The short movie comes in three linked segments, or as the movie's subtitle puts it, "a chain of short stories about their distance." In the first, "The Chosen Cherry Blossoms," two elementary-school students become fast friends, and something more. Takaki Tonho and Akari Shinohara meet as children in Tokyo, enduring some teasing because of their relationship but shrugging aside other people in order to live in their own little world. Then Akari's parents move far across Japan. While they continue writing to each other, it's difficult to visit, but when he realizes his own parents are planning a move that would put even more distance between them, Takaki travels to meet Akari, and they kiss for the first time.

In the second chapter, "Cosmonaut," Takaki is in high school, and his classmate Kanae has fallen in love with him. But she finds him unapproachable, as he always seems focused somewhere far away. Living in the shadow of Tanegashima Space Center, where a new launch is being prepared, the two of them contemplate the enormous distances cosmonauts travel, and how much shorter distances can still keep people apart. In Kanae and Takaki's case, even physical proximity can't bridge the profound gaps between them.

Finally, in a third chapter, "5 Centimeters Per Second," an adult Takaki works in Tokyo and contemplates his life and how his feelings have developed over the years.

Meeting the Miyazaki standard

As with all Shinkai's pieces, the first and foremost draw of 5 Centimeters Per Second is the deeply layered animation, which is phenomenally, almost aggressively gorgeous, pushing home the point of Shinkai's melancholy messages. It's one thing to have characters say that life is painfully beautiful—in Shinkai's films, they get across the message just by looking around them. Shinkai bathes his daytime images in golden light, executing each frame in acutely fine detail. His nighttime images, as snow falls or as characters sit in a grassy, windblown field, are full of deep, complicated computer-rendered hues. His renderings of distant constellations and galaxies are particularly wonderful. And his animation of the cosmonaut launch—with the smoke contrail from the rocket blocking light from one side of the sky, momentarily bisecting the horizon into light and shadow—seems far-fetched but still achingly lovely.

Amid all this visual bounty, the characters seem more than a little bland, in the familiar anime/manga mode that makes them Everyman types. Both characters are animated with simple lines and minimalist gestures. Shinkai's first pieces were done solo on his home computer, and he covered over the difficulty of solo animation by focusing on long, still shots and keeping his characters' mouths offscreen; he's progressed on to more fluid animation, but still has a love of quiet tableaux, small gestures and long, lingering looks. None of which stops him from putting a character on a surfboard and executing a fantastic water sequence.

But what sticks about 5 Centimeters Per Second is the mono no aware, that blend of love-of-life and sorrow-amid-ephemeral-beauty so commonly found in Japanese art, and so closely associated with the brief life of the cherry blossom. At this point, it could practically be dubbed The Shinkai Mood. Shinkai has commonly been compared to Hayao Miyazaki, simply because there's no higher standard in Japan as far as fantastically rich and detailed artwork and similarly rich wells of emotion. Here he continues to meet Miyazaki's standards, delivering a piece that's recognizably like his other work yet strikingly unique and distinct from anyone else's.