5 Centimeters Per Second Dub Review

 

Anime fans I make it no secret that I love director Makoto Shinkai hell I have at least three of his movies on DVD which for me is a good thing since I very rarely collect films by a certain director. While many rightfully give praise to Your Name to me I think that many of us knew that this guy was going to be big when in 2007 he released a film got a ton of praise and so join me as I review "5 Centimeters Per Second" enjoy.

The plot of this movie as great as it is is also pretty hard to explain but it follows a boy named Takaki Tōno and his female childhood friend Akari Shinohara as they grow up and eventually grow apart from each other. Yes I do realise that I most likely posted a spoiler but I did post the spoiler warning at the start of the review and honestly not only was that the best that I could do but this movie have been out over ten years so get over it , as for what I thought about the story to say that I loved it would be a huge understatement because I freaking loved it because it portrays love and friendship more realistically then what alot of anime shows and films do where if your childhood friends with someone then that's it you stay friends forever when that simply isn't the case and I give this film alot of credit for taking that approach with it's story.

Now I want it known that I have no idea which dubbed version of the film that I own but I assume it's the one done by Bang Zoom! Entertainment but I could be wrong. As such starring in the film is Erika Weinstein as Akari Shinohara , Johnny Yong Bosch as Takaki Tono , Kira Buckland as Kanae Sumita , Julie Ann Taylor as Kanae’s Sister , Kirk Thornton as Teacher , Tony Oliver as Train Station Announcer and Tara Platt as an older Akari Shinohara.

Honestly it's hard to judge the acting in this film since alot of what is said is through an inner monologue. However I can say that I thought that the acting in the film was honestly really good with all of the actors getting across there characters feelings really well and I felt that given the fact that the story isn't told in a conventional way the actors did a good job of getting that story across and making it very easy to follow.

Doing the animation for this film as with all of the other films made by this director is CoMix Wave Films. I don't really think that this needs saying at this point since every film Makoto Shinkai has made features stunning animation and yeah the same is true for this film with every movement and every background leaping of the screen because it is so beautiful to look at and honestly this film looks like it was made last year that's how good the film looks and how good the animation is in my humble opinion that is.

This film is told in three segments which I both like and don't like at the same time I like it because it's something new and different. However I don't like it because the titles nine times out of ten aren't connected to anything important that happens in that segment with only the second part having a title that actually connects to anything important but that just goes to show how grasping at straws I am trying to find anything really negative to say about the film.

Now then i've seen this film several times since I bought it well over a decade ago but there was one thing that I never noticed until this most recent viewing of the film. That being at least once in all of the segments someone will mention something travelling at so many either centimeters or kilometers a second now I have to wonder if that was a choice made by the film makers to show us that Takaki can't really forget his past no matter how hard he tries to move on if it was just pure coincidence and they kept it in anyways.

As for Takaki himself I honestly found him a rather interesting character because we see him at first full of love and then over the course of that film loose all of that to the point where he can't even answer the phone when it's his own girlfriend calling him to finally being able to love again. This to me was such an interesting journey for this character to go through because of how true to life his story could be seen.

Now on the flip side of this is the character of Akari who as a young girl is played by Erika Weinstein and as an adult is played by Tara Platt. Akari is a character who was able to move on from her love of Takagi and not only find true love but was able to remain happy which was something that Takagi could never do as such I always saw the two characters as making the same choices in life but getting different results in that one of them became this kind of loner character who wasn't able to truly love someone for years while the other one was able to find true love quite quickly.

Now one thing that I didn't truly like about the film is it's running time the film is just over an hour long and when I say just I really mean like it's only a few seconds over an hour long. I say that I didn't like because I was having such a good time watching the film and enjoying it's characters that I didn't want the film to end and so I wish that it could have been longer just so I could have spent more time in that world with those characters.

Now even tho this film is listed as a romance drama I personally never saw it as that I always just saw it as drama about friends growing apart. Yes I can see why people would say that it's drama but I always saw the film as two friends who simply grew apart I never saw it as two people who are madly in love with each other as such i refuse to talk about any romance in the film simply because none is really present in the film.

Overall if your a fan of Your Name or a fan of director Makoto Shinkai then I highly recommend that you watch this film. Is it perfect hell to the no the film does have its fair share of issues not many mind you but it has them but is a film that will hopefully move you to tears and it's a film that keeps you engaged from it's first frame to the second the ending credits on the film start playing as such this film gets a 9 out of 10 from me.

All images used in this review were gathered from either Google Images or the official Makoto Shinkai fandom wiki page. I have to admit given that this film came out in the mid 200's I wasn't expecting to find any high definition images let alone as many as I happened to find all of which came from the official Makoto Shinkai fandom wiki page which I have no choice but to recommend for high definition images from his works be they films , TV or manga.