The first screenings of the summer films only began around ten-thirty in the morning.
That meant Japanese moviegoers did not really start flooding into NatsuYume - the professional forum and rating site recognized by anime fans, film fans, and otaku circles across the country - until around half past noon, when the earliest viewers finally walked out of theaters and began leaving comments.
The promotional armies hired by Mirage, Midsummer Wind, and Sprinter quickly went into motion. The loyal fans of the actors also joined in, praising their favorite films from every possible angle. But no matter how many celebrity fans there were, ordinary viewers who had actually paid for a ticket were not going to indulge anyone.
If a work was good, they said it was good.
If it was bad, they said that too.
Looking at the comment sections of the three films, the overall response was already clear.
Mirage, the film with the largest investment of the summer season, was considered decent in terms of story and excellent in terms of visual effects.
As for Midsummer Wind and Sprinter, the audience was much less forgiving. They had no effects worth mentioning, and their stories were a mess. To many people, they were nothing more than fan-service projects built purely around traffic and star power.
The only comment section that truly exploded among the four major releases that day belonged to 5 Centimeters per Second.
Some people were cursing Sora.
But far more people had been emotionally crushed by the film itself, and the comment section had turned into a place where viewers poured out old wounds they had kept buried for years.
"What the hell was that, Kantoku Sora? I went to the theater first thing in the morning to support you, and this is how you treat your fans?"
"I waited more than an hour just to see that train pass by? Why did Akari leave in the end? Why did she really leave without even looking back?"
"Guys, I feel awful. I cried for several minutes in the theater after it ended, and when I got home, I still couldn't take it. It made me think of my first girlfriend."
"Same here. My first love and I broke up because of long distance too. Watching this movie made me sob in the theater."
"I can't. After watching this, I've lost faith in love all over again. If even Akari and Takaki's relationship could end without a proper conclusion, then my boyfriend and I, who are also long-distance right now, are probably doomed sooner or later."
"I genuinely don't understand why Kantoku Sora had to design the ending like that. Couldn't the train have passed, and Akari still be standing on the other side of the tracks waiting for Takaki? Why did they have to become strangers?"
"That kind of ending would just be a fairy tale. I wanted the same thing while I was sitting in the theater, but after walking out, I realized that if Akari had really stayed there waiting for Takaki, that would have been the most clichéd ending possible. Reality doesn't work like that."
"But I watch movies precisely to see stories that don't exist in reality. A movie is supposed to be a place where we can escape."
"I don't get it either. I thought it would be like Re:Zero - painful in the beginning and middle, then sweet at the end. I never expected it to be painful in the beginning, painful in the middle, and absolutely devastating at the end. I haven't felt right since I finished watching it."
"Kantoku Sora must have been hurt badly by some woman to create a movie like this, right?"
"Unfortunately, judging from Kantoku Sora's life so far, he probably has never even dated anyone. He was in high school before eighteen, and after turning eighteen, he spent three years making four films. Where would he even find time for romance?"
"Then how did he create something like this?"
"Some emotions don't have to be personally experienced. If you read enough, see enough people, and understand enough lives, you can still create something like this. It's just that this time, that old thief Sora wrote something far too piercing."
"Looking at the title 5 Centimeters per Second now… the speed at which cherry blossoms fall, the promise made by two children beneath the sakura, and when that promise finally finds its answer, thirteen years have already passed. By then, it has become the last time they will ever meet in this life."
"In the first part of the animation, Akari and Takaki watch the snow fall beneath the cherry tree. If only time had stopped there."
"On the surface, Kantoku Sora's film is portraying Akari and Takaki's lives. But watching it felt like looking into a mirror. Someone you once loved but could never reach - after growing up, you may not even remember what she looks like anymore. Yet once in a while, when you think of her, your heart still hurts."
"I miss my first love."
"Guys, after watching this movie, my girlfriend told me she was sorry. She said she wants to break up with me and go find her first boyfriend. What am I supposed to do? Should I give this movie a bad review?"
"…"
"…"
"My condolences."
"Is this movie really that touching? Everyone's saying they cried. Are you sure this isn't paid promotion?"
"Go watch it and you'll know. I thought the online comments were exaggerating too. Then I went to the noon screening, and now I'm still crying in the theater bathroom while scrolling on my phone for comfort."
"That's way too dramatic."
"Don't believe them, everyone. The ending is obviously very sweet. The people saying it's depressing are all haters trying to smear Kantoku Sora. Don't be afraid. Go to the theater with confidence. 5 Centimeters per Second is definitely not soul-crushing."
At a glance, the comment section for 5 Centimeters per Second was a chaotic mess of grief, jokes, accusations, emotional breakdowns, and desperate self-comfort.
Yet there was one strange thing.
It was very hard to find actual bad reviews of the film itself.
Even though plenty of people were cursing Sora, almost none of them were willing to say that 5 Centimeters per Second was a bad movie.
When the three competing sides saw this situation, they immediately felt a little uneasy.
The ratings for the four films had not been released yet, but in terms of discussion threads and overall topic heat, 5 Centimeters per Second had already surpassed all three of them by a visible margin.
On NatsuYume's trending search ranking, the first, third, and fifth entries were all related to 5 Centimeters per Second.
That was dangerous.
Sora casually glanced through the comments under his own account, his expression turning rather complicated.
He had already expected that after 5 Centimeters per Second was released, he would definitely be fiercely criticized by fans. But he had not expected more than a hundred thousand comments to flood directly into his account, all roasting him in every possible way.
"This feels… not very good," Sumire said, her expression grave as anxiety began to creep back into her chest.
"With this kind of fan response, everyone is scolding you, Kantoku. If this continues, won't theaters lower our screening count tomorrow because of it?"
Sumire had never worked in the film industry and did not understand all the details behind theater scheduling. But her anxiety had already started acting up again, leaving her restless and irritable.
"What's wrong with this public response?" Sora asked with a smile as he looked at her.
"Online, or among film media and anime industry media, has anyone said that this movie is bad?"
"Aren't you worried these comments will affect ordinary viewers at all, Kantoku Sora? If a film wants a good box office result, the support of casual moviegoers is the most important thing." Sumire hesitated, still unable to fully relax.
"When Re:Zero was airing, I was cursed every day by millions of anime fans. Did you ever see its ratings drop in any obvious way?" Sora said.
In his previous life, the label attached to 5 Centimeters per Second among anime fans was that its screenwriter, Shinkai Makoto, had taken revenge on society, and only someone with something wrong in his head would arrange the story that way.
But in truth, the resentment of fans was aimed at the creator, not the work.
"Maybe after this movie is released, my personal reputation and public image will drop sharply." Sora looked at Sumire. "But the box office and rating of 5 Centimeters per Second will move in a completely different direction from my own reputation."
Compared with the world of his previous life, Japan's internet industry in this world was still developing a little more slowly.
Video websites already existed, but movie tickets were still mainly sold through physical outlets. Online ticketing had not yet become mainstream.
Because of that, the box office of a film could not be displayed in real time through the internet like in his previous life.
Whether it was Sora, or the producers and distributors behind Mirage, Midsummer Wind, and Sprinter, everyone remained in the dark about the first-day box office performance of each film.
The first-day results would only be counted and released around five or six in the morning the next day.
However, at midnight, NatsuYume's rating system updated first.
Mirage: 8.4.
Midsummer Wind: 8.8.
Sprinter: 8.9.
And 5 Centimeters per Second -
First-day audience rating: 9.3.
A first-day rating above nine.
Wasn't that a little too exaggerated?
This time, a large number of people in the Japanese film industry were genuinely shocked. In the domestic film market, a movie that could break nine on its first day was rare enough that sometimes not even one appeared in an entire year.
What exactly gave this animated film the right to lead such a fiercely competitive summer season in ratings?
Was its quality really that high?
Compared with TV anime, dramas, and other works, film ratings were much harsher.
After all, viewers had paid real money. When judging a movie, they naturally examined it with a far more critical eye.
By the early hours of the morning, the sales data from major theater chains across Japan was finally compiled.
The first-day box office results for Mirage, Midsummer Wind, and Sprinter were 78 million yen, 53 million yen, and 45 million yen respectively.
As for 5 Centimeters per Second, its first-day box office was 47 million yen.
Because too many films had opened at the same time, the audience had been split heavily. As a result, not even one film managed to break 100 million yen on its first day.
Although the nationwide single-day total box office had risen by ten percent compared with the first day of last year's summer season and exceeded 300 million yen, the highest-grossing film on the first day last year had made 120 million yen.
From that point alone, the investors behind Mirage had no reason to be happy with their first-day result.
They had poured nearly 3.5 billion yen into production and promotion combined. With a break-even line of roughly one billion yen at the box office, a first-day result of just over seventy million yen was obviously not enough to satisfy their appetite.
After all, who invested in movies just to break even?
Everyone was there to make serious money.
And on the second day of the summer season, the viewers who had entered theaters on the first day began voluntarily promoting 5 Centimeters per Second online with almost frightening intensity.
After the soul-crushing story, what 5 Centimeters per Second brought its audience was not only sadness, but also a kind of inner cleansing and a long, lingering reflection.
"Strongest film of the summer season."
"A masterpiece."
"No need to think about it. I killed myself yesterday and today watching all four films. All I can say is that 5 Centimeters per Second is on a level far above the other three."
"If you don't reject animated films, you absolutely have to watch 5 Centimeters per Second. It is unquestionably one of the greatest films of the year."
"But didn't I hear this movie is really tragic? I don't like tragedies."
"This movie isn't a tragedy. It's just telling a story about life. Watching it may hurt for an entire day, but not watching it will be a regret for the rest of your life."
"I watched it once yesterday morning, went home and lay in bed for five hours, then went back for a second viewing that night. I'm preparing for my third viewing this morning. Guys, I still haven't escaped that train. What do I do?"
"I want to blow up that train so badly. Damn it. Why was that train so long? If it had been just a little shorter, wouldn't Takaki and Akari have been able to meet? Wouldn't they have had one more chance to hold hands?"
"There was no chance. Akari had a ring on the ring finger of her left hand. She's already married. Give up."
"So what if she's married? Married people can get divorced. As long as she doesn't truly love her husband, nothing is impossible."
"Brother, that way of thinking is very dangerous."
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