Beyond the Clouds, In Space
There is an element to Makoto Shinkai’s masterpiece, Five Centimeters Per Second, that I don’t see talked about often. In some ways, it is, in part, the failing of its narrative that we don’t quite grasp this element intuitively, yet at the same time I have my hat off to 5cm/s for just being able to include it. The element isn’t some cunningly-hidden reference, although it might be something most of us do not experience on a regular basis. The element works best when it is evoked from context of a personal encounter, yet it isn’t really something people will automatically realize when confronted with that, in person.
It’s safe to say that in Shinkai’s three latest works, he explored the theme of distance, both internal and external. Internal distance is a common theme in romance anime and manga, I feel, that the take on externalizing that space via the physical distance of a physical separation is the “spin” on the well-treaded theme. I’m not saying anything you probably don’t already know, but long-distance relationships are a plot device all to itself.
Voices of a Distant Star is the blueprint of all of this, if we think about it. And it is a story about a long-distance relationship, in a nutshell.
The thing is, where as I could be (joke inc.) talking to my mistress in Paris and Googling how to make a crib for my wife in America, Shinkai’s works look not Beyond the Ocean, in the Place Promised over an Unforgettable One Night Stand. He’s pretty much obsessed with, well, space. What stands beyond the clouds in Place Promised anyways? That ivory tower of n-strings? No, it’s deep, black, 3-degrees-kelvin space. Well, yes, there was that ivory tower of n-strings, but Shinkai has better sense than to use the exact same shtick again. When I think beyond the clouds, I think about the stuff of the heavens. Don’t you? (It wasn’t distance the keeps Takuya and Hiroki from Sayuri, but that weird comatose magic. So let’s just stuff that cosmological stuff together for the purpose of this discussion.)
It was all the more impressive that in 5cm/s Shinkai gives us his most beautiful, but also his most ordinary take on the same theme. But wait, why is there all this space exploration stuff in 5cm/s? And that’s the rub.
Takaki is a bit otherworldly, but in his dream in part 2, he sees a world beyond the clouds, in a place he should have promised. Actually, that’s the red herring, and it’s not “that element” I am drilling down to; it is the foil. I give credit to Shinkai for giving us an inside, bitter-sweet look at Takaki’s image of his future, or whatever teenage boys dream about when it involves an old crush. At the same time, what does that say about the force of reality that separated Takaki and Akari? They were children, their destinies were out of their control, at least for a time.
Invariably, some of the more ideal-romantics rage against this construct of, well, a cheap plot complex about distance. But well, yes, it’s a cheap plot complex; the beauty and the point of the exercise is in framing the issue. It’s just in this case, we’re using a deep space probe.
But why do deep space probes work? In Voices it was the simple understanding that the distance is, well, huge, that works in the same way. In Beyond the Clouds, it’s the world of dreams, an alternate universe connected by the power of love or something. I don’t know. In 5cm/s, it was the forces of the road of life, and our unchangeable circumstances.
And this is why 5cm/s failed. Just how powerful that force is, as all of us are to some degree avid viewers of media and these artificial constructs, the distance problem doesn’t seem like something that separates us as much as a challenge waiting to be overcome. After all, overcoming the difficulty of distance is only expected in love stories about the distance between two loved ones.
What is intended, I assume, is an appeal to awe. When Kanae cried and realized she was just Io and Takaki was the glitchy Voyager 2 (for example), a rocket took off on its decade-plus journey through the place beyond the clouds. While I can’t speak with authority as I’ve not witnessed it, I hear these kinds of launches are awe-inspiring. It’s like overlooking the Grand Canyon or some other mind-blowing large-scale display of nature. It is like looking into the endless depths of outer space, regardless if you’re busy wallowing in bittersweet memories of a love left behind or if you’re just bug-eyed and in awe with the insignificance of your existence in comparison with the rest of the universe.
It’s too bad that Shinkai doesn’t drill that little bit of awesome into his stuff, because I think that’s the missing link. That space stuff is awesome, and it really enhances how I feel about the work. It’s convincing.
As much as I loved 5CM at the time. Looking back at it, I’d have to say that it’s so cliche and the characters are dull. It’s such a cliche bittersweet story. Love the backgrounds and musical score though! Maybe Shinkai should stick to that and get someone else to write the story? Pacing isn’t his thing.
Well, no, the characters are just normal people (I’m sorry for you that Akari just isn’t as interesting as Nogizaka Haruka) and its unfair as well as incorrect to dismiss the story of 5cm/s as cliche. Hell, most everyone has experienced similar events to that illustrated in Shinkai’s movie. 5cm is a simple story dealing with themes that are increasingly common in this globalised yet fragmented world.
It’s interesting that I found Takaki’s dream more awe-inspiring than the launch of the shuttle in part 2. Maybe because there wasn’t enough focus on the latter than the former.
5CM’s story is sort of cliche, but it’s the kind of cliche that needs more anime made of. Too often we get the other end of the spectrum of this cliche.
But the whole exercise is not about the relationship; that is just the framework in which a director plays his cards and do his magic. In other words, it’s in presenting that cliche in a new way.
I thought the rocket launch (not a shuttle!) scene was pretty awesome. It’s a really cool light trick. I hope you at least got a chance to watch it in theater with good sound system etc. But it wasn’t liek WOAH KABAAM sort of thing, which is closer to seeing it in person.
Hmm, space! is a beautiful and complex item of interest in various works, but I like the way Shinkai involves it. I find what makes the things we’ve seen in space so glorious is a pure realization [of distance]… We cannot fathom the distance we are apart from some of the most beautiful things, nor could we even survive if we were close to some of them…. Despite the title, space is not empty.
I’m not an expert on Shinkai or space, but I think the atmosphere/sky/layers may play into it as well. Looking from the surface, what we see “up there” can be affected by those layers, for better or worse.
And for shuttle launches, I’ve seen god knows how many, and I’ll say the ones during the early morning, evening, or night have something special about them. The visuals and setting are nice, but the movement and sound in the air definitely add to it.
and i presume that is also why the rocket launch in 5cm/s is
a. in the early evening (right before sunset)
b. pierces a cloud wwwwwww
“I hope you at least got a chance to watch it in theater with good sound system etc.”
It was cool at least seeing it on a “huge screen”, albeit not in all it’s splendid Bluray or 35mm splendor. :P
i dont think i do enough pot to understand your blog sometimes
I guess I felt the rocket launch scene a little different and focused more on the rocket dividing the sky in half. The rocket cut through wishes as it flew further and further away, disappearing into the clouds as far as could be seen, the sky divided. I saw it more as severance than awe. Those on the ground watching left behind. I guess that’s part of the feeling of awe at watching a rocket launch into space.
@super rats: yeah, that is another way to look at it, to much of the same effects. that sort of a parting is part of the awe.
Of course, the rocket serves as a marker for the time that passes between acts 2 and 3 as well. Just like he showed the march of time with the newspapers in Voices of a Distant Star, the passing scene of a science magazine about the probe serves as a road back to the previous chapter. It seems to me that Shinkai likes to use setting elements as a way to evoke memory rather than “cheap” methods like fuzzy-edged flashbacks. To maybe expand on super rats’ point a bit, the magazine draws the viewer back to the departure of the rocket – the seperation of the dream from real life – just as Takaki is presumably drawn back into the past at that time.
I feel like I had something else to say too, but I seem to have lost it.
I have no qualms with your statement uncreative, but it’s not convincing when a few minutes after Takaki read that magazine, you get this all-out flashback montage music video.
Seeing the space probe in a magazine is an elegant way to evoke that concept though.