Although '5 Centimeters per Second' was an excellent work, its inherently melancholic tone and arthouse narrative style meant that under normal circumstances it should have been a niche film—critically praised but not necessarily a box-office hit.
In fact, in Su Yan's previous life, that had indeed been the case.
But when the environment changes, the treatment a work receives also changes.
A blockbuster weight-loss movie from Su Yan's previous life had originally been a purchased script adapted from a Japanese film.
Yet the box-office gap between the two versions was like heaven and earth.
The same script, pushed by different levels of capital and promotion, could generate completely different commercial value.
Another example was Hayao Miyazaki's 'Castle in the Sky'.
When that movie first premiered, its box office had been disappointing.
But after Miyazaki became famous and audiences later revisited it, people realized that even across his long animation career, it was still a classic among classics.
And in the Xia Nation, '5 Centimeters per Second' was in a similar situation.
Its script was extremely literary.
If it had been created by an unknown director and screenwriter, it would most likely have ended up like the version from Su Yan's previous life—
Critically acclaimed but commercially weak.
But now the situation was different.
The screenwriter was Su Yan, and there was massive promotional funding behind it.
Everything changed.
Niche?
Could Su Yan's works even be considered niche?
He naturally had a fanbase in the millions, even tens of millions.
As for the depressing tone, that wasn't a problem either.
Audiences in the Xia Nation might curse the creator after watching a sad work, but that didn't mean they refused to watch such works.
As long as the creator had a good reputation and wasn't deliberately torturing the audience with meaningless suffering, most moviegoers would simply buy a ticket—
Then walk out of the theater and join the crowd scolding the creator.
Su Yan was clearly in exactly that situation.
The reputation of '5 Centimeters per Second' was excellent.
And fans cursing him could actually be viewed from another angle—
They were helping promote the film.
On top of that, the movie had already won the daily box office crown on its second day.
The situation completely changed.
By Sunday, the third day of release, the screening share of '5 Centimeters per Second' across the Xia Nation had surged to 30%.
The film market was fundamentally capital-driven.
The reputation of big directors, famous actors, and powerful production companies only mattered before a film's release.
But after release—
Between face and money, there was no debate.
The market decides the screenings.
If audiences liked '5 Centimeters per Second', theaters would simply schedule more showings for it.
Of course, if one film's screenings increased, others would inevitably decrease.
The first to suffer was 'Windmill'.
Its screening share dropped from 22% directly to 17%.
Other films released during the same period also experienced varying degrees of decline.
Although Su Yan had never publicly criticized his competitors online, the mere change in screening ratios was enough to make many of his peers hate him.
For films like 'Windmill'—big directors, massive investments, star-studded casts—
Receiving the highest screening share, the most attention, and the largest box office felt natural to everyone.
But '5 Centimeters per Second'?
What kind of nonsense was this?
A 24-year-old young man acting as both screenwriter and investor.
A movie made while he was simultaneously busy filming television dramas—
Yet it earned 83 million on the first day and 130 million on the second day.
Immediately, many jealous figures in the film industry emerged.
On Sunday, a wave of criticism against '5 Centimeters per Second' suddenly appeared.
A large number of Xia Nation film critics began attacking the movie.
📰Pretentious and empty storytelling! I have no idea what '5 Centimeters per Second' is even trying to say.
📰I've sinned—I wasted my precious time watching a completely meaningless film. The high box office of '5 Centimeters per Second' proves that the aesthetic standards of Xia Nation audiences are declining rapidly.
📰A vulgar film paired with vulgar fans. The fact that '5 Centimeters per Second' surpassed 'Windmill' at the box office represents the tragedy of the Xia Nation film industry.
📰A whining and worthless movie. Not a single second of '5 Centimeters per Second' isn't terrible.
📰A story that exists purely to torture the audience. It promotes the idea that love is meaningless. The values of '5 Centimeters per Second' are fundamentally broken.
📰Good films fade into obscurity while trash dominates the market. '5 Centimeters per Second' becoming the daily box office champion is a tragedy for the Xia Nation film industry.
From daytime onward, negative commentary about the film spread throughout the market.
Some of it came from people who were simply jealous of the film's success.
After all, many screenwriters and directors spent their entire careers without producing a single movie that grossed over 100 million.
Meanwhile, Su Yan's new film was already dominating 'Windmill' in the summer season and surpassing 100 million in daily box office.
Naturally, many people were unhappy.
The other source of criticism came from paid critics hired by competing films, such as 'Windmill' and 'Black Mist'.
However, these attacks had little impact on the film's performance on Sunday.
That day, '5 Centimeters per Second' earned 153 million yuan in a single day.
With 30% of screenings, it captured 38% of the total market box office.
Meanwhile:
'Black Mist' earned 61 million yuan that day.
'Windmill' dropped to 91 million yuan.
The movie market worked like this.
Most viewers only had time to watch one film, so they naturally chose the one that was most popular and most talked about.
If '5 Centimeters per Second' hadn't existed, 'Windmill' would not have lost its screenings on Sunday.
Its daily box office likely would have easily exceeded 120 million.
But because it lost the competition during the same release window—
Everything changed.
Although Su Yan had no personal hostility toward these competing production companies, conflicts between people often arose in exactly this way.
After its first weekend, '5 Centimeters per Second' accumulated a three-day total of 360 million yuan.
This result truly shocked the entire film industry.
To be honest, most people did not welcome the film's explosive success.
But Su Yan didn't care about their opinions.
Would the three major television stations have welcomed his rise?
Even Zhongxia TV, when Su Yan chose to cooperate with Sakura TV, had probably secretly hoped the ratings would flop.
If Su Yan was going to rise, then someone else in the industry would inevitably lose benefits.
And this was only his second movie.
Sooner or later, the countless film companies in the Xia Nation would get used to it.
Starting Monday, Su Yan resumed a series of post-release promotional activities for '5 Centimeters per Second'.
Previously, the promotion had been pre-release marketing.
Now it was a post-release promotion.
In the Xia Nation version of the film, Su Yan had included several scenes from the original novel to meet the runtime requirement.
He also slightly expanded Akari's storyline.
However, many details remained vague.
So during promotional events, Su Yan deliberately talked about these elements, using interviews to expand the film's lore and background.
When journalists asked him why he had insisted before release that the movie wasn't depressing, even though the final film clearly felt that way—
Su Yan revealed a bright smile.
"Imagine a boy who spent years trapped in the shadow of a past relationship. One day, he finally lets go and reconciles with his past. So he smiles, turns away, and walks toward a new life. Can you really call that depressing?"
Su Yan's answer left the reporters speechless.
It also left his fans silent.
Because, although his explanation made sense—
His smile looked completely like he was enjoying their suffering.
Of course, in the Xia Nation version of '5 Centimeters per Second', Su Yan also borrowed many interpretations from his previous life.
Some of these ideas were not created by Makoto Shinkai, but were fan interpretations that later became popular.
For example, there was a famous interpretation regarding the title '5 Centimeters per Second'.
If you multiply "5 centimeters per second" by the number of seconds between the moment the two protagonists separated in middle school and the time they met again at the railway crossing, the result is exactly the distance between the Earth's North and South Poles.
The meaning was clear:
Two people who once loved each other, after more than a decade of separation, would gradually drift farther and farther apart—
Until the distance between their hearts became the greatest distance in the world.
Like one person standing at the South Pole and the other at the North Pole.
Love, when separated by enough time and space, would eventually fade until nothing remained.
In the original film from Su Yan's previous life, however, the exact time gap was never specified.
That interpretation had only been created by fans.
But in the Xia Nation version of '5 Centimeters per Second', Su Yan explicitly provided the timeline during production.
And after noticing that no one in the Xia Nation had discovered this detail even days after release—
He personally revealed it during a press conference.
The result?
Millions of viewers who had watched the movie fell into collective silence.
[So Su Yan… you really hid such an insanely detailed setting in this film?!]
5 centimeters per second is an extremely slow speed.
In the movie, it represents the speed at which cherry blossoms fall.
But in reality, if a cherry blossom petal truly fell at 5 cm per second, then from the top of a tree to the ground, the petal would take over a minute to land.
But what if that speed represented the distance between two lovers' hearts slowly drifting apart?