A Date with 5 Centimeter Per Second - Part 1
So I got this Blu-Ray Disc from the cheapest importer (of the item) I know a while ago. I think I should write about that, right.
Unfortunately, I have not had the time and couldn’t plop the equally sexy BRD rip of the film on the PS3, so that will have to wait. Which is why there will be a part 2 eventually.
Not to mention I’m not sure if I want to end this journey just yet.
I’m probably going to tread a little into videophile land–that’s mostly unfamiliar territory for me, so please forgive me if I rear my ignorance a little more than usual. That said, the TV is a first-batch Sony KDS-60A2000; I listened to the film via the TV speakers (5.1 will have to wait till I get unlazy and swap my SPDIF cable over to the PS3… but it’s not really necessary for this film.)
Having already blogged all I wanted to blog about the film itself, its story, and its series of related themes and characters, I’m just going to say the one thing that stands out from watching it off BRD–the freedom to watch it however you want.
For example, my displayed is tuned more for the video look. As with most Americans, I get my HD feed mostly from cable or satellite, so the typical setting is optimized with that in mind. Looking at 5cm that way, the color vibrancy in the first handful of scenes of Okashou was almost too much. It makes good contrast with the dreary darkness in the train scenes.
However, unlike watching it on film, Cosmonaut’s subtle shades of blacks didn’t come across as well as I would have hoped. The twinkling stars as seen in the 35mm version was not absent, but the scattering sunset made it seem more 5pm than 7pm, you know? It is the scene where Kanae finds Takaki’s moped and climbs up the grassy knoll… I realize I can probably tweak my TV so it gets better black levels but I just haven’t had the time to go back and rewatch it on a more film-like setting. On the flip side, watching Cosmonaut in a brightly lit room makes some of the darker moments of the segment less brooding.
The BRD release comes with very little bonus stuff. It has the main feature and the One More Time, One More Chance music video (also in Hi-Def). The packaging is your straight-up BRD case, but besides a couple inserts there’s not much else.
When it comes to anime on high-definition, something that has come up in my discussion of the topic with others is just how does anime take advantage of the improved resolution? Anime in general is low-budget stuff, after all.
In 5cm’s case, let’s just say that this is as close as it gets to seeing Makoto Shinkai’s handiwork in your own home. In the ADV release of the DVD, one of the bonus features gave us a glimpse as to how 5cm was produced on Shinkai’s Apple Cinema Displays. At Hi-Def, you can see the same character cut out as Akari and Takaki chase each other down through their childhood neighborhood, complete with the less-than-perfect character cut-out and line inking, sort of as you would if you were looking at Shinkai’s monitors. Granted, it’s not a great thing to be able to see the imperfections on your TV, but it’s there, and it does add to the viewing experience. And that’s not to mention being able to really see the gorgeous detailed backgrounds that speaks so much, so loudly, throughout the film.
Sigh. Writing about it makes me want to go back and watch it again.
Never Running Out of Things to Say
Some people are very detail oriented, directed, motivated, focused and ultimately, verbose.
I can’t quite say that about Makoto Shinkai, but that is how he came across when I spent the good half hour reading the wall-of-text interview on the 5cm DVD (R1 release, thx ADV!). He doesn’t ramble–in fact it seemed like it was well-planned, almost as if he has had time to think up answers to the open-ended questions these interviews tend to make them answer.
What was impressive was seeing the same degree of attentiveness to detail to his works. And it’s not so much in the animation but in the degree of control he exercised over the work that made it seem like he knows what he is doing–what exactly he wanted to say to his viewers, and how he wanted it done.
I won’t parrot what he said in there, but I will say there was even a lolcat moment.
Even though it was well planned, it seemed that he did not have anything to read back from, so the speech was natural (and at parts, edited for brevity) when he hits the various points to answer a question. The question he gets asked all the time (such as “are you telling us a story from your own life?”) he answers rather concisely; but some of the more descriptive questions surrounding 5cm’s production gets much more fleshed out.
And how he transitioned from what lifts him up from his daily grind as an office guy to a way of life; a hobby turns into a full time job. It’s probably worthy of being told in a film all by itself.
In a nutshell, while some advertisers may jump quickly and claim Shinkai’s successorship as the next Miyazaki, I see him as someone who has simply mastered storytelling in this one particular style. Perhaps today’s media industry lacks people who knows how to tell stories, especially in this style, but it will be up to him to combine his talents, dedication, and finding the story that he wants to speak to us about. That’ll be the defining prereq of his true masterpiece.
Still, I have a hard time running out of things to say about 5cm. Sure, it really spoke to me, and many others, but much like Satoshi Kon’s works (and he’s another very detail-oriented person) there’s just a jam-packed amount of stuff in the film. Not only it takes a long time to unpack all that’s in the film, Shinkai has made it fun to do so. In light of the new Spring 2008 offerings, I am still mostly ambivalent about that in light of what has transpired in an year-old film that ran just a tad over an hour.
In one of those soul-searching moments, a stroll in the valley of introspection and self-reflection, things like 5cm is exactly what props me up and reaffirms that there’s something worth being a fan for in this business.
And 5cm says it so simply. Concisely.
How to Be Makoto Shinkai
The Quest For 5cm/35mm
I have reached a major turning point in the quest to pursuit it as a fan and to promote it as a fan, so I figured I should share what has happened, and what will continue to happen.
A time long ago, in a galaxy not-so-far away…
There were some blogs and news sites that reported the unveiling of Makoto Shinkai’s latest work, strangely titled “5 Centimeter per Second - A Chain of Short Stories about Their Distance.” What was really remarkable was that a 720p trailer was released to annotate this major news item (at least, for people who cared for avant-garde Japanese animation).
The summer of 2006 was a time of uncertainty. The Hi-Def format war was just underway and the waves of heavy blows had only begun to clash between the two camps. Seeing a Hi-Def trailer for an anime film, straight from the Japanese Horse’s mouth, was an oddity, even if it was norm for big-budget productions. It’s not a secret (at least to me) that a fair number of TV anime was already being produced with HD in mind, and even some are aired as such. But the media tycoons here, let alone the more fiscally conservative Japan, was not too keen on jumping on the bandwagon, even if Blu-Ray has pretty much gotten Japan locked down from the get go.
The strange title and the fragmented telling of 5cm was already pretty much a “huh” since it was hard to say what it was about, besides that we can see it may very well be another film long-distance relationship. It was surprisingly sci-fi free, but with that rocket we can’t tell for sure. Not everyone then picked up that it’s a three-parter. Just about no one knew the last part was suppose to be a “cap” and a music video. The winter 2006 trailer didn’t really help either.
(The Star Wars nod is not too far off, as I thought back to what happened.)
As fandom and fans approached the winter of 2006, babble about 5cm has generally quieted down. Stuff like Paprika and Tokikake was in the mind of the anime film buffs. The steadfast Shinkai fans preordered the limited edition R2 DVD box sets, as it would come with Tenmon’s soundtrack (and so far, no way else). The fortunate Shinkai fans waited to see it in theaters in spring of ‘07. I was neither.
(Come to think of it, 2006 was one hell of a year for anime if we added these two works to 2006’s umbrella of fandom-rocking productions.)
I did get to read about the film, and at least watch a nice sub of it later in 2007. I was so pumped about that fansubbed Episode 1 (Oukashou) that I made everyone I knew watch it at Otakon 2007, where they promised a screening with their 35mm programming track. Not only was its reception mixed among my friends (as it was decidedly depressing for some and outright outrageous for few; as many liked it however), they screened a DVD with crappy resized option selected. It looked horrid. Prodding the Otakon forums after the fact did little good besides that ADV has dropped the ball (in an usual manner of how industry reps drop balls at cons, I guess).
And showing it in such horrid way is the greatest injustice you can do to one of the prettiest film I’ve seen. Having been promised a 35mm run by ADV, it was a kick in the balls. Hearing it being licensed was great news as it was announced around 2007 con season. I was so looking forward to it too.
That summer marked the start of a small chase for me to catch 5cm in a proper 35mm showing. I know ADV did stuff in Texas with all their theatrical releases, but it was a little too hard to justify traveling down there just for that. Plus, I had no idea where to start looking for information tied to their local showing. All in all, I only managed to catch two other “screenings” of 5cm since, so I guess I wasn’t really that hardcore at all.
A whopping year later we’ve finally seen this work in its original 35mm beauty. The NYCIFF screened it twice in three weeks; I caught the last showing today.
It’s been a long year since the seeds of anticipation bore fruit. Even compared to a nice, high quality rip of the original DVD, seeing it on 35mm was a notably more powerful experience. Details between light and darkness jumped to life; deep ocean blues and the pitch-dark, starry sky gave a particular depth that made Episode 2, Cosmonaut, a glittery magic that probably will escape most people’s displays (unless your display can show some very awesomely deep black levels, anyways).
This was probably my fourth real “experience” with this film. Not counting the time when I watched it piece-wise or doing it at home, anyways. At today’s showing there were a couple hiccups which interrupted the screening (thankfully nothing really major), and we had to take a 5-minute break between episodes 2 and 3. I realized this actually significantly changed the way we viewed the ending because the awesome kid-friendly atmosphere of a typical NYCIFF showing really cuts into suspension of mood. I sort of took pity to this one mom who was reading the subs to her child as her child wasn’t old enough to read that fast.
A bit of funny: as usual NYCIFF major features always demo a short before the actual feature. For today’s showing there was this stopmation Russian fairytale. It’s only fitting that 5cm is also licensed in Russia, I guess.
What’s next? I’ve done chasing this film, so odds are I can happily pluck down some money for the Hi-Def version of the film (along with Beyond the Clouds) later this year. Hopefully we can see R1 licensees release them with translation soon after.
Year in Review: Makoto Shinkai
You know, Makoto Shinkai made this short which debut on NHK this week about cats.
Unlike his first known work, She and Her Cat, this colorful skit about cats is probably his first comedic work. Aside from the shared namesake of Chobi, anyways, there are not a whole lot in common. A Gathering of Cats is part of a program on NHK that highlights notable animators and have them put on a show for us. The short is merely 60 seconds long, so be sure to grab it and take a look!
Anyways, back to Year in Review: Shinkai is indeed one of the shining beacon of light dotting the landscape of the anime scene for me. This year was particularly remarkable with the release of 5cm. This will be the first post rounding out my favorited spotlights of this ending 2007.
One thing I love about anime is how it takes a very eastern, humanist message and package it in a candy shell. I don’t really care about the usual story so much that drives American television (but sometimes they do offer something interesting), so I take particular notice at this kind of thing. Unlike my more adventurous breathens I don’t steep deep into it; the random jpop tie-in of Studio 4C’s Amazing Nuts is as far as I go with the really weird this year (I didn’t watch it until 2007, bleh), I guess.
But more about Shinkai. I think 5cm is really his first film that he could be truly proud of. Hey, it won foreign film fest awards. Regardless how you like it compared to his earlier works (which definitely depends on your tolerance and affinity to the lo lo sappy romance happy end), Shinkai actually managed to tell a story with his film. In his last movie, Beyond the Cloud, he merely told us a story as a normal film did, and his film played second fiddle (albeit in Tenmon’s orchestra that is still pretty awesome) to the colliding mystery and the romantic reunion of the protagonist couple. In 5cm, the film carried the story like a master chef going at miles long of ramen dough, or insert some other familiar culinary analogy about kneading…things. The three-way partition throws people off, but I believe this all the more highlights the impressiveness of his narrative through telling us a story with what we experience overall, and not merely what we see or hear.
Plus, it sure as pretty. And I mean Pixar/Studio Ghibli pretty. I am dying to see this on 35mm. Com’on ADV!
Makoto Shinkai is definitely the most exciting prospect on the scene right now for independent anime filmmaking, and he’s just starting to make waves. Will he ever shed that arthouse aura? I don’t know, but I don’t care! It’s good stuff.
This is the first part of a series of blog entries highlighting some of the memorable and remarkable points of 2007 in review.
- Introduction
- Part 1 - Makoto Shinkai
- Part 2 - Baccano!
- Part 3 - Sola
- Part 4 - Hitohira
- Part 5 - Gurren Lagann
- Part 6 - Code Geass
- Part 7 - ef, Hidamari Sketch, Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei
- Part 8 - Manabi Straight
- Conclusion
