Makoto Shinkai's "5 Centimeters per Second" & "Voices of a Distant Star"

Hello Guys! You can call me Koi Miazaki. (Not my real name of course). This is my first time to blog and I want to be competitive about this. So, I've decided to put some meaningful stuffings into my first blog. So I hope you don't mind if I start with Makoto Shinkai's movies, particularly: "5 Centimeters per Second" and "Voices of a Distant Star". This is because I just watched it and I liked it AND we have to make a paper about this for school. LOL XD

Now please pardon my poor formatting or any other short comings. As mentioned before, this is my first time to blog. So please bare with me. If you're going to correct me, correct me nicely ^-^

Makoto Shinkai

Makoto Shinkai here



These are all according to what I have read about him. I haven't actually watched his other films

Makoto Shinkai was born as Makoto Niitsu. He was born in February 9, 1973. He is a Japanese director and a former graphic designer. Shinkai was inspired by Hayao Miyazaki and is now called the "New Miyazaki". He was so inspired by Hayao Miyazaki that when you watch his works (as for my case it's just the two of the said films above), you would probably think that it's super like Miyazaki's. Even the characters, cinematography, angles, lightings, camera focus, and aura of the film is very much like Hayao Miyazaki's.

But that's just for me. I probably have no right to judge since I only watched 2 films. However, I'm just saying what I think.
Shinkai's signature or mark evidently seen on his works are the themes of the loss of love and disconnection over time and space. According to what I read, almost all (if not all) of his animated films contains those themes. We will see later as I discuss "5 Centimeters per Second" and "Voices from a Distant Star".

 

"5 Centimeters per Second", 2007

Click above to watch it in HD! 

~ Personally I loved this and I react like a fan-girl while watching this one~

For all you girls out there who loves tragedies in their love stories, I recommend you to watch this. This is a love story about a boy named Tano and a girl named Akari who were childhood sweethearts, separated from each other because they were transferring to different schools. They have been keeping in contact with each other somehow but, let's see how they fight for their love when their enemy is distance and time.

This is a good movie. What you can expect of a Makoto Shinkai film is his recurring themes: time, distance, and loss of love. Now all of these are shown clearly in the film. Now I am kinda using the Auteur theory here.

Time:

• Character growth - Now what I meant by character growth is literally their growth. Throughout the movie, Akari and Tano grew from children to adults. It started when they were about 13 years old and ended as working adults. How much they have grown indicated the time that have passed through the film. Now to mention the time that have passed being apart from each other.
• Seasons - The seasons indicated time. On the first episode it was snowing hard. The second episode have shown a sunny weather which indicated summer. While the third episode have shown a snowy weather again.
• Technological advancement - During the first episode, Akari and Tano only maintains their conversation through letters. It was really old-school. One can make a joke and pity them because they probably won't endure much emotional suffering if there were Skype at that time. During the latter part (Episodes 2 & 3), they were already talking to each other through emails. Another technological advancement was the rocket launching through space. It was even written in a newspaper article. This rocket achievement was a great evidence for how much time have passed.
• Dialogues - The characters themselves explicitly say how much time have passed. They can say it has been a year since then and so on and so forth.

Distance:

• Dialogues - Of course the characters have said where they were transferring. There was also a map to prove how long one province is to the other.
• Seasons - Although both characters are in Japan, their province are very far away from each other. In one of Akari's letters, she said that it was snowing at her place. After that, she said that it was probably not yet snowing in Tano's place. I don't know much about the geography of Japan but if it is already snowing in Akari's place, she must be at the northern part of Japan. Like Hokkaido or something? I don't know. Correct me if I'm wrong.
• Time in the bullet train - The scene when Tano waited for the train to reach Akari's place took sooooo long. You would probably symphatize with Tahno. I hope I didn't count wrong but I counted that if there were no delays, Tano would have probably been able to travel for about 6 hours (considering that he left his place by 2pm and he was supposed to be meeting Akari by 7pm <- correct me if I'm wrong). That's still too long!

Loss of love:

• What happens if you are both far away for a long time since childhood and you guys are still far away from each other when you were already adults? Mhm. Loss of Love. In the movie, Tano and Akari moved on with their lives. Sure they both miss each other (not to mention I love how it was portrayed through the music video at the end <3), but it was shown that they had to move on. Both of them had another partner at the end of the story.

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Now I love how it is so Miyazaki. Sorry I love Hayao Miyazaki. ^^" . When you watch "5 Centimeters per second" you will notice the different sceneries focused in the screen. A lot of the "shots" were person-less. It's just a scenery. If you even search google for 5 Centimeters per Second wallpaper, you would probably find 60% of the wallpapers are "person-less". He focuses on the bike, on the fence, on the building, on the chairs, on the scenery of the city, on the train, on the food, and almost anywhere. That was so Miyazaki 'coz he also does that.

Another thing that I loved that was really Miyazaki was the feeling they let you feel whenever you watch the movie. Shinkai and Miyazaki makes you feel like you are involved in the movie. This was an effect that would make the viewers symphatize more with the characters. In this movie for example, one of the scenes that I find symphatetic was the scene when Tano's train keeps on getting delayed. At first you can see other people riding the train with you. The snow outside was really really heavy. After every stop you will hear announcement saying "We're sorry for the 10 minute delay" or something like that. After some time, you find Tano alone in the train with every stop delayed. You can hear nothing but the sound of the train and the repeating 10 minute delay announcement. It makes you want to say "Get it over with! I wanna see Akari!". What I'm trying to say is that although it seems boring to be watching a film with a scene that takes too long, it was successful in making you feel the wanted effect: symphatizing with the character.

Now I want to share my personal reaction. I CANNOT ACCEPT THE ENDING DX! They did not end up together. And they were so perfect! Tano is handsome, Akari is beautiful! T.T Fangirls aren't going to like the ending. But I guess (rationally) it is part of the "it's all mere memories now" effect.

T.T