Catalyst Castle

This outstanding anime from Makoto Shinkai (the creator of Voices of a Distant Star and The Place Promised in Our Early Days), 5 Centimeters per Second uses thoughtful narration, beautiful artwork, and a complimentary musical score to tell a touching story of adolescent frustration. Through 3 separate acts, this short film tells a story about a boy named Takaki who is separated from his childhood sweetheart when her family moves away from Tokyo, and how he struggles to cope with that heartbreak on into young-adulthood. The film tells the story in a way that is very true to real life adolescence, and conveys self-defining moments in a way that gave me pause for reflection.

What I think makes this movie really special is how true-to-life it is. It isn’t as if the writer sat down to write a romantic tragedy and said: “Let’s come up with the most tragic set of circumstances we can.” No, instead the scenarios are just everyday scenarios that millions of people have experienced. The person you love moves away and there’s nothing you can do about it. The person you love is in love with someone else. Who hasn’t been in a situation like one of those? Because of this, you can really feel the characters' heartbreaks with them.

I think as adults it might be easy to dismiss the frustrated relationships of these characters as foolish, but you have to remember that to the adolescents involved, the situations are very real and immanent. I hope that adults who watch this film will be reminded of their own adolescent heartbreaks and be able to connect with a younger generation.

I think it’s interesting how the story ends. Without giving too much away, it says a lot about the value of letting go.

Roleplaying
Because of my obsession with roleplaying games, I tend to watch most movies and shows with an eye for what I could take from it and apply to gaming. Here are some ideas from 5 Centimeters per Second.

3 Act Narrativism: This anime is told in 3 distinct acts which each take a leap forward in time, and each move the narrative forward significantly. I think it would be interesting in a Narrativist game to play a story out in 3 separate acts this way, with a definite beginning, middle, and end. I’m not sure how well that would work, but it’s an idea I’ve thought about working into one of my games-in-design: Breaking the Limit.

First Person Narration: A lot of this story is told beautifully through first person narration. It might be interesting to play a roleplaying game in which the players actively narrate events as their characters perceive them. I wonder what that would be like?