Mirage received 23% of opening-day screenings.
Midsummer Wind received 19%.
Sprint Hand opened with 14%.
And Five Centimeters per Second secured 15%.
Those four films alone already occupied 71% of all theater slots. The other five films premiering during the same period would have to divide the remaining 29% among themselves.
The film market was far more direct, and far more ruthless, than television or TV anime. If a movie wanted to explode and aim for a high box-office ceiling, the quality of the work still mattered most. But without capital behind it, without a strong promotional campaign, its floor could sink to an almost absurd level.
Sora sat in his office, looking over the data on the screen. A quiet gravity settled over his face.
In the end, he had to admit it. His name already carried weight in the anime industry, but at least within the film circuit, his influence still was not enough.
Otherwise, even after spending a considerable amount on promotion for Five Centimeters per Second, the final result would not have remained merely acceptable. It was not bad, but it was far from ideal.
"Fifteen percent of screenings, huh…"
A faint smile touched the corner of Sora's lips.
"What could be done has already been done. Now, the rest is up to the market."
That night, Rina Tachibana went to bed early, shortly after ten.
She set her alarm for eight-thirty in the morning and fell asleep without delay.
The moment the alarm rang the next day, Rina got up immediately. She washed up, did her makeup with care, changed into her favorite Rem maid cosplay, and finally put on the blue wig.
Looking into the mirror, she saw a girl with fair skin, delicate features, and a figure striking enough to draw attention without effort.
Rina smiled, satisfied.
She was a well-known cosplayer in Tokushima's event circuit, as well as a NatsuYume video creator with more than four hundred thousand followers. Her everyday work was easy to describe, though not nearly as easy to maintain: attending conventions, filming content, appearing at events, and turning all of it into videos that felt light, spontaneous, and fun.
Naturally, watching the newest film by Sora, one of the most talked-about names in Japanese animation at the moment, and posting a first-wave review before almost anyone else was practically mandatory.
Besides, she herself was looking forward to Five Centimeters per Second. After all, she was also a passionate fan of the Re:Zero anime.
After leaving home, Rina met up near the theater with another cosplayer from the scene, Shiori Kisaragi, who was dressed as Emilia that day.
To be honest, two pretty girls walking into a movie theater in full cosplay attracted quite a few eyes.
But this was Tokushima.
Even though it was a city in Shikoku, the local anime fan scene was strong, warm, and far more used to this kind of sight than outsiders might imagine.
So when the two of them entered the theater, almost no one found it strange. On the contrary, there were other fans dressed as Re:Zero characters scattered around the lobby. Besides the two of them, at least four or five people were in cosplay.
They simply were not as pretty.
The theater was filled with three-dimensional posters and promotional displays for various works. The entire lobby felt packed with people. At a glance, there were at least two hundred people waiting for their respective screening rooms to open.
"There are so many people…"
Although Shiori was cosplaying Emilia, her almost nonexistent chest was an obvious weakness in the costume. Even so, she sounded more curious than bothered.
"Of course there are." Rina lifted her phone and began recording as she spoke. "Mirage has Akira Kiyohara in the lead cast, and he hasn't acted in a new film for two years. Midsummer Wind and Sprint Hand both have popular idols and trending actors in them too. On opening day, fans will definitely show up in force."
All of it was material. When she went home and edited her impressions video for Five Centimeters per Second, these shots would come in handy.
"Anime films really suffer in that area, don't they?" Shiori toyed with the edge of her silver-white wig, sounding a little unconvinced. "Unlike live-action films, they at least have big-name actors bringing in the first wave of traffic."
"Hmph. I don't even like those live-action films that much." Rina gave a soft snort. "And fine, Kantoku Sora has never made an anime film before, but after Five Centimeters per Second, things will be different. If the story and production quality are really that high, and if it blows up during the summer season, then the next time he makes an animated feature, his own name will be the selling point. Movie fans in Japan will recognize his new work."
While waiting for admission to begin, Rina and Shiori chatted casually.
At ten-thirty in the morning, the two of them were already lined up in front of the screening room.
Although it was still early, there were not few people there. At least for Rina's screening, more than sixty or seventy people entered.
The seats they had bought were deliberately tucked away near the back. It was a precaution. They might record a few nonessential shots during the screening or exchange quiet comments. Bothering other people would be terrible.
The dark, silent screening room gradually calmed Rina's excitement.
The first few minutes were taken up by theater advertisements and trailers for films currently in release. Among them was also the trailer for Five Centimeters per Second.
When the scheduled time arrived, the theater suddenly sank into darkness.
The central screen lit up.
The scene from the trailer appeared: a boy and a girl running down a slope.
"Hey… they say it's five centimeters per second."
"What is?"
The heroine Akari's classic line echoed through the room.
"The speed at which cherry blossom petals fall. Five centimeters per second."
The girl ran down the slope, stopped on one side of the railroad crossing, and smiled shyly at the boy standing on the other side.
Pink petals drifted down like rain.
That image, beautiful as a painting, seemed to engrave itself into the hearts of everyone in the theater.
"It would be nice if we could see the cherry blossoms together again next year."
The promise to see the blossoms together the following year sounded almost like a flag raised before tragedy.
Soon, the image changed.
Three large words appeared on the screen.
Beneath the Cherry Trees.
In the version that existed in Sora's memory from his previous life, Five Centimeters per Second was divided into three parts: Cherry Blossom Extract, Cosmonaut, and Five Centimeters per Second.
The latter two titles were easy to understand. The first, however, carried a nuance specific to Japanese, something close to a short emotional record, a small story tied to cherry blossoms. When structuring his own film version, Sora chose to make the meaning more direct and poetic for the current audience.
The image shifted again, and a young, gentle female voice began to narrate.
"To Yūya.
It's been a long time since we last spoke."
The film opened with a wide shot. A blue sky, the cry of summer cicadas, soft white clouds, boys playing soccer on the school field.
The girl's voice drifted slowly over the images.
Just from seeing the boy open a letter, revealing a glimpse of the paper whose words matched the narration, Rina and Shiori understood that the voice belonged to a girl writing to a boy named Yūya.
The background music began to rise softly.
It was gentle, faintly sorrowful, delicate. Without forcing anything, it already guided the audience's hearts into the story.
"Summer here is hot too, but it's more comfortable than Tokushima. Still, now that I think about it, I guess I liked the summers there as well."
The composition subtly made it clear that Yūya was in the Tokushima region, while the heroine was writing from some distant small town.
And through fleeting details in the scenery, such as the date on a street sign and old objects passing through the frame, the film informed the audience that the story was set roughly thirty years earlier.
At that time, Japan was not yet the hyperconnected country it was now. Household technology was different. Large, expensive portable phones existed, and phone booths could still be found in visible spots on the streets, but for two junior high students separated by hundreds of kilometers, the best means of communication remained the oldest one: letters.
"The last time we saw each other was at the closing ceremony of our first year of junior high."
Sora had adjusted the time of the protagonists' separation. Instead of making them elementary school children, he placed their relationship in the first year of junior high. Two very young children experiencing something close to romance would have felt too exaggerated. With junior high students, however, that delicate affection felt natural, fragile, and painfully believable.
"Hey, Yūya… do you still remember me?"
The first two minutes of the film were carried by the girl's written confession. Through the letter, she described her life after transferring, the distance between them, and her fear that, separated like this, even their friendship might not remain intact. The voice actress's performance carried enough feeling to deliver all of it to the audience without turning the scene into melodrama.
"It feels… kind of sad, doesn't it?" Shiori whispered.
"It starts with a long-distance relationship right away."
"Just because it's long-distance, it's sad?" Rina replied softly.
"It was different back then. Now you can be a thousand kilometers apart and still message each other, video call, talk every day. Back then, even a hundred kilometers could mean not seeing someone for months."
Rina fell silent for a moment. Looking at the screen, at those backgrounds drawn with almost unreasonable beauty, she felt a quiet melancholy rise in her chest.
The story continued, mostly carried by the narration of the girl's letters.
The boy simply read them in silence.
In Sora's previous life, Makoto Shinkai's animations were famous for treating backgrounds like jewels and characters as something less polished. The scenery could be breathtaking, but the character designs were not always equally refined. In the Japanese version produced by Yume Animation, that weakness had been corrected.
At the very least, when Rina looked at Yūya on the screen, she had to admit it. He was handsome. A boy with clean, delicate features, carrying the kind of youth that seemed too quiet to forget.
The two continued exchanging letters for more than half a year.
Then, one day, Yūya finally made a decision. He would take a train and travel hundreds of kilometers to the city where Akari lived, just to see her once more.
From that point on, the narration was no longer Akari's letters being read aloud. It became Yūya's own memories.
The images showed the past they had shared.
"In the first year after I transferred to Tokushima for junior high, Akari transferred there too. Since we had gone through the same experience, we naturally became close friends."
The youthful affection between the boy and the girl was shy, almost transparent. They shared subjects, interests, values, and that innocent feeling that they might continue together through junior high, then high school, then perhaps even the same university.
But Akari's parents were transferred because of work, and she had to move to a distant northern city.
The promise that they would attend junior high and high school together was broken just like that, without either of them having the power to stop it.
That night, after learning about the move, Akari only managed to call Yūya's house from a phone booth.
The girl's voice was full of guilt, broken by sobs. The heavy, muffled atmosphere of the call came through the screen and made every heart in the theater sink.
From that moment on, the two of them would be separated by hundreds of kilometers. They would no longer be able to go to the library together to research ancient creatures.
They would no longer be able to investigate extraterrestrials.
They would no longer be able to…
See the cherry blossoms together.
And Yūya, who should have comforted Akari at that moment, a girl of only thirteen, was also too shaken to find the right words.
So he ended up saying something cruel.
"I understand. Don't say any more."
He could not comfort her. On the contrary, he was falling apart inside too, and his voice came out much harsher than usual.
Rina and Shiori held their milk teas, but their eyes had already grown serious.
The story felt too real.
And that was exactly why it hurt.
Makoto Shinkai's works often did not have complicated plots at their core. But turning something as ordinary as a school transfer into something capable of touching and suffocating the viewer was a rare kind of talent.
On the screen, Akari cried, trying to breathe between sobs. Yūya held his head, his fingers tightening around the phone. And at the end of that call, both of them remained with their heads lowered in silence for ten seconds, neither able to gather the courage to say even one more word.
With that sequence, everyone in the theater understood.
Akari to Yūya, and Yūya to Akari.
Deep down, they cared far too much about each other.
And precisely because of that, Akari's transfer had opened such a deep wound in both of them.
The next scene showed Yūya taking the train to the city where Akari lived, chasing that reunion.
Because of the era and the circumstances around them, the two were only junior high students. They could not communicate by phone with the same ease they once had when they lived in the same region. In Akari's town, there was not even a phone booth nearby.
Those adaptation details were not explained directly. They appeared in one or two shots, discreetly, for those paying attention.
The two could only agree by letter on the day, the month, the time the train would arrive, and the exact place they would meet.
A journey of several hundred kilometers on old trains required practically a full day and night.
On this point, Sora had been strict. The structure of the trip followed old Japanese railway schedules with careful adjustments for the logic of that period.
Dark clouds covered the sky.
Inside the train, the lonely boy wore a heavy expression.
The instant snow began to fall in the animation, the unease conveyed through the composition reached its peak.
This meeting… was not going to go wrong, was it?
And, as if obeying the audience's worst premonition, the problem appeared.
The train that should have arrived at seven in the evening was caught in a snowstorm at five in the afternoon.
When the promised time arrived, at seven, the train was still stopped halfway, waiting for the weather to improve.
Yūya sat restlessly in the carriage.
Time passed little by little.
The music grew more and more suffocating.
"I missed the promised time. Akari must be very worried by now."
Sitting in his seat, Yūya lowered his head.
A short while earlier, the letter he had written with his own hands to give to Akari had disappeared. During an intermediate stop, he had stepped down for a moment to get some air, and a gust of wind had ripped the paper away from him, carrying it into the distance before he could react.
Rina already felt her chest tighten.
How cruel.
And because she was so completely immersed, she could not stop thinking about Akari's side.
In that era, without efficient means of communication, what would the girl think when the promised time came and he did not appear?
If she merely thought he was a boy without integrity, someone who had left her waiting alone, that would still be less painful.
But what if she thought a little further?
What if she concluded that he hated her? That he had promised to come only to give up at the last moment?
That would be the cruelest blow to Akari's heart.
"When I imagined Akari through her letters, for some reason, she always seemed to be alone."
Yūya's narration sounded again.
On the screen, it was already nine at night.
The train had been stopped in the snow for two full hours. To him, even a single minute felt unbearably long.
His inner voice began to tremble.
Then came the most sincere wish he could have in that moment.
"Akari… I hope you've already gone home."
The roads were blocked by snow. The temperature had dropped below freezing.
Imagining Akari waiting for him in that station, in that cold, was almost unbearable.
With just that one line, Rina nearly cried.
"I kind of want to cry…"
Beside her, Shiori leaned closer, her voice lower now, weighed down by emotion.
"I feel so bad for the protagonist. I can't even imagine what it was like to be a couple in an era without cell phones. If something went wrong between them, how were they supposed to fix it?"
"And wasn't everyone online saying this movie was supposed to be cheerful?"
"The story is still unfolding. Why are you panicking already?" Rina replied, trying to sound calm.
But inside, she was already beginning to hold a small grudge against that young animation Kantoku.
Couldn't you have started with sweetness?
Did you really have to make us suffer first?
In the animation, it was already two in the morning.
After being delayed for seven hours, Yūya's train finally arrived at its destination.
His expression was far too calm, as if he no longer expected anything from what came next.
He, and probably everyone in the theater, believed that a junior high girl would never still be waiting at that hour, in a freezing station, in the middle of a snowstorm.
From Akari's point of view, he was probably nothing more than a coward. Someone who had run away, who had failed to arrive at the promised time, who had left her waiting without explanation.
His journey would end in vain.
But when he left the platform and entered the empty, cold waiting room, almost devoid of passengers, many people in the theater unconsciously held their breath.
Rina's fingers tightened without her noticing.
At the center of the waiting room sat a girl in silence, her head lowered. Beautiful, neat, fragile. Her small body remained perfectly still.
That single shot alone made everyone want to protect her.
At that moment, Rina, Shiori, and many of the viewers in the theater felt something warm rise in their chests.
This had to be real love.
She had truly waited for him there all that time.
From the depths of their hearts, everyone began to hope that these two would have a good ending.
Akari's expression when she saw Yūya, the joy that bloomed despite her exhaustion, the shy conversation between them in that cold waiting room, their departure from the station.
Yūya and Akari spent the night talking beneath the snow.
In the middle of the white storm, under a bare cherry tree, the two kissed and confirmed the feelings they had carried all along.
It was too sweet.
Yes.
This was exactly the flavor.
Rina felt the same sweetness she had experienced when watching Rem confess to Subaru in Re:Zero.
Her eyes were full of longing now, completely taken by the desire to believe in the love between the two protagonists.
In their imagination, the cherry tree bloomed in the middle of winter, covered in impossible petals amid the snow. That breathtaking scenery engraved itself into everyone's heart.
"This is what animation should be…"
"This is what love should be."
At that moment, Rina was completely immersed in the story.
The next morning, Yūya took the train back to Tokushima.
The scenes were as beautiful as paintings.
The plot was simple, but the delicate and profound emotion slowly wrapped itself around the hearts of the viewers like strands of silk, passing through the framing, the words, and the visual metaphors.
And without realizing it, many of them began to believe the same thing.
These two would surely have the best ending possible.
Two people who loved each other like that would never let their feelings decay.
In the final scene of the segment, after watching the train depart, Akari took a letter from inside her coat.
On the recipient line, written clearly, was Yūya's name.
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