5 Centimeters per Second
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Short description
5 Centimeters per Second follows Takaki Tohno and Akari Shinohara, close friends from their elementary school years whose bond is tested when Akari's family moves to another city. The two try to stay connected across the growing distance, and when Takaki learns his own family will move farther away, he sets out to see Akari one last time. The story unfolds in three parts, tracing the relationship through childhood, Takaki's later friendship with a girl named Kanae who harbors feelings for him, and his adult life in a cold, demanding city. Distance, time and unspoken feelings keep pulling the characters apart.
The film was written and directed by Makoto Shinkai, who also produced it with Chung Jin-ho, and it was made by CoMix Wave Films. Released in Japan in 2007 on a budget of about five million dollars, it runs just 63 minutes. It sits between The Place Promised in Our Early Days and Children Who Chase Lost Voices in Shinkai's filmography, the third of the ten features listed here, made before the wider international success of Your Name. The Japanese voice cast is led by Kenji Mizuhashi as Takaki, with Yoshimi Kondou, Ayaka Onoue and Satomi Hanamura among the twenty credited performers.
Audiences have received the film well over the years. On IMDb it holds a 7.4 rating from around 71,000 votes, while on TMDB it stands at 7.3 from roughly 2,200 votes, a level of agreement that suggests the film has found a durable viewership rather than a sharply divided one.
What's left behind the scenes
- The surname Tono is written in kanji as 'distant' and 'field,' which echo the motif of remoteness and endless snowy fields. The name Akari is written with the characters 'bright' and 'ri,' but in Japanese, there is also the word 'akari' meaning 'glow, light.' The name Kanae is written with a combination of kanji that can be translated as 'a flower just beginning to bloom,' and it also sounds similar to the verb 'kanau' – 'to come true' (of wishes).
- The title of the first part of the film, 'Passage About Blooming Cherry Blossoms,' coincides with the title of a 1970 book by Toemon Sano, a Japanese gardener of the 16th generation.
- One of the shots features Catbus as a magnet – a character from Hayao Miyazaki's anime 'My Neighbor Totoro'.
- Every letter from Akari begins with a description of the weather – this is a Japanese tradition when writing letters.
- Many landscape and everyday scenes were created based on photographs of real locations in Japan.
- The Japanese school system comprises three levels: elementary school (grades 1-6), middle school (grades 7-9), and high school (grades 10-12). The grade numbering is not continuous, so Tono and his friends are called 'freshmen' at the stadium – they are in the first grade of middle school.
- Initially, Makoto Shinkai intended to film about ten five-minute stories, unconnected by a common plot.
- The director explains his choice of 'One more time, one more chance' by Masayoshi Yamazaki as the film's theme song by saying that it is familiar to all Japanese people, and the additional associations will help convey what is left unsaid and create a cohesive impression of the film.
- In the film, Akari and Tono meet a kitten named Chobi – a character from Makoto Shinkai’s early film 'She and Her Cat.' Their conversation also mentions Mimi – Chobi’s friend. Chobi also appears in Shinkai’s film 'Beyond the Clouds'.
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