5 Centimeters Per Second contains three short stories, connected by the main character and his childhood love-interest, essentially following their grow up. As many others already marked, the animation is simply gorgeous, and I can't add any more to this - Makoto Shinkai is indubitably one of the greatest animation geniuses of all time.

While the visuals are superb, the plot is mediocre at best. I'm an otherwise emotionally sturdy, level-headed guy, but I'm also an absolute sucker for romantic tragedys. This stuff - even the cheesier ones - can make my eyes wet like putting my head in a bucket full of red onion. With 5CPS however, my eyes remained dry and my heart remained... err... unbroken?

Each sequence is overshadowed by the immense despair of Takaki, longing for his never-fulfilled love to Akari. In the first episode, Cherryblossoms, it works well: my suspense built with Takakis during the train scene, and I felt soooo relieved when Akari was still at the station. It was sweet. During the sad goodbye, I was sure they were going to meet again, and that we're going towards a happy end. The second sequence then broke this expectation of mine. Instead of searching ways to stay in contact, Takaki goes full hopeless, writing emo messages to himself, while completely ignoring Sumida, a girl who fell in love with him. I GET THE VERY BLATANT MESSAGE, MR. SHINKAI! But come on: Takaki were in his 17-18's at the time. When did Takaki and Akari stopped sending mails to eachother? Why didn't they change numbers? And if Takaki was so goddamn in love, couldn't he visit Akari... like in the summer? If their love was truly impossible to be fulfilled, then this desperation of Takaki were justified. But I feel like it wasnt, and otherwise real and deep emotions regarding love felt like teenage angst and self-pitying. This organically carried on to the third sequence. Thats where realism finally kicked in: while Takaki was still deep in depression, Akari lived her life on, getting engaged and stuff. And when they met again at the intersection, I was so glad Takaki didn't run after Akari, but let her go - the only sensible thing he had done since sequence one.

Overall it's a good one-hour movie, and a must-see for the visuals. The plot however is very lacking in some aspects, making very hard to live up to the emotions 5CPS intended to induce.

"The movie is named 5 Centimeters Per Second for the speed at which cherry blossom petals fall, petals being a metaphorical representation of humans, reminiscent of the slowness of life and how people often start together but slowly drift into their separate ways."

Beautiful. Absolutely an instant masterpiece by Makoto Shinkai. I enjoyed Voices of A Distant Star and The Place Promised in Our Early Days, But I never thought that he could pull off another great film.

Plot-wise, it has similarities with his previous works(Voices of A Distant Star), but it manages to create a different atmosphere here. Watching all 3 short stories consecutively, I'll have to say the final chapter was the best among 3. The pinnacle, however, is the first one. Second chapter is a little slow-paced, but it matches the movie theme nicely.

Can't have much complain towards the music. As usual, Tenmon proves he's got the talent with emotional piano pieces. The theme song is nice as well.

Animation & visual effects is stunning. Makoto Shinkai definitely gets a solid certificate to be one of the best visual directors out there at the moment.

Overall, a 9/10 for me. It's almost flawless, but nothing can be perfect, right? ;)

This is a very good movie. It is slow paced and the ending isn't a typical Western ending. I had to look up the ending online to fully understand it but this is a great film on love and long distance relationships. It's also beautifully drawn. There's three parts to it. Part one was set in childhood and there's a section about a long distant train journey. Having lived in Tokyo myself and taken Japanese trains, I was blown away by how lifelike the animation was. Part two was set in the countryside during the teens and some of the animation there is also mind blowing. Part 3 is back in Tokyo in adult life. I can't say anymore or I'll ruin the film but overall it's a wonderful film.