Impressions: Byousoku 5cm
Goddamn, that was some beautiful artwork. The first part of Makoto Shinkai’s new movie Byousoku 5cm was released today online and has quickly shown up as a torrent on the usual sites. Being in Japanese, I had no idea what the story was. Something about childhood friends meeting again after a long time. The usual romantic fluff. Still, the artwork is absolutely gorgeous. All the usual staples of Shinkai’s work are there: soaring skies, subway trains (I swear the guys a train otaku), sunrises/sunsets, rain/snow, etc. Probably the most realistic animation I’ve ever seen. I could kind of notice the CG in some parts, but it was no big deal. The only problem is that the character designs, while not exactly ugly, are boring as hell. This is the most generic anime couple ever. The boy’s a crybaby too, which doesn’t help when around twenty minutes of the story are about him moping on the subway. Seriously, can’t we get some people from Minori to make characters for Shinkai? He does all their game openings anyways. So there are some problems with the work, but the beautiful backgrounds more than make up for it. It’s not like you watch a Shinkai work for the story. Can’t wait till the full movie comes out. Too bad I’ll have to wait until a DVD rip is out to watch it. What I would give to see this on the big screen…
Look at how beautifully rendered this big mac meal is!
