5cm per second is a 2007 anime directed, written and produced by Makoto Shinkai.
It’s a three part romantic drama closing in at around an hour or 65 minutes.
The story centers around Takaki Tono, from when he’s a young boy to when he becomes
an adult and his first lost love that haunts him until the end of the film.
In the first part of the movie we see Takaki as a boy in a new school who befriends another
new kid named Akari Shinohara.
They share similar interests and become close friends, however, after elementary school
Akari needs to change schools again and moves to a different prefecture.
This breaks their hearts as they’re all each other really had in school, and probably
saw each other growing up together as friends and even something more.
Akari moves and they start middle school.
They keep in touch through letters, though the letters get further and further apart
as time goes on.
It’s later revealed that Tono needs to move again for high school to a city all the
way across the country.
So Tono takes the long and treacherous journey in the snow to see Akari one last time before
he moves.
This part of the movie is honestly breathtaking.
The scenery, the long agonizing wait, the sound of the winter wind rushing through the
train station, it’s incredible.
The artistry of the entire film cannot be overstated enough, but the train scene is
just everything.
While waiting for hours in the cold Tono loses the letter he wrote to Akari confessing his
feelings for her.
Another blow to Tono as he continues to sit in silence, feeling like a failure and hoping
Akari doesn’t wait for him.
But of course, when he gets to the station, there she is.
The two shed a couple of tears and then eat the delicious anime food Akari cooked for
them.
They then walk to a dormant cherry blossom tree where the two kiss and this leads to
another heartbreakingly true scene, and that is the speech Tono gives where he says that
though this is everything he’s always wanted, he knows that this is also the beginning of
the end, and that their romance and love is doomed.
“It was like I was sharing every experience I'd ever had in my past 13 years.
And then, the next moment, I became unbearably sad.
I didn't know what to do with these feelings.
Her warmth, her soul.
How was I supposed to treat them?
That, I did not know.
Then right then, I clearly understood that we would never be together.
Our lives not yet fully realized, the vast expanse of time.
They lay before us and there was nothing we could do.
But then, all my worries, all my doubt, started melting away.
All that was left were Akari's soft lips on mine.”
If that doesn’t make your eyes well up I don’t know what will.
Shinkai’s words just so miraculously capture the haunting feeling of love, and not just
any type of love, but young love.
There’s a maturity these characters have of knowing that they have to part ways and
go live their own lives and that they can’t hold onto one another forever, that not a
lot of kids and teens have and I think it’s important that this film kind of teaches that.
I think for a lot of young people life is very in the moment, it’s very now or never
all or nothing, but 5cm per second doesn’t talk down to kids who are hopelessly in love
with their middle school crush, but rather it talks to them.
And it’s so frustrating because they could just tell each other how they feel and start
dating and doing the long distance thing, but they both are mature enough to know that
it’s just not meant to be and yeah it sucks and it’ll follow them to the grave, but
you can’t live life in the past or dwelling on the ‘what ifs.’
The next morning when they parted, Akari chooses not to give Tono the letter confessing her
feelings for him because what’s the point?
They kissed and that’s all they’ll have and I guess all they’ll ever need to validate
their feelings for one another.
And though this seems like an easy decision at first, we see later in their adult lives,
mainly in Tono’s adult life, that it was actually harder than they’d ever know.
In the second part Tono is in high school and a girl named Kanae has an unbearably huge
crush for Tono.
It was love at first sight but she never had the guts to say anything to him.
They’re friends and he’s nice to her, but it’s clear he’s still stuck in the
past, thinking about Akari and writing emails to no one.
“I wonder when I got in the habit of writing messages to nobody?”
Tono wonders one night.
Then one day Kanae decides to pluck up the courage and tell Tono how she really feels.
But just the thought of being rejected by him and just the general pain of opening yourself
up to someone and being vulnerable breaks her and she starts to cry.
Before she can get the words out, a space satellite is launched and the two stare at
it silently, thinking about things that are bigger than themselves, and Kanae realizes
that Tono is always looking past her, and that her telling him the truth won’t change
that.
It’s a devastatingly sad ending, but so perfect and real that it’s just such a great
sequitur into part 3.
Kanae, like Tono, wants a relationship with someone they can’t have, and they need to
cope with that feeling and it’s freaking hard.
Kanae cries herself to sleep that night and even goes to the airport after Tono’s plane
takes off.
The film doesn’t shy away from the reality of heartbreak which is why I think
it’s just so good.
So part 3 and the last part of the film centers around Tono as an adult.
We see that he’s been trying to get over Akari and even has a girlfriend and a job.
But still after 10 to 15 odd years later he cannot shake Akari from his mind.
He’s still haunted by what they could have been and why they could never be.
He ends up breaking up with his girlfriend and quitting his job after realizing he’s
been suppressing his depression for too long.
And you might think that Tono is just an extremely melodramatic guy that can’t get over his
first crush and it’s like GET OVER IT DUDE, and I felt like that too when I was younger
and re-watched the film when I was in college.
Before I get to the conclusion of the film and this video, I’d like to share a personal
aside.
I was introduced to this film by my friend in high school and fell in love with it.
I was at a point in my life where I too was hung up on a first crush and this film just
spoke to me, for obvious reasons.
I’ve been rewatching this film for over a decade now and keep coming back to it because
each time I see it I see something new.
When I first watched it, it helped me get through some hard feelings I was having.
When I watched in college and was immersed in bad faith media criticism and cynicism
I was intent on pointing out all the plot holes and how Tono was actually an evil misogynist.
Now as a 25 in a half year old who’s been out of high school for more than a decade
I see the film in a new light.
I see the film as speaking a truth that is so hard to capture in words, and that is the
feeling of haunting.
The love that haunts Tono haunts so many of us, whether it be a crush, a lover, a friend,
their absence and the what-ifs in life that follow us into our dreams, in the time spent
waiting for a train or walking around a city at night in the snow.
It’s the cold emptiness and reality that in life you won’t get everything you want.
And it’s really hard to deal with that, but through Takaki we can sit in that sadness,
but also learn to live with it and move on and heal.
And that might take a better half a decade, a whole decade, or even your entire life,
but doing the work to not sit in that darkness is worth doing because you need to be able
to see the beauty that’s in front of you or risk life passing you by.
5cm per second isn’t afraid to wade in the melodrama and embrace the sadness because
it’s something that’s part of the human experience and is worth exploring.
So back to the ending of the film.
We see Tono walking through the city at night and we also see Akari who is engaged to be
married.
Some time later in the spring we see Akari and Tono walking across the railroad tracks
where they used to walk to and from school together, but they don’t seem to recognize
one another.
Then Tono looks up, only to see the train rushing by.
After the trains leave, Akari isn’t there.
But Tono gives a small smile and walks on, letting us know that maybe he’s started
the journey into trying to live in the present rather than the past.
This ending sequence is accompanied with a song entitled One more time, one more chance
by Masayoshi Yamazaki and if you haven’t seen the video and heard the song already,
watch it here on YouTube, you will not regret it.
In the ending song we see Tono and Akari through the years staring longly at their mailboxes,
waiting for letters that will never come, being distracted at school, thinking they
saw the other’s face on a train somewhere, and lastly, them with their current partners.
And that’s the end of the film.
The two never talk again as adults or reconcile.
They just need to go about their lives and move on and it’s hard, but it's so real
and that’s why I love the movie.
It’s probably my favorite movie, I come back to it all the time and the artistry alone
is worth a watch even if you’re not invested in the story or romance.
So that’s the end of the video, I hope you enjoyed this mini rant about my favorite movie of all time.
And I just wanted to share it with you guys just incase you haven't heard of it and want to check it out.
My next video is going to be about another one of my favorite movies
and that is Lady Bird, so be on the look out for that one!
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