5 centimeters per second - A slow but beautiful film

I'm going to be very honest, until now my intention to dive deeper into the world of anime had been a success, I watched movies like “The boy and the heron”, “Nakitai Watashi wa Neko o Kaburu”, “Kimi no Na wa” and “Hotaru no Haka” and I liked them all a lot, however, I have mixed feelings with “5 centimeters per second”, this is one of those movies that are easy to find in tops or recommendations, and well, since the name of the movie caught my attention I decided to watch it, besides, I was attracted by the fact that it is one hour long.

“5 centimeters per second” is a 2007 film directed by Makoto Shinkai, a director that I understand is very famous for other good titles that passed through his hand, the genre is romance and drama (and there are some) and the animation was in charge of CoMix Wave Films, a studio that I don't know completely. When I saw the name of the movie I thought it would be science fiction or something like that, but at the beginning of the movie one of the main characters explains where the phrase or expression comes from, that puzzled me a little, but I still continued watching it, I wasn't going to judge it for that either.

To give context to those who have not seen this film, it focuses on Takaki and Akari, both are schoolmates and share many things in common, as a result of this, they soon create an affectionate bond that under normal conditions would be destined to be a love relationship, however, at a certain point they move away because one of them must move because of the work of their parents. These two boys keep in touch through letters, beautiful letters, full of nostalgia and the desire to meet again.

One day, Takaki decides to go to visit Akari, she lives quite far away, but taking the right trains and in advance, he could arrive at the agreed time; however, it was bad weather, it was falling a lot of nine and that generated strong delays in all train routes, this frustrated Takaki who thought that when he arrived he would not find her, but to his surprise Akari waited patiently, I liked that part of the movie, these are things of love that can not be lost.

The truth is that with the passing of time and due to study issues, both were moving away from each other in terms of distance, and well, we know that it is difficult to sustain relationships through letters for long periods of time and that somehow ended up happening with these guys. Each one continued with his life, but it seemed that Takaki still had not finished closing the page despite the years, he felt distant and with his eyes in another place and this was noticed by those around him. What happened next?, well, I will not tell you, you will have to see the movie to find out.

This movie is divided into 3 chapters, I found that very curious since I had not seen something like this before, each chapter has a different timeline that focuses mostly on Takaki, in fact, I would say that he is the main character. The visual aspect of the movie complies perfectly, it is fluid and with a very particular style that I really liked. I also liked the fact that there were no sci-fi elements that played in favor of the plot, this movie could have been made with real actors and the result could have been the same, although maybe more boring haha.

I don't want to be pessimistic or be ignorant, but even though the movie is very nice and with a very tender story, at times it can be heavy or depressing, I know that the genre propitiated the fact that the story developed that way, but I feel that there were missing factors that gave a little more life or surprise elements to the plot, everything happened very slow even though the movie only lasts 1 hour. But well, that's just my opinion, I can also understand why many like it. It was a pleasure to talk once again about anime and share it with all of you. See you soon.