The Tragedy of Time & Place

You can do everything in your power to work with the time and place you’ve found yourself in, but still fail. How do we cope with this harsh reality?

(Byousoku) 5 Centimeters per Second, the 2007 anime film from Makoto Shinkai (Weathering with You, The Garden of Words) is probably overlooked for the creator’s later slice of life/romance work, Your Name, which shares a similar structure and themes, however 5 Centimeters per Second probably discusses and explains those themes in a greater way. The most notable are time and place; how we can be with the right person at the wrong time, or with the wrong person in the right place, and so on. The anime movie explains this through Takaki Toono and Akari Shinohara, a pair of childhood friends who’s romance is broken apart by school transfers, leading each down different paths in life. Takaki gets caught up in the dream of the right place at the right time, having found it through dedication before, but grows depressed when he fails to again. Part of the reason is will; our decisions play a role, however small, in the chaos of the world which shapes us. That opposing will ends up being Akari, who uses those happy memories to change her life, rather than stagnate. In other words, she makes the best of what she has (like the place and time), “doing all we can do.” Through these conflicting characters and their chance meetings, we learn a valuable lesson about how people meet, and how they split apart.

A anime video essay analysis, explaining 5 Centimeters per Second (Makoto Shinkai) and it’s themes

0:00 Introduction
1:50 Part 1
18:50 Part 2
25:44 Part 3
32:12 Part 4

#anime #videoessay #5cmpersecond #makotoshinkai #professorviral