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Wednesday, 22 August 2007 - Byousoku 5cm Review by Daike! :

Byousoku 5cm Review By Daike

This review is NOT by me! It was done by Daike, the Webmaster of Makoto Shinkai's Fan Web. I know that this review was written back in March, and probably a lot of people had already read it, but I guess I am just part of the minority who had just come across it. After watching Byousoku 5 Centimeter, I couldn't help but search for reviews. I wanted to see what people think about this movie and especially their explanations on the themes or philosophy of the movie. Well, the review by Daike was the best I could find so far. I have edited some parts of his review as there were some grammatical errors. Despite that, ALL credit should go to Daike and NEVER me. He was the one who used his brain, and I'm just somebody polishing his review a little. For those of you who wants to see his original review, you can go here.

- It's a Real Makoto Shinkai Film -

I had watched Byousoku 5cm yesterday. Wow, it really shows who Mr Shinkai is. I can say Byousoku 5cm is the ultimate result of what he has been trying to make for all these years. I mean, to see Byousoku 5cm is to meet Mr Shinkai himself.

The first episode is a story about faint love between a boy and a girl, both whom experienced difficulties due to their weakness. In the story, their weakness was expressed as time (e.g. their age, the train's delay). The main characters are so young, in fact, too young to decide which path in life they should take on their own. However, such difficulties are very normal, and they are familiar to us. So, any viewers will be able to sympathize with them. This story reminds me of Voices of a Distant Star due to these similarities: two characters, mails, monologues, distances and time, as well as huge difficulties. The story ends with two kinds of emotions in the viewer's heart: hope and anxiety. That is the reason why I said Oukashou is "the second Voices of a Distant Star."

The second episode is my favorite in Byousoku 5cm. It's a story of a girl, Kanae, and her one-sided love. She had two big concerns: the approaching time to decide on her path in life and how to express her love to a boy. This is a story of a small step taken by the girl for the sake of herself. She learned how to live in this world where we can't easily get what we desired. The motif of this story, "the desire for something so close, yet so far", is similar to The Place Promised in Our Early Days. But I don't think this episode is "the second The Place Promised In Our Early Days". This is because the main character is the embodiment of the story in both anime and manga. Also, Kanae is making an effort to look into the future which is different from Hiroki, the main character in The Place Promised In Our Early Days. She has definitely given a different taste to Byousoku 5cm from The Place Promised In Our Early Days.

The third episode is a rather short, but important story for understanding what message Mr Shinkai is trying to convey to the viewers. The title of this episode is Byousoku 5cm (5 centimeters per second), "the speed at which cherry blossom petal flutters down". This was quoted from Akari during the first few seconds in the first episode. I think the reason why he selected this sentence for its title is to express our slow progress in moving forward in life. It also means "the speed of how a person changes by the passing of time."

To know someone has changed is often sad. However it is a law of this world which we can't escape from. It may sound fatalistic, but it is not. It means that you can choose your own path, but never another person's... even if you loved him or her so much.

The cherry blossom petals drop off from their flowers, and slowly fall down to the ground. Even if they do drop off from the same flower, they rarely fall on the same spot. We can identify own lives with these beautiful cherry blossom petals. I believe that is what Mr Shinkai poured into this story and its title.

-Daike

*~Guuzen blogged at Wednesday, August 22, 2007

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