I recently finished watching Byousoku 5 Centimeter (5 Centimeters per Second) which turned out to be another insanely gorgeous and sonically lush release by Shinkai Makoto, king of the slow-paced, meticulously-animated, and nostalgia-laced anime.
Shinkai became known to me when his first piece, Voices of a Distant Star arrived from Netflix. This half hour OAV was created entirely on his Mac with character voices provided by himself and his fiancée.
His followup work, The Place Promised in Our Early Days was a 90 minute masterpiece. No sophomore slump here.
His latest release, 5 Centimeters per Second, is actually a series of 3 shorts that total about an hour running time. A little controversial because chapter 3 is much shorter than the preceding two and the ending is a bit... unusual.
While I absolutely love his work, as usual, it may not be for everyone. The stories in these 3 titles tend to make my heart ache, especially in Voices and 5 Centimeters. But that's mitigated, for me at least, by the spectacularly beautiful artwork and animation that's become his signature style. Many of the scenes in The Place Promised and 5 Centimeters had me slack-jawed. Aurally it's wonderfully detailed as well so it's really a complete package. This guy does great stuff.
Anyhoo, I'll definitely be picking these up on DVD. ADV Films has released the first two and apparently will be releasing the third as well. Well worth it.
