5 centimeters per second

“Life is but a fleeting reflection on the mirror of existence,
Permanence exists not, and if your heart speaks otherwise,
It lies to you.”

~ Kenneth Tang

I was helplessly depressed for half the next day after unsuspectingly watching this one fateful night. Though I heard that the experiences of others may vary, this show affected me more deeply (emotionally that is) than Clannad or Air did. So here’s a little warning before I speak any further – don’t watch this if you’ve got work to do the next morning.

So what was it that 5 centimeters per second did to me? Through all of those vivid skies, breath-stealing colors, soft smiles, murmured conversations, silent tears, and those gentle, inexorable, innumerable petals; snowflakes, that descend over significant portions of the film, granting it its name. What was it whispering through all of that quiet, clenching beauty?

This show spotlights quite possibly the most irrational emotion that humankind, up to its wisest members, find themselves impotently vulnerable to – romantic love. And to say that this show merely portrays the emotion seems to do it a disservice. It breaths a hauntingly detailed, painful life into it. This show will resonate strongly with people who have strong memories of rough romance. Through several short stories about several people deeply, unconditionally, and helplessly in love, 5 centimeters per second, with that gentle, wistful smile that defines several of its key moments, tells of the futility of the stormy emotions that crash ceaselessly upon the boat of life.

In some sense this is the anti-Clannad. Far from forwarding human sincerity, choice and feelings as an instrument of change against the tides of fate (as I noted in my Clannad post), 5 centimeters per second portrays humans as playthings of the greater cosmos. Against the ultimate causality of nature we are no different from the pebble that tumbles down the steep face of a cliff. As we tumble down our own uncertain destinies, all our most cherished hopes and deepest sacrifices hold no real consequence except in our own hearts that hold them dear – they have no bearings upon our course in the chart of life. And yet we cannot stop hoping, sacrificing, feeling. A word that jumps out at me as a succinct description of the experience is どう仕様もなく ~ not being able to help, helplessly. Even when all hope is lost, we cannot help hoping, wanting, loving. Irrational, futile, but… beautiful.

This is the one consolation that 5 centimeters per second offers us – beauty. Even as it tells the tales of people withering in hopelessness and yet hoping against hope, it adorns it, almost sorrowfully, with an unspeakable beauty. And it goes on to sear the experience with some of the most stunning, fantastic visuals I’ve yet seen in anime (or indeed anywhere else). This beauty, not surprisingly, serves only to sharpen the blade of the show’s wistful themes. So be warned, 5 centimeters per second will pierce your heart, suffuse your soul, and awake with you in the morning, to haunt you the next day with an unshakable sense of lingering sorrow. If you’re anything like me though, you will love it for it.