The movie is composed of 3 stories revolving around a character Takaki, showing his phases in life.
The movie is very nicely composed of the 3 phases one when is small, one when his is in his college and one when he really grows up.
The first part: "Cherry Blossoms"
As a young kid Takaki befriends a girl Akari who comes from another place to Tokyo. Due to similar interests they become good friends. On a snowy day Akari tells "5 centimeters per second is the speed at which cherry blossom petal falls to the ground". She runs across a railway crossing and says she hopes to see the cherry blossoms falling with him the next year also. It shows how innocent a child's heart can be, its the felling of to be with someone you like. But Akari leaves one day when her father is transferred. She calls him and tells him that. They write to each other and one day Takaki also has to leave Tokyo as his father is transferred. He understands that he might never see Akari again and writes to her that he will come and see her on a particular day. He boards a train and gets down at a place where he loses the letter in wind, that he wrote to give to Akari. Due to heavy snow all the trains are delayed, he reaches the station very late, but still sees Akari waiting. Though both cry a bit, they eat the rice cakes she makes for them and leave the station. They again see cherry blossoms falling from a tree where they share their first kiss. The next morning Takaki leaves with pain in his heart for he was not able to give her the letter nor tell how he feels. they promise to write each other. When the train leaves we see that Akari holds a letter she intended to give to Takaki but couldn't.
This story dwells how innocent young hearts can be and what they may aspire.
The second part: "Cosmonaut"
The story starts with Takaki with a girl on another planet watching sun rise. A very beautiful scene, which says that Takaki wants to be with his only love away from everything.
Takaki is now in the third year of senior high in Tanegashima, where the Tanegashima Space Center is located. He is silent and writes messages to someone, that is not shown. Kanae Sumida a classmate, loves Takaki very much but is never able to confess to him. She wishes that the messages he writes should be for her. She loves from middle school, studies very hard for high school entrance and makes it to the same class as Takaki. Finally on a day when she decides to confess to him, she cries unable to confess, and sees that she always looking for something beyond her, like something is far away, he doesn't love her. She doesn't tell him. It ends with her crying in her bed.
This story tells how hard it is to be loved by someone even though you may love them.
The third part: "5 Centimeters per Second"
It is 2008, all three have gone separate ways. Takaki is a computer programmer in Tokyo. He is lonely in an apartment, smoking. he thinks how did he get this habit of writing messages to no one. He receives a message from his girlfriend who wants to tell him something. She mails him that "Even though they send each other a thousand mails their hearts won't come even one centimeter close." He thinks how his life is, understands that all the aspirations, he had to be with Akari as a child had all somewhere faded away into the past, but the remains still haunt him to make is life miserable. He still loves Akari somewhere deep in his heart. Under these pressures of not knowing where his life is going he quits his job. Akari is seen at railway station with her parents, she is leaving to the man she is to marry in month. She has a ring, she is engaged. Both Akari and Takaki will be thinking, they had a dream the night before, both of them as children, seeing cherry blossoms fall, and being children they hoped to see cherry blossoms fall together every time as they could see the footsteps on snow. being children they believed in it. Akari thinks she had that dream may be because of the letter she found among her things, the one which she wanted to give to Takaki but never could. She is shown sad for a moment. Then a poem kind of a two minute song goes showing images of all three, where the lyrics are more than beautiful, they are excellent, whatever the best word I can find applies to it. Takaki is drinking in a bar, Akari is drinking coffee at the railway station, a man in brown coat comes with whom she smilingly leaves, her husband. Kanae is looking at a plane taking off, as if waiting for Takaki. Takaki keeps roaming the streets where he once as a child used to go with Akari. He crosses the railway crossing (the one in story one, may be). While crossing he goes past a lady who seems like Akari. He turns back, the lady also turns back, before he could catch the glimpse of her face a train passes blocking their sight. He waits for the train to pass, but sees the lady is no longer there. He smiles and leaves.
This is the most important and heart breaking part of the movie. Everyone would definitely say that Takaki go with some girl, some may say Akari, some may say Kanae, but he just moves on with his life, it is what is shown.
The movie says, that human as their nature aspire to do many things, but circumstances keep them apart and those aspirations fade away with time. The comparision of the kids wishing to see cherry blossoms petal fall together as they can see the footprints on snow, and their belief in it, shows the childish nature of humans, yet its all lost when they grow with time.
This nature of humans is shown as both a boon and bane at the same time. As good as one may wish after seeing this movie that it had a positive ending, one can't deny that, this is the true nature of humans, and this is the perfect ending of the movie.
People may meet others in life with whom they want to spend time, may be a lifetime, still drift away to distances where they forget and go on with life, even though those memories may sting in their heart, forever.
One of the best anime movies I have ever seen. Will be one of my favorites along with Grave of the Fireflies.
This is for more mature audience, not childern as they may not understand it.
