Your Name (2016) - 5 Centimeters Per Second (2007) | Makoto Shinkai - Japan

Your Name

You have to commend the writing of the creator. I had two “what is going on” instances at different times in the movie. At one point I thought it was going to be a teen romance story, and then when it started to gear towards being what seemed like a coming-of-age story, it forms into a fantasy mirroring real events one would see in a disaster movie. At its core is a romance between these two high school-aged characters, which are very easily relatable. At the end, after having rooted for them, you’d just want for them to resolve.

The rules of the created world in “Your Name” are never explained.  How the two lead characters were able to switch to another, and what the limits would be; and how they were able to remember and what caused forgetting the memories? These may have been kept intact so the mystery remains.

5 Centimeters Per Second

This movie is split into three acts. All woven through themes of longing, unsaid and missed connections; then quiet realizations. 

The first tells of a friendship between two elementary then high school students, with an impending fate of having to be far apart from each other, and decides to meet up after long train delays.  The second’s about a different kind of friendship; one part surrendering that she will not live up to the other’s dreams, and the other, longing for a previous love but never having reconnected, is left to search and stare off into the distance. The third act wasn’t as clear as it quickly morphed into short bursts of scenes. It transitioned into a collection of what seemed like a depiction of the two original characters closing in on one promise, with time and circumstance having had their way on each other.

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