To be honest...again, I take a lot of cues for what to Anime to watch from Max. And this was another one of those "Oooooh Max seemed to like this a lot, so I should take a look at it." The other thing that made me want to watch it more was that Max had trouble watching the whole thing straight, so I knew something was gonna be intense.

Byousoku 5 Centimeter, a very VERY tragic love story, divided into 3 "episodes", it basically follows the life of Tohno, the protagonist. The thing is, there is soo much emotion and soo much that can be said about the movie...I don't want to spoil any thing really important.

Episode I follows Tohno 6 months after he and Akari had to split apart, and how Tohno has been dealing with it. The two begin writing letters back and forth, and decide to meet again. At the climax of their reuniting, that itself could've been the end of it, it was a very warm moment, a happy ending to their story. But obviously, things couldn't stay that way forever, and they're split apart again, this time, maybe forever.

Episode II jumps about 6 years later, in Tohno's Senior year of High School. He's moved to a new place, further away from Akari. Actually, this story is told from the point of view of someone who has a crush on him, but its still about Tohno in the end. Well obviously, he still isn't over a certain someone, but its definitely not obvious to anyone because he's such a nice guy to everyone else.

At the end of this Episode, I really contemplated stopping, even with one more episode to go. The emotions that were being expressed by Tohno and the person who had a crush on him really stacked heavy on top of the tragic separation at the end of Episode I. But alas, I pressed onward to the final Episode.

Episode III jumps away ahead and is basically a montage of the past events in Tohno and Akari's lives. Its really better than I make it sound, but if I said anymore, then I'd spoil too much.

While watching this, part way through the first episode I was all "Man, life would be cool like this". No. After that point it was all loneliness and tragedy in Tohno's life and his feelings for Akari. He just can't seem to get over her, and it leads to a sad life. But within this romance (or lack of it), the feelings and emotions the characters depict are too raw and powerful to miss.

I highly encourage anyone to see it, and like Max wrote, "It'll rip your heart out."