5 Centimeters per Second



5 Centimeters Per Second (秒速5センチメートル, Byōsoku Go Senchimētoru) is Makoto Shinkai's third film, and was released in 2007. However, unlike his other works, the events here reflect the relentless nature of reality, with no plot-relevant fantasy or science fiction elements. The end result is a highly polished, but also very depressing, heart-breaking and beautiful romance movie.

The movie's focus is on two people named Takaki Tohno and Akari Shinohara, following them as they mature. It is divided into three episodes that comprise the movie. The first part, "Cherry Blossoms", follows Takaki's reflections on his relationship with Akari while they were children. The second act, "Cosmonaut", leaves Akari to depict Takaki as a teenager and is told from Kanae Sumida's perspective. The final part, which is also called "5 Centimeters Per Second", shows them as young adults, in a montage set to the famous Japanese pop song "One More Time, One More Chance".

The title 5 Centimeters Per Second refers to the speed at which Cherry Blossom petals fall and acts as a metaphor for the nature of love and human relationships.

In addition to the film proper, there is also a 2007 light novel adaptation and 2010 manga both written by Shinkai himself, as well as a second novel, one more side. This one was written by Arata Kanoh in 2011 and provides alternative perspectives on the film, such as Akari's view of the first act's events.


 * Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder - This is subverted to some degree: while Takaki's mind does indeed go yonder, his heart remains fixated on one constant point: this accounts for Kanae's observation that he is always looking toward something distant, and fails to notice people around him. For most of the movie, he is unable to have the individual who invoked such feelings in him because he was too rigid to move toward anyone -- until the end, at which point he becomes capable of actually taking control of his own life and taking it in the direction that he wants it to go. To this end, his heart has not gone yonder; rather, it becomes a little more malleable and open.
 * Adaptation Expansion: All three adaptations add things beyond the film's coverage.
 * The manga adaptation adds a lot more detail to Takaki's adult life and relationship with Risa. It also has extra content past the end of the film proper that breathes insight into Kanae's life following the events of the movie and parallels Takaki's experiences during his adulthood; with her life passing through the same cycle of entering and leaving relationships, she ultimately decides to confront her feelings head-on by trying to meet up with Tohno. Contrasting Takaki's implied meeting with Akari, Kanae.
 * The novel goes into greater detail on Takaki's life after returning to Tokyo in the third act, including how he had two other girlfriends before Risa. It disagrees with the manga on a number of things, though, like how he breaks up with Risa, and doesn't have Kanae's final chapter.
 * Akari's side of things in the third act is covered more extensively in both the manga and one more side. one more side, by taking Takaki's perspective of the second act's events, also shows things that Kanae was not privy to.
 * Airplane of Love: To emphasize how distant Takaki is to Kanae, the launch of a rocket replaces the airplane.
 * Alien Sky: Takaki's recurring dreams feature sweeping panoramas of familiar landscapes juxtaposed with [[Media:FiveCentimetersPerSecondLandscape2 7436.jpg|skies featuring unique sights]].
 * Aliens in Cardiff: While the film starts in Tokyo and returns there for the third act, other parts of Japan less readily known to foreigners also are of importance; much of the first act concerns Takaki making a cold, lonely journey up north to rural Tochigi Prefecture to meet Akari. The second act takes him even further away to the remote southern island of Tanegashima.
 * All Love Is Unrequited: The driving force behind the story, this movie illustrates how reality does not follow the "happily ever after" route, and how love is sometimes unrealised.
 * Ambiguous Situation: Is the woman that Takaki passes at the railway crossing in the third act really Akari? The fact that she doesn't wait to acknowledge him despite getting her memory jogged a short time ago by is suspicious, and invites speculation that it could have been a doppelganger or Takaki's hallucination instead. Official artbook A sky longing for memories unhelpfully uses the phrase "the woman" rather than explicitly confirming or denying that it's her, further muddying the waters. The manga has, but whether this is even meant to confirm that the woman is Akari after all or is merely symbolising Takaki's finally giving up on the pursuit of Akari is also debatable. The number of divergences the manga has from the film also call into question how much stock should be put in this even if the former is the correct interpretation.
 * Anthropomorphic Personification: Symbolic only in the minds of the characters. These aspects are present within the title and other subtle details such as the rocket launch and the train.
 * Bishonen: Takaki
 * Bittersweet Ending: While Takaki quit his job and broke up with his girlfriend, he ultimately takes control of his life and starts to deal with the lonely and bitter feelings that he's been nursing for fifteen years. In the novelisation of the film (which is also written by Makoto Shinkai),.
 * Bland-Name Product:
 * McDonalge, a fast food chain in Takaki's recollections
 * A Starberks Coffee is located in one of the train stations.
 * Takaki glances at his Ocasi digital watch several times en route to Iwafune.
 * A Windows Vasta magazine can be seen in a convenience store that Takaki visits as an adult.
 * Subverted with Takaki's use of a wireless LogiCool mouse at his workplace. It sounds like this but Logitech actually trades as Logicool in Japan.
 * Book Ends: The film begins and ends with
 * Broad Strokes: While some of the extra content in the various adaptations can be made to fit in gaps left by the original film, the manga's having is an irreconcilable divergence.
 * Cannot Spit It Out: Kanae struggles to tell Takaki that she's deeply in love with him.
 * Cherry Blossoms: First mentioned by Akari, the rate at which Cherry Blossoms fall under normal circumstances acts as a metaphor for falling in love.
 * Contrived Coincidence:
 * The likelihood of Takaki and maybe-Akari just happening to pass each other in the same place and at the same time in a metropolis as massive as Tokyo, and specifically to do so in a neighbourhood with childhood significance to the two of them at that, is tiny to say the least.
 * The ending to the manga adaptation, where, is equally implausible.
 * Don't You Dare Pity Me!:
 * Dreaming of Things to Come: Takaki has a recurring dream of himself and Akari climbing a hill in a surrealistic sunrise. Aside of being a Mythology Gag for Place Promised, this could be the future, their afterlife, or an Alternate Universe.
 * Drowning My Sorrows: One point in the third act cuts from Takaki's ex-girlfriend to him at a bar, shows the two of them sleeping at opposite sides of a bed, then back to him gulping down a glass. The implication is obvious.
 * Expy: Takaki incorporates elements derived from the male leads in Shinkai's previous works, and shares some similarities to Jay Gatsby.
 * Foreshadowing:
 * In the first act, Takaki hopes while his train is stalled by the snowstorm that Akari has gone home rather than wait for him in the cold.
 * There are several mentions of the Japanese space program in the second act well before the climactic rocket launch happens.
 * In one more side, Risa becomes distressed by Takaki guessing that she has an older brother, but it takes three more chapters to learn why.
 * Ghibli Plains: The greenery of Tanegashima contrasts with the built-up confines of Tokyo and the snowfields of Tochigi. One of the subtle Show, Don't Tell points of the film is how Takaki is only ever depicted amongst them at or near night, with physical inability to see the beauty of his surroundings reflecting how he's mentally stuck pining for faraway Akari instead of appreciating nearby Kanae who wants to be there for him.
 * Gratuitous English: As with Shinkai's other movies, it has a Japanese title (Byōsoku Go Senchimētoru/"5 Centimeters Per Second") but an English subtitle; in this case: A Chain Of Short Stories About Their Distance.
 * I Will Wait for You: This is implied in the second act and : In the period between the end of part two and the beginning of part three, Takaki has, and Akari has.
 * In Medias Res: The last third begins on March 2008, with Takaki working at home before going for a walk.  Of course once the Multiple Endings sequence begins, the vast majority is in the form of flash backs since it goes back to their childhood, before returning to the present day.
 * Just Friends: Takaki becomes this to Akari (possibly) when she doesn't turn back, and Kanae to Takaki when she doesn't reveal her feelings for him.
 * Last-Name Basis: Takaki's distance from Kanae is reflected by how, unlike with Akari, he always uses her last name.
 * Lighter and Softer: Unlike Shinkai's previous two films with their bloodshed and violence, here there isn't even a schoolyard scuffle.
 * Maybe Ever After: The manga has an additional chapter focused on Kanae, at the end of which it is implied Whether or not things work out this time is left unknown.
 * Men Can't Keep House: An undone bed and undisposed beer cans are among the things in Takaki's messy apartment that show how he's not doing well in the third act. That said, one more side states that he already wasn't the neatest even before breaking up with Risa.
 * Mr. Fanservice: Older Takaki is quite handsome even when his life is in shambles.
 * Multiple Endings: The last few minutes of the movie present a number of images that can represent several different aspects of an ending. The 'true' (i.e. final) one appears to be a Tear Jerker Esoteric Happy Ending, but it also presents a Downer Ending, a Happily Ever After, and a few shots of symbolic birds.
 * Next Sunday A.D.: The film was released in 2007, and after the first two 1990s-set acts, ends in 2008.
 * No Antagonist: There are no interfering parents, rival suitors or other sentient opposition to Takaki and Akari's relationship.
 * Official Couple: Takaki and Akari.
 * Opposite Gender Protagonists: Takaki Tohno and Akari Shinohara meet as children whose sickliness leads to spending time together. Their parents have to move because of work, though, leading to physical separation that they try to overcome with letters, and then another meeting before an upcoming move that will make that impossible. The second act of the film then follows a sort-of third wheel who only has access to one side of the story and the viewer is invited to speculate with her as to what's going on.
 * Real Place Background: The iconic railway crossings are with the Odakyū Odawara Line near Sangūbashi Station in Shibuya, Tokyo. Other actual locales recreated include parts of the Shibuya and Shinjuku Wards of Tokyo and the southern island of Tanegashima.
 * Reality Ensues: The film is something of a self-rebuttal to Shinkai's earlier works, which had the Star-Crossed Lovers hold on despite the fantastic obstacles in their way. Here, Takaki and Akari's Long-Distance Relationship fails, not because of some exotic cause or a romantic antagonist's sabotage, but out of the depressingly mundane cause of physical distance leading to emotional distance and the both of them not doing enough to fight for it.
 * Red Oni, Blue Oni: Akari is blue, Kanae is red.
 * Scenery Porn: The artwork is awe-inspiring; the sheer volume of detail present in the movie, especially with respect to some of the minor scenes and background elements, almost makes reality look drab by comparison.
 * Shout-Out: Several instances exist.
 * In one of Takaki's flashbacks during "Cherry Blossoms", Akari stops to pet a cat named Chobi, and remarks that it must be lonely for him without Mimi around; in Shinkai's short "She and Her Cat," Chobi is the name of the titular cat, and he has a lady-friend (also a cat) named Mimi.
 * A tall tower is present in Takaki's recurring dreams, reminiscent of the Union's tower in Shinkai's previous work, The Place Promised in Our Early Days.
 * Snow Means Death: Of Takaki and Akari's relationship, that is. It peaks when they kiss under the sakura tree while it snows, and their relationship goes steadily downhill afterwards. Later on, Takaki gets a breakup email from Risa while walking home in the falling snow.
 * Snow Means Love: Takaki and Akari kiss under the sakura tree for the first time. While it signifies love, it also signifies the coldness Tohno feels when faced with the prospect of being separated from her.
 * Star-Crossed Lovers: Takaki and Akari have more hope for a happy ending than typical cases, but they qualify nonetheless. This is more apparent in Kanae's situation: her.
 * Technology Marches On: The first act occurs in the early 1990s, and as such, cell phones and email are still relatively rare. As the story moves through the second and third act, these technologies become more commonplace.
 * Theme and Variations Soundtrack: Some of the piano arrangements share motifs with "One More Time, One More Chance".
 * Tomboy and Girly Girl: Akari and Kanae never meet in the movie, but Akari is noticeably more intelligent whereas Kanae is noticeably more physically active and assertive. This is played with in the reverse direction: Kanae comes across as being more emotionally fragile than Akari.
 * Train Station Goodbye: When the two lovers finally part at Iwafune Station, they leave behind their innocence and unspoken emotions.
 * True Love's Kiss: Subverted in that despite Takaki and Akari sharing a kiss early on, life for him remains somewhat of a challenge from there until the ending of the final act.
 * Twenty Minutes Into the Past: The film was released in 2007 with its first two acts set in the 1990s before Time Skipping to a Next Sunday A.D. 2008.
 * Unlucky Childhood Friend: All three characters find woe in matters of the heart, but Kanae fits the trope best, as she's not a main focus character.
 * Vehicle Vanish: This is perhaps one of the most moving instances, as Akari and Takaki become separated after their last meeting together when the maybe-her is obscured by a pair of trains and gone by the time they finish passing.