5 Centimeters per Second

Okay. I admit, I sometimes let a few tears slip out when it comes to watching rather dramatic moments in movies. Like when Mufasa died in The Lion King. Or when Lord Katsumoto dies in The Last Samurai, rather than Tom Cruise (admittedly, those were tears of disbelief that the only white person in the samurai army survives everyone else in a hail of steel and brimstone). If memory serves me correctly, I was inconsolable at the end of the Les Miserables production, where *SPOILER!* Jean Valjean dies of old age and goes to heaven escorted by a chorus *SPOILER!*. Watching most of The Curse of the Golden Throne also comes to mind...though those were out of an entirely different emotion altogether. Might have been the pain of...er...best not write about it in a family-safe blog like this. Especially not since quite a few people are reading these sordid accounts...

Now, I haven't seen any movies good enough to warrant any manly tears (because if I say otherwise it would be labeled sissy tears). Come to think of it, the last movie I saw in the theater was Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Which was a letdown, really. But that's apart from the point. The point is that I've been too lazy (and cheap) to go into town and buy a movie ticket. Let me just add that the reason I watched Harry Potter was because I was desperate to get out of the house and my kendo buddy Awa offered me to join him, his girlfriend, and his girlfriend's (unfortunately underaged) sisters watch Harry Potter. Thus, transportation and desperation solved, I steeled myself and sat through that horse buggy of a movie. Not that I should be complaining, seeing as to how I scored a free ride. Har.

So it came to chance, as I was sick, that another Kendo buddy, Benji, came over and gave me a DVD chock full of anime- and kendo-related stuff (he's also the one who introduced me to the wonderful world of Azumanga Daioh). Why he wasted a perfectly good DVD on a dud like me is still a mystery (could it be, gasp, friendship?), but it's appreciated nonetheless. After watching the likes of Yojimbo and Twilight Samurai - both very, very excellent, by the way - I came across a little (as in 475 MB) video file named '5 Centimeters per Second'. Being the procrastinator that I am, I clicked on it instead of doing my homework and ended up being mesmerized for an hour and a half by the works of Makoto Shinkai. And I've got to say, this guy has an eye for detail. All of the backgrounds are heavily detailed, and will probably look pretty much the same in real-world Japan. It's crazy. For a guy who started out animation only using Photoshop, he's got mad skills in both illustration and storytelling. Not to mention the sweet-but-melancholic tunes of composer Tenmon. He's not quite Joe Hisaishi, but he always manages to set the feeling just right.



5 Centimeters per Second is an anime trilogy about the separation between two people, beginning from junior high up till adulthood. They are best friends first, are separated, become lovers, are further separated, and suddenly their connection is cut. How it ends...well, as much as I'd like to write it out so that my next few paragraphs make sense, it's something best watched on your own. Suffice to say it was a profoundly 'WTF', yet hard-hitting, ending for me. Actually, the tears came out during the first chapter, 'Oukashou'. But the second and third installments, though progressively leaning a bit into the realm of daytime soap opera fare, are also of large significance to me.

So why did I bother to get all worked up over the first episode? The main plot is that a year after being separated after graduating from primary school, Tohno-kun (the boy), decides to meet Akari (the girl) before he moves even farther away to his parents' next workplace. They've been in contact for a year, patiently writing to each other, and he embarks on a trip to the region outside of Tokyo (where he lives) to see her. Let's just say it isn't the easiest of journeys, and a lot of reminiscing happens. At the climax, things get quite desperate, and the narration becomes solemn and heavy. This is when two, nay, three tears dropped out. The way Makoto Shinkai portrayed Tohno-kun's anguish on a delayed train, knowing that he may have missed his last chance to meet a beloved *wink wink* friend was just...well...too much. Almost real. I could feel that pain. Not sure if it's because I've had a similar feeling...though it probably is. Perhaps I saw a bit of me in Tohno-kun, and that's why it felt 'real'. Meh.

Now, I would've been happy with the ending of 'Oukashou' (no spoilers :D), seeing as to how 'Cosmonaut' and 'Byousoku 5 Centimeters' started losing the touch the first chapter had. But as I said, both rang their own tunes in me. 'Cosmonaut' follows on where 'Oukashou' left off, around three years after the trip. Both Tohno-kun and Akari are senior highschool students now, both living far away from each other (though in the same country). The focus now draws on Tohno's life, and the girl who has been hopelessly smitten by his personality. However, he's still fixated on Akari, or rather the memory of her. A few spoilers coming your way, along with a soliloquy... be ye fairly warned.


By Cosmonaut, the boy is no longer in contact with his girlfriend. However, he continues to dream and think about her, never really doing much else. He types text messages but never sends them, instead preferring to keep her as a memory. A girl at his new school falls for him, but by the end of the film she realises that whatever she does, he'll never notice her because he's too engrossed in thinking of his old love. In 5 Centimeters Per Second, it's been years after, and both the boy and his old love are now adults. Though living in the same city, they never meet. While she has decided to move on, he keeps himself in the past, burying his feelings through work. Still, when cherry blossoms bloom, the feelings re-emerge, and he becomes bitter with the knowledge that he lost his youth mooning over a girl that could still have been his.

For some reason, the whole trilogy resonates within me. There is truth in each one, and especially with the ending. I've seen that relationships work only when both people are ready to make the necessary effort to keep the feelings alive. Yet, even with that knowledge, I don't really do much about it. Rather than go out and actively look for a girlfriend, I assure myself that a) I can't get one because I'm a mess of a person, or b) when she'll arrive in my life, I'll know instantly. Of course, I do realize the futility in both. But I still don't choose to do something else. Like the boy in the movies, I try to avoid it by busying myself with other things, like doing kendo and drawing lazy-ass comics (two things I doubt will get me any closer to finding a girlfriend, coincidentally).

Also, I know for sure that I've once failed to notice the feeling of affection towards me because I was too busy chasing after an idealized version of a girl who rejected me. Not even chasing; just like the boy in the movies, I simply did nothing to remedy my situation. Or really think much beyond it. Perhaps I could have had a great (if short) relationship with a girl who liked me for what I was, rather than spend much of my senior year moping and complaining about how I couldn't get a girlfriend. One fun point to poke out - I was so taken aback by her offer that I never answered. Simply put, I'm not desperate, for if I were, I would be desperately talking up all the Japanese/Chinese/Taiwanese/Korean women on campus in hopes that one of them would consider me good enough as a boyfriend. I think I'm actually scared of making that jump, from only thinking about myself and my wants to thinking about another person all the time.

The irony is, even if I write it out for all to see on this blog, I'm probably not going to do anything about it. Though I don't plan on staying single for the entirety of my university days (which would be a waste of potential, given that I didn't experience it in my school days), I'm probably going to bury myself in kendo and friendships, putting on the airs of a desperate pervert only to satisfy the curiosity of others as to why I don't yet have a girlfriend. Kind of like Tohno-kun.


Well, that's out of the way now. This kind of reminds of the time I wrote an entire essay-length entry on the game The Shadow of the Colossus back in my old (and DEAD! DEAD, I TELL YOU, DEAD! MWAHAHAHAH!) blog. I can get quite worked up about something so damn trivial, and ignore the fact that my *cue Borat-esque accent* home country has been on the business end of a few earth earthquakes lately. Or how people seem to object to the idea of nuclear power, although if as much resources were put into developing better techniques to use it efficiently, it would probably be better than using fossil fuels.

And yes, I do realize that last sentence has nothing at all to do with anything I've said before.

By the way, 5 cm per second is the speed by which sakura petals fall. And that is a major theme in the movie. Next mini-post will be the end theme of the trilogy, and you might see a bit more why it drove me to cry alone in a dark room.

On the other news...Daylight Savings Time starts this Sunday, which is coincidentally the day of my ERTH104 field trip. Joy! This means that instead of going at the reasonably early time (well, for me) of 8.45 AM, I get to go at 7.45 AM. Huzzah! At least it also means it'll get warmer soon, and that the nights will become a little bit more bearable without the heater (the damn thing died on me two weeks ago, but I dare not let anyone come into my guerilla-camp-with-Saxon-treasure-hoard-atmosphere-esque room...*shudder*). Such is life.

Ah, and I completely forgot to put on pictures of the sakura that I mentioned two posts ago. They'll come up as soon as I get batteries. Yeaa.

p.s. a belated Happy Anniversary for my Yankung and Yandung...love you both!

[End Transmission]