They grow closer to each other due to similar interests and attitudes; for instance, they both prefer to stay inside during recess due to their seasonal allergies. As a result, they form a strong bond; they speak to each other using their given names without any form of honorifics, which is very unusual in Japan, even among people who are romantically involved. This fact is lost in the movie's translation to English and other languages, which reduces the implied closeness of their relationship.

Upon graduating from elementary school, Akari moves to Tochigi, due to her parents' jobs. The two keep in contact by writing letters, but despite the feelings that exist between them, they inevitably begin to drift apart. When Takaki becomes aware that his family will be moving to Kagoshima, he decides to go see Akari since they will be too far apart to visit each other at all after he moves. He also prepares a letter for Akari, revealing his true feelings. However, during the journey, he loses the letter, and a severe snowstorm continuously delays Takaki's trip by several more hours. The two finally meet, and as they share their first kiss, Takaki realizes they will never be together again. Stranded in a shed due to the snowstorm, they fall asleep after talking late into the night. Takaki departs the next morning, and they promise to continue writing to each other. As the train rolls away, Takaki regrets the loss of his letter, while Akari silently looks at a letter she had intended to give to him.

Episode 2: Cosmonaut

Takaki is now in the third year of senior high in Tanegashima, where the Tanegashima Space Center is located. Kanae Sumida, a classmate of Takaki, had fallen in love with Takaki ever since she met him in middle school, but does not have the courage to openly confess her feelings. She spends all the time she can with him, even waiting long after school for the chance to go home together. It is obvious Kanae has strong feelings for Takaki, but he appears to be blind to them; he simply regards Kanae as a good friend. Over time Kanae observes that Takaki is always writing emails to someone, or staring off into the distance as if searching for something far, far away. It is revealed later in this segment, that the emails Takaki is constantly writing are merely to himself, and he has had recurring dreams in which Akari is featured. Despite her feelings for Takaki, Kanae believes he is searching for things far greater than anything she can offer and eventually decides against telling him how she feels.

Episode 3: 5 Centimeters Per Second

It is 2008, and all three characters have gone their separate ways. Takaki is now a computer programmer in Tokyo, and Akari is preparing to get married. There is no clear indication as to what Kanae has done, but in the ending montage she can be seen slightly older laying on the ocean water next to her surfboard as well as saying goodbye to Takaki as he is leaving via airplane. Takaki is still longing for Akari to the detriment of his lifestyle and his other relationships, which a recent ex-girlfriend also acknowledges. Akari, while going through some old things, finds the letter she intended to give to Takaki but never sent. She feels nostalgic for those days but has moved on with her life. On the verge of a breakdown, Takaki quits his job.

One day while walking down a road, Akari and Takaki presumably pass and recognize each other, across a train crossing. They both pause and begin to look back, but the passing trains quickly cut off their view. Takaki waits for the trains to pass, but sees that the woman is gone. After a pause, he smiles to himself and continues walking.

Development

Makoto Shinkai had expressed that, unlike his past works, there would be no fantasy or science fiction elements in this film. Instead, the feature film would attempt to present the real world from a different perspective. Makoto's film gives a realistic view of the struggles many face against: time, space, people, and love. The title 5 Centimeters Per Second comes from the speed at which cherry blossoms petals fall, petals being a metaphorical representation of humans, reminiscent of the slowness of life and how people often start together but slowly drift into their separate ways.[6] The movie marks the first time Shinkai has worked closely with a full staff of animators and artists.[7]

Staff

DVD releases

The DVD was released on the 19 July 2007 in Japan.[9] The title was licensed by ADV Films and reported for a December 2007 release.[10] However, Amazon.com's original English release date was the 4 March 2008 but then was later moved back to the 25 March 2008.[11] The official Russian release was already in stock in January 2008.[12] On 11 July 2008 ADV Announced that it was discontinuing print of the DVD.[13] Bang Zoom! Entertainment has re-dubbed the entire film at the request of its original Japanese distributor, and the new dub was first streamed via Crunchyroll as part of their Day of Makoto Shinkai on 28 February 2009.[14]

ADV has also more recently confirmed that they will also be launching 5 Centimeters Per Second on DVD in the UK.[15]. ADV Anime UK are awaiting authorization to distribute it in the UK following the liquidation of its London Office. There is still much to be confirmed about the release of the movie in the United Kingdom with production discontinued.[16]

On 29 March 2009 the distribution company Madman Entertainment announced plans to release 5 Centimetres Per Second in Australia.[17] The film's ending theme was "One more time, one more chance" by Masayoshi Yamazaki.

The Blu-ray version had been released on 18 April 2008 under Region A.[18]

Reception

It has been reported that there was a huge line up in front of the theater 2 hours before the ticket selling started.[19] The stage greeting which featured Makoto Shinkai was sold out.[20] It also won the Lancia Platinum Grand Prize, the Future Film Festival for best movie in animation or special effects.[21] It won the Award for Best Animated Feature Film at the 2007 Asia Pacific Screen Awards.[22] The Japan Times's Mark Schilling commends Shinkai saying that he is better than Hayao Miyazaki "at piercing the veil of the everyday to reveal a poignant, evanescent beauty most of us notice only in rare moments."[23]

"Shinkai has been hailed as the next Miyazaki, and his dreamy mindscapes often equal or surpass the anime maestro in breadth of detail and depth of emotion. Shinkai extends the innate possibilities of the anime dynamic, reapplying its principles of lush effects, inflated background detail and sometimes undernourished character animation to mirror the interiority of the characters in every nuance of their surroundings." - Ronnie Scheib from Variety[8]

Mania.com lists 5 Centimeters Per Second as the best non-Miyazaki anime.[24] Anime News Network's Bamboo Dong commends the anime for its "heartbreakingly gorgeous" piano score composed by Tenmon, which "contributes to the dreamlike quality that the film has". She also comments that film "never comes out and tells you what the characters are feeling. It never follows a strict storyline, but between the interactions on the screen and well-timed shots of lonely landscapes, everything is as clear as night and day".[25] Mania.com's Chris Beveridge criticises the anime for its aliasing as well as it "seems to get a fairly low bitrate during a lot of it which leads to some noisy and overly grainy feeling areas. The film has so many lush colors to it that a lot of them start to show too much noise at times which is almost as distracting as the aliasing."[26] Theron Martin reviewing for Anime News Network commends "The production [which] also excels in its use of sound effects, especially in the bow-shooting scenes in Part 2".[27]

"Taken individually, the parts offer nice little vignettes, but taken as a whole they paint a broader picture about the progression of life and love. The ending, which is where this work differs most from Shinkai's previous efforts, will doubtless be controversial and may leave some fans unsatisfied, as it opens itself to multiple interpretations. Some may feel as if it just ends without resolving anything, but if one considers Takaki's few lines of narration in part two, how that part ends, and how everything fits together, it becomes clearer that actually resolving things was never the point. Whereas Voices was about trying to maintain a connection and Place Promised was about reestablishing one, Five Centimeters is ultimately about moving on from past connections instead of just living in the past, about finding a way to become happy in the present rather than just pining for what has been lost over time. In that sense Five Centimeters is Shinkai's most mature and complicated work yet." - Theron Martin, Anime News Network[27]

References

  1. ^ a b http://www.mediafactory.co.jp/c000005/archives/017/008/17828.html
  2. ^ http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/staff_5cm/12194002.html
  3. ^ http://5cm.yahoo.co.jp/
  4. ^ http://5cm.yahoo.co.jp/sokuhou/
  5. ^ 5 Centimeters Per Second (Japanese)
  6. ^ "Director's notes" (in Japanese). Yahoo Japan. 2006. Retrieved 16 July 2006.
  7. ^ Green, Scott. "AICN Anime - Latest From Anime Auteur Makoto Shinkai Picked Up For North America". Ain't It Cool News. Retrieved 25 January 2010.
  8. ^ a b c d e f Scheib, Ronnie (6 March 2008). "Five Centimeters Per Second". Variety. Retrieved 25 January 2010.
  9. ^ http://5cm.yahoo.co.jp/dvd/
  10. ^ McCutcheon, David (25 June 2007). "5 Centimeters Per Second's Debut". Retrieved 29 July 2007.
  11. ^ "5 Centimeters Per Second's release date according to Amazon".
  12. ^ tml "5 Centimeters Per Second's Russian release according to Reanimedia Store". {{cite web}}: Check |url= value (help)
  13. ^ Anime News Netowork (11 July 2008). "ADV, Tokyopop Discontinue DVD Print Titles". Retrieved 11 July 2008.
  14. ^ "5 Centimeters Per Second Redubbed". 28 February 2009.
  15. ^ "5 Centimeters Per Second UK release confirmation at Amecon". Retrieved 13 August 2007.
  16. ^ "ADV US cancel more anime".
  17. ^ "Supernova Brisbane Madman Acquisitions Bluray Announcement". Anime News Network. 3 March 2009. Retrieved 25 January 2010.
  18. ^ "Theatrical Animation - 5 Centimeters Per Second (Blu-Ray) (Japan Version)]]".
  19. ^ "Long line up on premier date". 2 March 2007. Retrieved 5 March 2007. {{cite web}}: |first= missing |last= (help)
  20. ^ "Greeting from Mr Shinkai on the Eve". 2 March 2007. Retrieved 5 March 2007. {{cite web}}: |first= missing |last= (help)
  21. ^ "Byousoku 5 Centimeters wins the Lancia Platinum Grand Prize". 21 January 2008. Retrieved 17 April 2008.
  22. ^ "5 Centimeters Wins at Asia Pacific Screen Awards". Anime News Network. 13 November 2007. Retrieved 25 March 2008.
  23. ^ Schilling, Mark (30 March 2007). "A budding talent's delicate vision". The Japan Times. Retrieved 25 January 2010.
  24. ^ Beveridge, Chris (19 October 2009). "10 Great Anime That Are Not Miyazaki". Mania.com. Retrieved 25 January 2010.
  25. ^ Dong, Bamboo (31 March 2008). "Shelf Life - Spirits Dream Inside". Anime News Network. Retrieved 25 January 2010.
  26. ^ Beveridge, Chris (26 May 2008). "Five Centimeters Per Second". Mania.com. Retrieved 25 January 2010.
  27. ^ a b Martin, Theron (31 March 2008). "5 Centimeters Per Second DVD". Anime News Network. Retrieved 25 January 2010. {{cite web}}: line feed character in |title= at position 25 (help)

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