Don't you hope to see this all the time
Five Centimeters per Second is the third film by
Makoto Shinkai, released in 2007. The main thing to note about it is that it is quite possibly the single most wretched, depressing, heart-shattering,
beautiful anime romance movie ever made.
Makoto Shinkai seems determined to steal
Isao Takahata's
title of "King Of
Tear Jerker Anime," and he's a contender.
It's a movie about two people named Takaki and Akari. The first part,
Oukashou, follows them as children; the second,
Cosmonaut, leaves Akari to show Takaki as a teenager; the final part, also called
Five Centimeters per Second, shows them as young adults, in a montage set to the famous Japanese pop song "One More Time, One More Chance". Sounds safe, doesn't it?
Oh yeah, and another thing... The title must have bugged you for some time, right?...
Five Centimeters per Second refers to the speed at which
Cherry Blossom petals fall.
The movie contains examples of:
- Absence Makes The Heart Go Yonder (...averted? ...subverted? ...played straight? This movie has an ambiguous ending...)
- Averted with a subversion of the aversion, in this troper's opinion. Takaki goes yonder, his heart stays put. Thus as Kanae observes he is always looking toward some distant point, so that he fails to notice people around him. For most of the movie he cannot have the person who caused him to have the feeling in the first place, because he is too spaced-out and, in his words, 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. His heart still doesn't go yonder, but it becomes a little more malleable.
- Airplane Of Love: A space launch of love, even.
- Alien Sky (in Takaki's recurring dream)
- Anthropomorphic Personification: Symbolic, and only in the minds of the characters. You can see it at the title, the rocket, the train, anything that you like.
- Bittersweet Ending: Takaki finally takes control of his life and starts to deal with the lonely and bitter feelings that he's been nursing for fifteen years, and he has a chance of finding Akari again. But he has no job, no girlfriend, and the Akari prospect is uncertain and would require breaking up another relationship.
- Cherry Blossoms: The title refers to the speed at which they fall under normal circumstances.
- Crowning Moment Of Heartwarming: The very end, where Takaki may have finally found Akari again.
- Dis Continuity: There's a companion book that "clarifies" that Takaki "outgrew" his need for Akari, when the movie itself can really go any which way and was all the better for that. EXTERMINATE.
- Dreaming Of Things To Come: Takaki has a recurring dream of himself and Akari climbing a hill in a surrealistic sunrise (which This Troper has as the background on his laptop). Aside of being a Mythology Gag for Place Promised, this could be the future, their afterlife, or an Alternate Universe.
- Epileptic Trees (Due to the nature of the ending, this movie invites Epileptic Trees with regards to the future of its characters. At this point it becomes notable that, contra his reputation, Makoto Shinkai has never actually made a movie with a genuine Downer Ending. Voices Of A Distant Star and The Place Promised In Our Early Days both worked out in the end—but then, neither of those movies were set in the 'real' world.)
- Esoteric Happy Ending (among other things)
- Exactly What It Says On The Tin Five Centimeters Per Second is REALLY about falling.... slowly
- Expy (Takaki incorporates elements of Shinkai's previous male leads as well as Jay Gatsby)
- Gainax Ending: Not a particularly bad example, but it's definitely present.
- Golden Mean Fallacy: This movie is neither as heart-crushing or short as Voices Of A Distant Star nor as uplifting (EVENTUALLY) or long as The Place Promised In Our Early Days. This isn't technically use of a logical fallacy (and it works REALLY WELL in any case), but there's no other trope for something that's simply "betwixt and between".
- I Will Wait For You (whether or not they did is left unclear.)
- Love It Or Hate It (some people find this movie very stupid, but they're in a small minority.)
- Love Martyr (Takaki)
- 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.)
- Nakama: This movie buys fully into the Vonnegutian idea that a nakama is not always necessarily happy (or even self-aware), but that doesn't make it any less of a nakama. See also the WMG page.
- Needs More Love: A larger fandom might cathartise some of the feelings that this movie invokes in people. Never before has anything actually, some-fucking-how, needed more Fix Fic. I mean, how's that even possible?
- Official Couple: Takaki and Akari. Poor Kanae. Mind you, since it's Makoto Shinkai, being an Official Couple is no refuge from Woobiehood itself.
- Or Is It: There is absolutely nothing in the movie to indicate whether or not Takaki and Akari found each other again at the railroad crossing, except for a highly Symbolist (in the nineteenth-century French sense) Tear Jerker scene after the end credits.
- Parental Obliviousness: Akari's parents fail to understand that she's depressed, not nervous, about her arranged marriage.
- Red Oni Blue Oni: Akari is blue, Kanae is red.
- Scenery Porn: The scenery in this movie has actually been known to induce orgasms in some of this troper's friends.
- Snow Means Love
- Star Crossed Lovers (They have more hope for a happy ending than some others, but they definitely still count.)
- Tear Jerker (Oh dear lord, even Grave Of The Fireflies has tough competition now.)
- Tear Jerker
- Tear Jerker
- Tear Jerker (Yes, this is redundant. WE. DO. NOT. CARE.)
- Tear Jerker (This Troper is not afraid to admit that despite having the frosting of adolescence on his heart, he still cried when he saw this movie, IT. IS. THAT. SAD.)
- Tear Jerker (This troper went into a depression for A WEEK AFTER SEEING THIS MOVIE!)
- Tear Jerker
- 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.)
- Train Station Goodbye When the two lovers finally part.... sigh....
- True Loves Kiss rather early in. It Got Worse from there until about twenty seconds before the end of the movie.
- Unlucky Childhood Friend: All three characters, to an extent. Kanae fits the trope best as she's not a main focus character.
- Vehicle Vanish
