im confused

_txhsin__ said:
What was the point of 3 seperate story arcs? can someone explain the deeper meaning cause im not getting it lmao

Alciel_Code said:

Yea no problem mate I will explain here. Hopefully, I am doing justice to the author when explaining his work.
The first story of a young guy and a girl is in an affair. Pretty straightforward until the distance between them increases. Guy tries meeting the girl several times by taking trains and making sure they see each other. The letters are another medium by which they are in contact.
The second arc starts and now they both have grown up. No letters are being exchanged at increased distances and other people have taken up their time in their lives. The guy is still somewhat in love with the girl and just can't move on from that relationship. The girl is also feeling the pinch of distance. Guy has quite a few female classmates interested in him but he is still thinking about the girl from childhood.
The third arc starts now our guy and girl are all grown up and the girl is doing pretty well for herself. She is working and engaged and the guy has a job but still thinks about the girl.
Suddenly one fateful day they both come across each other unknowingly and as they cross each other paths they both seem to understand that now they are again in front of each other. As soon as they turn to face each other the train passes in between them keeping viewers in suspense as to what will be the reaction from both. As soon as the train ends the girl is gone while the boy stays there waiting which implies that the girl has moved on from their relationship and is encouraging the boy to move on from it as well.
It can be deduced throughout the whole movie that the boy was reluctant to move on and this has led to his personal life being destroyed.
Now what the author wants us to know according to my knowledge is that as soon as the distance between people increases the strength of their relationship decreases. Even though in the first arc their relationship was strong as a rock by the end of the movie it was just reduced to sand at a rate of 5cm/sec.
Anyway, I enjoyed this as it was somewhat personal for me as I have also experienced this kind of thing.

Faceleze said:
Long version of my interpretation:

In life many love stories can happen. Very compatible people meet, they are happy and they feel better than never before. Sometimes they fall for each other on the spot and stay together, sometimes they finally let out the feelings they had for a long time. You could say that in many ocassions, the universe brings these people together in a one-in-a lifetime oportunity.

But sometimes...None of those things happen. At all.

Because just like people who are in love get together, many times they don't. In many ocassions there will be people with very strong feelings, people who are in love. But that once in a lifetime oportunity to stay together slipped away, or maybe it never came to begin with.

Sometimes love stories never get to flourish, and people keep their feelings trapped inside. They are also trapped by their own life circumstances: Travelling, work, unemployment, family, other relationships, etc. And all they can do is wonder what would've happened if things turned out differently.

Short version:

The movie is about the sad reality in which even if people are in love, many times that isn't enough and our lives take a turn to other ways. And we are left wandering "What could've been?"

oCareless said:
I understood the three parts of the film as different stages of letting go.

the first stage was the mc trying to make it work regardless of them being long distance, taking trains, writing letters etc.

the second stage we see how he still holds onto those feelings for her years later & is clouded by that, not realizing or paying attention to others who are interested in him.

the third stage was acceptance, the girl moved on with her life, while our mc looks to get closure.

Hope - Denial - Acceptance for the stages is the best way I’ve heard someone explain the stages.

Alciel_Code said:

Yea no problem mate I will explain here. Hopefully, I am doing justice to the author when explaining his work.
The first story of a young guy and a girl is in an affair. Pretty straightforward until the distance between them increases. Guy tries meeting the girl several times by taking trains and making sure they see each other. The letters are another medium by which they are in contact.
The second arc starts and now they both have grown up. No letters are being exchanged at increased distances and other people have taken up their time in their lives. The guy is still somewhat in love with the girl and just can't move on from that relationship. The girl is also feeling the pinch of distance. Guy has quite a few female classmates interested in him but he is still thinking about the girl from childhood.
The third arc starts now our guy and girl are all grown up and the girl is doing pretty well for herself. She is working and engaged and the guy has a job but still thinks about the girl.
Suddenly one fateful day they both come across each other unknowingly and as they cross each other paths they both seem to understand that now they are again in front of each other. As soon as they turn to face each other the train passes in between them keeping viewers in suspense as to what will be the reaction from both. As soon as the train ends the girl is gone while the boy stays there waiting which implies that the girl has moved on from their relationship and is encouraging the boy to move on from it as well.
It can be deduced throughout the whole movie that the boy was reluctant to move on and this has led to his personal life being destroyed.
Now what the author wants us to know according to my knowledge is that as soon as the distance between people increases the strength of their relationship decreases. Even though in the first arc their relationship was strong as a rock by the end of the movie it was just reduced to sand at a rate of 5cm/sec.
Anyway, I enjoyed this as it was somewhat personal for me as I have also experienced this kind of thing.

Furuhashi1 said:
It was just bullshit no start whatsoever and they tried to show a sad ending but it was also crap.

xD_Master00 said:

Bro has absolutely no idea what he’s talking about💀

axtrast said:
From the perspective of the boy:
EP 1: Childhood love knows no bounds
EP 2: Still believing that you are in love with someone and paying no attention to what's in front of you.
EP 3: Failing to develop, living the life of a salaryman(which is considered hell) and -as if it was fate-meeting the one you love and think about till this day at the same place you once used to play; however failing to recognize her at the spot and while you did recognize her-she on the other hand kept walking as if you are a stranger(which you obviously are).
Easily Makoto's best work.

RafaHatake said:
there were already many thoughtful answers about the story itself, so I'll just add something that struck me as I was reading the manga but it's also valid for the movie. telling the story through those 3 arcs, to me, seems like another way of expressing the story's theme: distance.

we get 3 snapshots of these characters story, in different stages of their lives, we see that they change, their relationship changes, but we don't get to WATCH them change. an audience usually grows attached to characters by watching them grow, change, struggle, love, etc. but by letting us see only these few moments in Takaki and Akari's story, we too are being distanced from the characters. we are experiencing a form of distance alongside them.

aaaanyway, that's my 2 cents, hope that made any sense since english is, like, my 3rd language, and I'm writing this at almost 1AM 😅