Byousoku 5cm - Akari & Takaki

[Impressions]

I have always been in love with Makoto Shinkai and Tenmon’s works, it has always been astounding. From his previous works like Voices of a Distant Star (ほしのこえ）, The Place Promised In Our Early　Days (雲のむこう、約束の場所) etc, his animation and storyboarding enchanted me as it is so fluid and it compelled me to have that urge to import the DVD. This time, he directed Byousoku 5cm (秒速5センチメートル) and I would say his works have reached another level. The theme of his movie is as what the title is all about. - distance in different aspects

The movie is broken into 3 parts and each part has a name to it. Oukashou, Cosmonaut, 5 centimeters per second

Part 1 is about how Takaki gets to know Akari and soon they find themselves seperated by distance at 2 different cities that are far apart, although physically apart, Takaki makes an effort and overcomes the physical barrier just to meet Akari for once. Yet, as they find themselves going to move to different cities for studies, the physical distance is making it harder.

Part 2 takes place when Takaki is now at Kagoshima (hope i get it right) and now there is a girl in his school that likes him - Sumita. This tanned looking girl who loves surfboarding at the sea is secretly in love with Takaki, although she wants to make a confession to him, she realises that Takaki’s feelings is somewhere else. If you guess it right, Part2 deals with the distance of emotions and feelings. To overcome that, Takaki sends SMSes via phone to Akari.

The final part of this story takes place back to the city where Takaki and Akari has grown up, time has past and while both parties still remember the promises and the feelings towards each other, time has waned the both of them and each of them takes on a different move in life. Time has not stopped for Takaki and Akari for them to be together but time has slowly eroded the bonds of both as they move on in life. Akari is now married and found a companion in life while deep in her heart, she has a fragment of memory about Takai when they were young. That fragment of memory has yet to be eroded by the cruelty of time, however, it is obvious that with time, the bonds will slowly be eroded and forgotten. (as seen in the scene where Takaki finds no one on the other end of the track as he thought the girl, supposingly Akari will wait to see who he is). If you guess it right again, Part 3 talks about the a bond that is eroded by time from the distance between the two.

I am sure some will disagree with what I said. Just based upon my views and how I look at it from my perspective. In my opinion, this animation is about the different kind of distances.

Time can erode feelings and the bonds of parties seperated by a distance. As the distance gets further, one will slowly lose the closeness if they lost contact with each other.

The distance with emotions cannot be overcome with the help of anything by closing in of sheer physical distance.The

A relationship by physical distance can be overcome but as the gap gets bigger, even with modern transport, it is just hard.

Akari

Akari..

nice animation

Sumita

Sumita..

Sumita

Sumita and Takaki

Akari

Distance

An unknown who is secretly in love with Takaki

Married and happy.

Akari.

Akari..yet again

Takaki.