#tenmon

Tsuruno-chan's "It was all a dream" ending by Tenmon

Edited by TFO Scans.

Byōsoku Go Senchimētoru

5 Centimeters Per Second (2007, Japan)

Among anime fans, Makoto Shinkai has long been regarded for stunning visuals and his wacky integration of fantastical and science-fiction concepts into his plots. In his debut feature film, The Place Promised in Our Early Days (2004, Japan), Shinkai suffocated a coming-of-age story coupled minor romantic underpinnings by subordinating character development and friendships beneath a dominant science-fiction storyline that never feels cohesive. Those faults were reflective of a young director’s first feature film; they were also indicative of the cinematic tendencies of anime directors who have grown up in an era where anime and manga have been embedded into Japanese popular culture. With his sophomore effort in 5 Centimeters Per Second, Shinkai crafts a movie that is without fantastical or science-fiction elements in an inconsistent piece that exemplifies a director experimenting with what might be uncomfortable to him. It is the only entry in Shinkai’s filmography without those aforementioned features, as of the release of Your Name (2016, Japan) – more on Your Name in the coming days.

The peculiar narrative structure employed for 5 Centimeters Per Second requires explanation. Shinkai’s movie is divided into three “episodes” – a holdover from how it was originally released in Japan. The first episode was available for select Japanese Yahoo! subscribers a few weeks before the film’s theatrical release. Each episode ends in an intertitle listing the credits for that episode. With only a sixty-three-minute runtime (though, for reasons explained later, it feels longer), these divisions are unnecessary and will disrupt the emotional force of each episode’s concluding moments. It is unclear why these divisions remain in the final print – there is no evidence that 5 Centimeters Per Second was intended for television – but they are no more or less disruptive than, for argument’s sake, an intermission in a stage production, concert, or film.

5 Centimeters Per Second introduces us to Takaki Tôno in his elementary school days in Tokyo. In the first episode, “Cherry Blossom”, it is the mid- or late-1990s, and Takaki befriends Akari Shinohara – her interests are similar to his, and both tend to stay inside the library due to their allergy problems. Graduation from elementary school arrives, Takaki and Akari both learn they are moving away from Tokyo (she’s moving to nearby Tochigi; he’s leaving for Kagoshima on the southernmost major island, Kyushu). Both realize their love for the other, and that they will probably not see each other again as they part. The next two episodes, “Cosmonaut” and “5 Centimeters Per Second”, feature Takaki. “Cosmonaut” – set during Takaki’s final year of high school – adopts the point of view of a classmate, Kanae Sumida. Kanae has been crushing on Takaki since middle school as she prepares to confess her feelings for him. She notices that Takaki has been drafting text messages to no one in particular when he is alone, staring at someone or something far away when looking up. The final episode, “5 Centimeters Per Second”, takes place in 2008, and is narrated by Takaki and Akari – depicting both of their perspectives.

The movie’s title (as well as the final episode’s title) refers to the speed in which cherry blossoms fall to the ground. Whether appearing in Japanese live-action or animation features, cherry blossoms are a marker of impermanence, a reminder that laughter, love, and togetherness is fleeting. Three depictions of cherry trees during the first and final episodes – the cherry blossoms are closely associated with Takaki and Akari’s childhood romance, even when only one of the characters is on-screen – are junctures where the film’s tones are punctuated, sometimes modified. One appearance of a cherry tree late in the first episode occurs after the harshest of winter storms. The blossoms, which have fallen from the branches some months earlier, will perhaps grow in several months. But as the temperature drops and as the snow falls, Takaki notices how the snowfall behaves similarly to falling cherry blossoms – remarking on the beauty of the moment rather than realizing the unreasonable lengths he has taken to see Akari for what is likely the final time.

Childhood and teenage love, within animated film, is often treated in ways too similar to adult love. Crowd-pleasing endings – with the requisite hiccups and temporary separations put into cinematic adult relationships – are the norm, and this is standard is stronger when children or teenagers are in love. But what happens when the children become older? Wiser? As a person grows, they become more susceptible to crushing heartbreak as our sense of time’s passage sharpens, relationships between loved ones are uprooted for whatever reason, and we realize how consuming it is to keep our feelings to ourselves. Shinkai taps into those currents from different perspectives in each of the episodes – how confused our protagonists are as they struggle to comprehend urgings and wonderings that even adults will never truly understand. Whether that romantic drama is David Lean’s Brief Encounter (1945) or Luchino Visconti’s Le Notti Bianche (1957, Italy) or 5 Centimeters Per Second, the struggle to let go of another is beset with contradictions and significant moments of silence (some of the most important events in anyone’s life occurred with very little dialogue, perhaps with minimal movement).

Despite touching upon themes rarely activated for animated movies, Shinkai’s writing and editing are both flawed.

The characterizations of Takaki and Akari – outside of the fact that they are ambitious students that recognize their mutual love – are curiously anonymous. Where some defend this move on Shinkai’s part as a way for the audience to insert their own experiences into the protagonists’ dilemma, I see this decision as a misstep. As likable these two children seem to be, they are written as nothing more than thematic receptacles – characters in which Shinkai can personify desire and loss. Noting the runtime (no one makes a movie just over an hour long anymore), it might have been apt to provide the central characters some sort of life outside of school and from each other.  Kanae, the girl whose perspective enables the middle episode, is afforded a life outside of school and her crush and Takaki. Perhaps I don’t surf during the twilight like Kanae enjoys, but to see her engaging in her passion and observing how that passion translates to her personality makes Kanae personable, sympathetic. Shinkai’s writing, not known for narrative balance, sabotages a story that, with some selective expansion, could have been a great animated romantic drama. 

Lingering on shots where a character is at the extreme edges of the frame, 5 Centimeters Per Second is too much of an exhibition for its hand-drawn beauty – of which there is no disputing the animated artistry involved from background artists Takum Tanji and Ryoko Majima as well as character designer and chief animation director Takayo Nishimura ( excelling in the latter more than the former position) – 5 Centimeters Per Second feels much longer than its runtime might suggest. This puttering is most evident during Takaki’s snow-delayed train ride to see Akari. Though Shinkai does an admirable job simulating the length of the weather delays, it comes to the detriment of the subsequent episodes, which seem to accelerate – though not in a harried fashion – towards the conclusion. Imbalance, again, is the crucial word, as the rigidly episodic structure of the film (I use “episodic” quite often when referring to movies that attempt to connect disparate scenes to a common narrative thread, but 5 Centimeters Per Second has radical tonal modulations that require immediate adjustment) makes it more suitable for a television presentation than a theatrical picture. 

An evocative, piano-heavy score from Tenmon (the stage name of Atsushi Shirakawa) lulls and flits away rather than cornering any recognizable themes – the score is reactive to the events onscreen. Tenmon and Shinkai err on the side overusing the score, with the score’s harmonic shallowness and reliance of phrases played portato/repeated notes in the upper range of the right hand’s lines a typical hallmark from younger Asian composers. The music, thus, is best described as ambient, with little purpose when separated from the film.

I have seen three of Makoto Shinkai’s five feature-length animated movies. Often framed as the heir apparent to a passing generation of pioneering anime filmmakers, Shinkai has not earned that praise quite yet. Of those three I have seen, 5 Centimeters Per Second comes closest in his filmography to establishing a distinct directorial voice. The others - The Place Promised in Our Early Days and Your Name – succumb to post-late ‘90s/early 2000s anime conventions of cinematic structure and character behavior that sabotage those respective films to varying degrees. But for addressing and depicting childhood love as anything but storybook, Shinkai’s willingness here to challenge his preferences, to see how hard he can keep his tendency to complicate things aside, is a worthy exercise of his talents.

My rating: 6/10