Yes, after watching a downloaded copy I liked the movie so much I decided to shell out for it. My limited edition of "Byousoku 5 Centimeters" arrived from Play-Asia safely this morning with no custom charges. The last time I tried ordering a Japanese DVD, they taxed me around £10 or so... Originally I was planning to order from the customs free Yes-Asia but I hesitated and they ran out of stock before I could order.

I'm very pleased with the purchase because it contains the sort of content I wanted from such a beautifully drawn and written movie.

The box itself contains 2 DVD cases, the main movie case and bonus case.

Inside the movie case is of course the movie disc itself and also the two limited edition items, a 20 page booklet and a film strip.

The film strip seems to be random because on fellow Anime fan Kurogane's blog, he has one with shots of the train station. As you can see I got the scene where Takaki's waiting for the delayed trains. I would have preferred the happy little scene where Akari and Takaki were eating together but, this is still pretty good.

The scene itself from the movie.

Looks like it's supposed to be an actual cut from the reel used in the cinemas. There's a notice at the back of the box saying so and that "there maybe scratches".

BTW, if anyone else gets this limited edition DVD too then, please do leave a comment here and let me know which part of the film you managed get. I would be very interested to know! Who knows... Maybe we'll swap! (Just kidding!)

The menu from the movie DVD. Besides the movie itself there's also two trailers and a huge 36 minute interview with Shinkai. Unfortunately, there is no English subtitles for those of you wondering.

Here's the booklet itself. I've only taken out the few pages that I thought would be of interest.

The first page with the movie's tagline:
どれほどの速さで生きれば、きみにまた会えるのか。
"What speed do I have to live at to see you again?"

Followed by the next page with a long introduction about how the movie all started.

For this third commercial title, Shinkai wanted to shrink the world setting further. In his first title "Voices of a Distant Star" there was outer space and in "Beyond the Clouds", there was the country's borderline between states. This time he didn't want a sci-fi setting but an everyday environment.

To start off, he drew up sketches and wrote various draft short stories with different characters and themes. He then picked the ones that would be easy to make into a movie and began production with the storyboarding. What began as something that Shinkai thought would be a quick piece of work, ended up being longer than planned as it became a series of short stories. It was around June 2005 before he began to draw up the plans for the movie. Memories of producing his last work "Beyond the Clouds" were thinning so he felt it was time he tried to make something new.

However he was unsure about how to go about his work until one night he wanders outside to take a break and with an empty stomach, he walked into a convenience store. He can't remember how many times he went there but, he heard Masayoshi Yamasaki's song "One more chance, One more time" which encouraged him, giving him the confirmation he needed about what he wanted in his movie; a sense of something lost yet was never there in the first place.

When he heard the song Shinkai had thought, "Our lives are like the pop song; we grow stronger as our personal experiences build upon one another and we get caught up in this consumer's society but yet, we can certainly feel how beautiful life is. Hearing the song has helped me confirm that."

If you watched the entire three part movie already, you'll know it just so happens there's a scene where Takaki hears the song at a convenience store too...

Another interesting note Shinkai made in the intro was that when the movie premièred in Shibuya, the date was March 3rd 2007. This just happened to be the day before Takaki set out to meet Akari again. What a coincidence.

Here is a summary of the 3 parts of the movie which confirms the dates I came up with in my previous post. It also contains some other details not mentioned in the movie.

If you're interested in a fuller summary, you can visit my first 5cm post.

Oukashou
It was the end of the Winter season in 1995 when Akari and Takaki decided to meet up again during junior high school.

Cosmonaut
The scenes that take place between Takaki and Kanae happen in their third year of senior high in 1999.

5 Centimeters per Second
It's the year 2007 and Takaki is working as a "system engineer" in Tokyo. For years he has been working until late night everyday at his workplace. He breaks up with Risa towards the end of the year who he has been having a relationship with for 3 years. In 2008, Takaki quits his job. He felt there were many reasons why he quit but none of them he could accept himself.

Above is one of the 10 short stories Shinkai drafted up before writing up the plans for the 5cm movie. It's called "Mado no Soto no Sora (The Sky Outside the Window)". You can read a rough translation of the story in a later post. I think there's quite a bit of philosophy in the story.

Below Shinkai sets out to do some location hunting in 2005 between September and October. You can see the same photos in the bonus DVD but here, you can see a direct comparison between the final Anime version and the actual photos. The team took over 5000 photos while shooting at Tanegashima for "Cosmonaut".

Shinkai done the storyboarding using coloured pencils. He used a total of around 300 A4 pages (the bundle of paper you see in the top-left below) and 980 cuts were made to create the final movie. They then scanned in the drawings frame by frame for a rough draft and sound was processed using Soundtrack Pro for the MAC.

Shinkai making corrections as the staff works to produce the movie. They used Adobe Photoshop for the rendering.

Again here the team uses Photoshop as they transform the photos they took.

Here's the bonus DVD case containing the bonus disc that features:

• The storyboard version of the movie.
• Streaming version of "Oukashou" that shown on Yahoo.
• Special edition PV of the song "One more time, One more chance."
• Interviews with the cast.
• A photo slideshow of the production process.

There's also the 11 track OST CD which unfortunately, doesn't contain the vocal version of the theme song but the music's still good. "Sora to Umi no Shi (A Poem of the Skies and Sea" and the "End Theme" would probably be my favourite tracks. The full listing is:

1. Oukashou
2. Memories are Distant Days
3. Uneasiness
4. A Station in the Snow
5. Kiss
6. Kanae's Feelings
7. A Dream
8. A Poem of the Skies and Sea
9. Feelings that won't Reach
10. End Theme
11. One more time, One more Chance (Piano Version)

Never knew that both the composer Tenmon and Shinkai previously worked for one of my favourite Japanese RPG developers, Falcom! No wonder the artwork and the OST is so good!

後ろの絵をスクリーンセーバーとして欲しいなぁ(笑）
I want those pictures in the background as a screensaver!

お疲れ様でした、5ｃｍのみなさん！

A truely great movie even though it may bring back some bitter memories for some. Now I must keep an eye on Shinkai's site and other news sites for the novel's release date.

6/3/2024 Update:

After 17 years Shinkai reveals an unused poster that's just slightly different to the one when Takaki heads off to Tochigi in the very first part of the movie to meet Akari.

Doesn't quite work does it with the young him walking towards grown-up Akari? Especially considering how the story ends.