Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Makoto Shinkai's sophomore feature is an intimately crafted, elegantly narrated & gorgeously animated tale of young love & yearning desires that unfolds in three interconnected segments. A very grounded effort compared to his previous work, it is a touching & nostalgic reminiscent of first love.5 Centimeters per Second follows the life of a young man named Takaki. The first segment, set in elementary school, focuses on his first love and the long journey he takes to see her one last time. The next segment, set in high school, is about a girl who has a crush on him. And the final segment illustrates his present life.Written, produced & directed by Makoto Shinkai, 5 Centimeters per Second paints an exquisite portrait of real life struggles through its protagonist, and is brought to life with affection & intimacy. The animation in itself is beautiful, evocative & radiates a heartfelt warmth, and the attention to detail is breathtaking to say the least.The slowness of time felt when you have no choice but to wait is wonderfully depicted in the first chapter and the smallest of details presents in this segment add to that relatable feeling. That longing for love yet difficulty in expressing it is effectively portrayed in the second story. And the final segment is a reminder of just how detrimental living in the past can be.Exhibiting noticeable improvements & welcome maturity in Shinkai's direction, every scene is allowed to simmer & unfolds in an unhurried fashion. Every image is gorgeously rendered & absolutely beguiling to look at. Characters arcs' carry enough depth, plus many will be able to identify with their predicament and may find snippets of their own lives in their journey, which is always helpful.On an overall scale, 5 Centimeters per Second is an affectionate, heartwarming & emotionally stirring anime that's handled with care, told with composure & brims with warm feelings. Its sentimental quality may not go well with every viewer but for those who can connect with it, the film will turn out to be a mesmerising trip down memory lane. Worthy of your time & money for its spellbinding animation alone, 5 Centimeters per Second comes delightfully recommended.

I do not like Shinkai's narrative style. There is some kind of idea of pureness and innocence, that you have to accept, when watching a Makoto Shinkai movie, that I am unable to swallow. His idealization of human interactions give me a feeling of detachment from actual reality and this does not seem to mix well with his choice to tell mostly slice of life stories. The lengthy internal monologues in a whispery voice do not help the cause either.Simultaneously however, I have come to accept Shinkai and his style as an unique example within the anime medium and while I am biased towards him, I do appreciate his existence as a creator. The biggest appeal to his work is in my opinion, him tackling stories, that others would shy away from or would not consider writing at all. This especially shone through in 5 Centimeters Per Second's first part, where Shinkai captured the anxiety of Takkai as he is on his way to meet Akari, while riding a train in a snowstorm. I have to admit, that this is the first of the 3 movies of his, that I watched, I found myself enjoying.Story (☆☆): 5 Centimeters Per Second is a relatively simple and short story thematizing love,relationships and longing. Shinkai does not go too much into depth with those concepts, but rather presents three characters, who desperately long for the love of another and the direction their relationships take. It's an easy idea, but aside from my personal bias with the creator, I do think it works pretty well.Art & Animation (☆☆☆): Art and animation have probably always been Makoto Shinkai's main asset. The film is beautiful to look at. What Shinkai movies excel at, are the well detailed backgrounds, that will burn images of white clouds, a dark blue sky and green grass into your memory, whether you like it or not. Admittingly with time passing some flaws did get more apparent; Being spoiled with the updated visuals of Shinkai's latest film "Your Name", you do at times notice the lack of some edges and details on some characters, but that alone is not enough to take away my perfect 3-star rating from it.Sound (☆☆): 5 Centimeters Per Second is sparing with its use of the soundtrack. Most of the time you are left to listen to sound effects, that capture the mood of the situations well. Only occasionally a piano will step in to add to the atmosphere. In what seems to be another signature of Shinkai the film ends with a Japanese pop song (spoiler, I guess).Characters (☆): Characters are always the weakest part of Shinkai movies in my opinion. This is due to the problem I mentioned in the introduction of my review. The characters are pure, innocent and used as mediums to present the basic idea of the movie. This could be due to the writers wanting them to be relatable to a larger amount of the audience, but you can also argue, that it is poor characterization. As far as the three leads are concerned, they are mostly just preoccupied being desperately in love with their crush with little more of a personality. We do see some of their interests and hobbies, but even then the activities are overshadowed by their sole purpose of being in love.Rating system:As seen above, I use a star system to rate the series/movie in terms of four categories, which can indicate its quality. Those ratings do affect the final score I give the series/movie, but I do not use a mathematical method to assign the score. Ultimately I weight the final ratings by considering the stars given. I do not consider the categories to be equivalent and value a good story and characters over good art or a catchy soundtrack. As far as the stars given go, I use a four stage scale: (-) - bad, a series/movie is terrible in this category (☆) - okay, it's fine, tolerable, but likely nothing special (☆☆) - good, it's good, but may have flaws or isn't quite among the best I've seen in the category (☆☆☆) - great, the best rating I can give, when it's truly remarkable in the categoryFinal score: 7/10

This is considered to be a romance?Here's a single-sentence summary of the film:Kids message back and forth about their lives, never actually doing anything to get together. The end.It was INCREDIBLY slow. I just thought, "There HAS to be a point to this." There wasn't. It just kept going on and on and on and on. This was utter rubbish. Avoid like the plague. I cannot understand why people like this.I gave it a 2 because the animation quality was superb. -Mitchell

Honestly Speaking, I did not like the movie when I watched it 1st time because I did not get it. So I watched it 2nd time just to understand. But the fact is, not only I understood, but also I loved the movie !The voice casting is excellent & impressive; The music & visual background evolved with the story perfectly; And the story(s) is deep.But you may face difficulty to understand the sequence if you do not pay close attention to the names of the characters.However your emotion is tough, you still will be deeply touched by this movie for sure. It is definitely another good Anime indeed.