Story: 10/10 (Spoilers Warning. Yes, you HAVE been warned) The storyline is simple, but strong and moving. It starts off with (assumed) Akari and Takaki and a dialogue relating to the title. Not even a minute into the movie, Akari runs and a barrier falls between them. After that, a train runs past and the time leaps.
Then, Akari talks even though we are only seeing Takaki. This creates the thought of Takaki still feeling Akari's presence even if she's not there. A bird flies through the sky and THEN we see Akari. This could imply the distance they'll have to travel in order to see each other. After that, Akari no longer talks when we're only seeing Takaki showing the distance overtime. The first time they see each other after a year, flashbacks of their childhood were shown. It shows the good moments between Akari and Takaki, also showing nostalgia.
The train delays after delaying and Takaki had nothing to do other than to feel sentimental or think about his relationship with Akari or worrying about the train. After that very long train ride, Takaki goes to the waiting room and finds Akari still waiting for him, and music plays.
The start of the second episode drifts away from Takaki and Akari and focuses on Kanae, and Kanae's love and experiences with Takaki. Even other people think/joke that Takaki is dating Kanae, also implying that Akari isn't in his life any more. Plus, Akari didn't appear until far into the episode, besides the beginning.
At the beginning, Akari and Takaki promised to see the cherry blossoms again. When Takaki first met Akari after not seeing each other again, the snow turned into the petals of cherry blossoms. This gives an impression that the promise is met because the two have finally met each other.
This is only SOME of the scenes in the movie. There are lots more, but it'll take forever to analyse them all.
Art: 10/10 The art is outstanding. In most anime, the focus will be on the character art. But in 5 Centimeters per second, the focus is in the scenery and background, that's what makes this anime more unique. If you look at the character art, you'll see that the character art itself isn't that great. But that doesn't affect much because the focus is on the scenery.
Sound: 10/10 The background music is emotive and moving, just like the art and storyline. The music is mainly piano soundtracks and I know it's not liked by everyone. But the music in 5cm/s is done and played well. I don't know if the music is a live piano player and a live orchestra or it's electronically made. But if it's live, then... I can't find a word to describe it. Playing an instrument might be easy, but playing an instrument well is actually really hard. Even if it's electronically made, it's still outstanding, the emotion in the tunes. Listening to the music, I'm 99.9% sure the music is played by real people, not using a computer software. In addition, the lyrics and feeling you get in the songs are highly relevant to the story.
At times when the background music aren't playing, the sound you hear will be birds singing, trains, opening an umbrella, paper rustling, wind blowing etc. This creates a realistic atmosphere and feeling. By just using that technique, 5cm/s can create a scenery you will expect just by the sounds you hear. In a lot of anime, you won't expect much detail to be put into the sound.
Furthermore, you'll also hear a few lines of other's conversations even if they are absolutely unrelated to the storyline or the characters, just like you might do in real life.
I can also give credit for the voice acting. The voices are neither too high or too low. In some anime, the female voices can be too high and squeaky. That's what makes me turn the volume down and read the subtitles instead.
Character: 9/10 I don't see much in their character and personalities. Their personalities portrayed throughout the movie is quite simple. The movie mostly shows their personalities in their love life and rarely shows their personalities outside their love life. Since the focus is a romance movie, that doesn't really affect much. Even so, we can still judge what type of person they might be considering the characters' thoughts and actions. And we can see that Kanae is a girl who loves to surf. I personally think the character development is a lot better than a lot of other anime though.
Enjoyment: 10/10 I don't usually like romance anime. But I have really enjoyed this movie. This is by far the best romance I've watched so far in my life (in my opinion). I've watched 5cm/s at least 3 times now and still not bored of it. That story, that art, that music...
Overall: 10/10 I think this is an outstanding anime. I'm amazing by the clever amount of thought and effort that had been applied to this anime movie. A good emotive storyline, astounding artwork, moving background music, epic combo.
One more time, one more chance
