5 Centimers per Second (秒速5センチメートル) is an animated film by director Shinkai Makoto that was released in 2007. It is actually a collection of three short films, with the same protagonist named Tono Takaki, following him from 1991 when he was in elementary school, until 2008 when he was an adult working as a programmer. It's theme song is "One More Time, One More Chance" by Yamazaki Masayoshi.
Today, the live-action adaptation of this animated film premiered in Japan, with a stage event featuring the cast and director. This stage event was being live-streamed in cinemas, so I went to catch the movie and stage event at a local cinema.
The original animated film was three short films, each featuring a certain period of Takaki's life (part 1 was when he first got to know Shinohara Akari in elementary school until they parted ways in the first year of junior high school; part 2 was mainly at Tanegashima, with the focus mainly on Takaki's third year in high school and his classmate Sumida Kanae's crush on him; part 3 was adult Takaki working as a programmer and eventually moving on in life). The live-action film, however, followed the life of adult Takaki, with flashbacks that showed his past with Akari and Kanae. It also added other aspects to the story, such as adult Akari's life, an expanded backstory for Kanae's sister (who was a teacher at Takaki's and Kanae's high school), and other characters to beef up the story of how Takaki eventually moved on from his memories of Akari. It continued to feature the song "One More Time, One More Chance" but also had another song "1991" by Yonezu Kenshi as its theme song.
The live-action film made many attempts to show real footage of iconic scenes and places featured in the animated film. The director is actually a photographer, so I can understand why he wanted to try and capture those places and scenes on tape. But I feel that those scenes in the anime were depicted in certain ways and at certain times for their symbolism. The effect is just different when you change the medium. For example, the anime had a scene where the rocket plume cast a shadow that separated the sky into light and dark parts, implying that Takaki and Kanae live in different worlds. That symbolism just wasn't as strong in the live-action film.
The story itself also felt a bit disconnected. Because the live-action film tried to largely follow the story of the original story, beefed up with its own expanded material, you end up with a distinctive Shinkai Makoto story and a somewhat out-of-place expansion. This disjointedness becomes more distinct because of how the story flows back and forth between flashbacks (which are from the original anime story) and the main story time line (which is heavily expanded). In the end, you have a story that seems to be packed with filler to turn the original 63-minute animated film into a 121-minute live-action film. Personally, the story felt weak and diluted.
I think the reason why the film felt a bit dissatisfying for me was because of the expanded story. As the story progresses, the new and expanded parts made me feel like this could be a story set in a parallel universe, with a similar setting but different ending, maybe even a happy ending. But the ending was the same. It felt like time wasted when the story is basically the same, the ending is the same, and everything added was filler.
The stage event took place after the movie finished screening. It was about 30 minutes, featuring Matsumoto Hokuto (who played adult Tono Takaki), Takahata Mitsuki (adult Shinohara Akari), Mori Nana (Sumida Kanae), Kiryu Mai (Mizuno Risa), Miyazaki Aoi (Kanae's sister), Ueda Haruto (child Takaki), Shiroyama Noa (child Akari), and Aoki Yuzu (teenage Takaki), as well as director Okuyama Yoshiyuki. The main focus was on Matsumoto Hokuto; I mean, it was quite obvious because the cinema I was at had an 80% female audience, of all age groups. There were even mother-daughter groups, all of them obviously fans of Matsumoto Hokuto. The cast and director mainly talked about their gratitude for the audience, their strongest impression during their involvement in the movie (during filming or while promoting the movie), and their hopes for the movie going forward.
