Some Thoughts About Good Manga 7

My apologies to those who look forward to these segments, but it took me almost 4 months to get in the right mood of doing another Some Thoughts post, thanks to in no small part to the above-pictured Italian cartoonist Manuele Fior. In 2010, he released a comic that's since won quite a few awards and the approval of another comics-blogger I like, so I decided to give it a go as well.

The work I'm talking about is Cinquemila Chilometri al Secondo (5000km per second), a story about a love that's not meant to be and told through minimalistic dialogue and a few timeskips to show how each partner has moved on or not. For any anime fan, both that title and synopsis should sound familiar to you, because just about everybody gushed about Shinkai Makoto's 5cm per second back when it came out in 2007. And there's a reason behind that because Fior's work was apparently inspired by it (don't quote me on this though, as I haven't been able to find a concrete source for it). Now I'm not ashamed to admit that I HATED that movie and I'll regret seeing it until the day I die. I certainly understand why others liked it and I know what Shinkai tried to do with that movie. It's just that it failed to arouse any emotions out of me outside of disappointment. However, after reading 5000km per second, I'm a little less angry about 5cm per second because Fior showed me what the same concept would be like with prettier, more mature, and just plain better execution.

Before I can talk about why I think 5000km per second is better, let me first concisely state why I disliked Shinkai's movie first. The least interesting element (the romance) is given priority and carried by dull characters while the most interesting element (learning to move on) is given little focus and poorly wrapped-up with a half-assed montage. It's no wonder then I liked 5000km per second because it does the exact opposite of this. The actual romance isn't told at all! In fact, it's only through snippets of conversation taken place after the lovers have broken up that we the reader even realize that they had hooked up in the past. The vast majority of the story actually focuses on the challenge of moving on from the perspective of both partners, as opposed to 5cm/second's singular perspective. [Spoilers ahead]At first, the characters try to abandon their emotional history behind and move to different countries, one going North to Norway while the other goes South to Egypt. As time passes, they meet new people and start families of their own. But no matter how many years pass by, neither can really forget the moments they've shared and they realize that to leave is easy. To return is difficult. Manuele Fior skillfully tells us that we and the human experience aren't discrete, and to make a clean break is a futile endeavour. Our identities and relationships are continuous, and to deny it will lead to emotional unfulfillment in life... Or at least, that's my interpretation of 5000km/second.

As for the art, it's all-around gorgeous. Suffused with distinct ambience of each locale, these watercolour paintings are lovely to look at and their slightly amorphous outlines, the lack of clear black-boundaries unlike so many comics, complement the theme beautifully. In any case, I'd highly recommend this comic whether or not you liked 5cm per second. Although it's not currently available in English, Fantagraphics Books is scheduled to release the English version early January of next year (according to amazon).