Almost every Makoto Shinkai story contains an element of fantasy wish-fulfillment. His acclaimed, record-breaking Your Name (2016) is about star-crossed lovers who reunite after defying the rules of fate, while Weathering With You (2019) revolves around a girl who can control the weather. Even Shinkai’s 2022 coming-of-age adventure, Suzume, features two people searching for ancient doors to prevent a supernatural worm from causing earthquakes in Japan.
But that wasn’t always the case. 5 Centimeters per Second — released in 2007 and currently streaming on HBO Max — is far removed from the exaggerated romanticism of Shinkai’s films. It is a sobering saga of loss and longing, where love isn’t enough to bridge the ever-growing distance between two people. While 5 Centimeters per Second is as beautiful and contemplative as any Shinkai offering, it grounds itself in the visceral anxieties of adulthood and the inability to move on from the past.
[Ed. note: This article contains spoilers for 5 Centimeters per Second]
Shinkai presents this decades-spanning saga as a triptych. “Episode 1: Cherry Blossom” opens with a young Takaki Tōno becoming close friends with his recently transferred classmate, Akari Shinohara, in 1991. Their shared introversion brings them even closer, but Akari ends up switching schools due to her parents’ jobs three years later. There’s an earnest urge to keep in touch, prompting them to write letters to one another. Once Takaki’s family is on the verge of moving to the other side of the country, he decides to meet Akari in person and writes a letter confessing his feelings.
Unfortunately, a snowstorm delays his train, and he loses the letter during the journey. Even so, the two kiss under a barren cherry tree when they finally meet, and spend the night inside a shed while taking shelter from the storm. While Takaki’s letter remains undelivered, Akari chooses not to give the love letter she wrote for him.
5 Centimeters per Second spends its second and third episodes mapping the aftereffects of Akari’s absence on Takaki, who grows up to become a jaded and disillusioned man. The naive innocence of childhood shatters the moment Takaki hops on the train that pulls him away from Akari, which is when he utters the crux of this doomed relationship:
“I knew with absolute certainty that we couldn’t be together forever,” Takaki says. “Before us lay a life still too immense, a vast and empty expanse of time stretching out helplessly. But the anxiety that had gripped me eventually, slowly melted away, and in its place, only the memory of Akari’s soft lips remained.”
Takaki’s memories of Akari grow dim over time, but the feelings evoked by her absence don’t. In “Episode 2: Cosmonaut,” Takaki remains oblivious to the romantic feelings harbored by his classmate, Kanae Sumida. Kanae tries to verbalize her feelings, but realizes her friend seems perennially distracted by something. These thwarted emotions are set against the events at the Tanegashima Space Center, which launches a research probe doomed to fly into the unknown corners of the Solar System. The probe’s purpose is to relay messages back to Earth, but these communications will fade over time until they cease.
With this analogy, Shinkai explores the fear-stricken loneliness one experiences at the cusp of adulthood, as the future seems as vast and uncharted as the universe. While Takaki wonders if Akari is struggling with the same helplessness, Kanae wrestles with her own insecurities. She realizes that Takaki will never stop searching for that “someone” he seeks with his vacant gaze, or writes e-mails to, which he never ends up sending.
The film’s title, 5 Centimeters per Second, refers to the speed at which cherry blossom petals fall, symbolizing the painful slowness of people drifting apart over time. But Takaki’s struggles also reveal a fatal human flaw. He doesn’t send out any e-mails or letters to Akari despite writing them, perhaps numbed by the fear of rejection or abandonment. This helplessness carries over to “Episode 3: 5 Centimeters per Second,” where an adult Takaki is hit with the bittersweet realization that Akari has moved on as cherry blossom petals swirl in the air.
Despite the stark nature of the premise, Shinkai imbues 5 Centimeters per Second with the same melancholic visual beauty that entries like The Garden of Words and Children Who Chase Lost Voices boast. Vibrant color palettes are used to convey the hyperreal nature of Takaki’s memories and how his present is constantly tethered to the nostalgia of the night when he and Akari huddled during a snowstorm. This subjective reality dictates Takaki’s perception of distance and time as malicious entities keeping him and Akari apart.
This is in contrast to the philosophy in Your Name, where the lovers are connected by the red string of fate, which reflects the East Asian belief that an invisible red cord ties two people destined to be together. The string might tangle or stretch, but it never snaps. In Takaki’s case, the string has frayed and come apart over time, but he is still haunted by the phantom tugs of someone he refuses to let go. Takaki grapples with the devastating consequences of being stuck in the past well into adulthood, but he finally takes a step towards embracing the present. Better late than never.
5 Centimeters Per Second is streaming on HBO Max.