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Before heading over to Tokyo last year I'd say I was moderately interested in Japanese animation and mildly obsessed with the films of Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli. Since returning, I've been hoovering up other anime films and television series, attempting to find the gems amongst all the truly godawful rubbish. In particular, I've found myself looking for anime set in a realistic present day setting, whether it's ostensibly a work of comedy (Satoshi Kon's Tokyo Godfathers), science fiction (Hosada's The Girl who Leapt through Time) or, in this case, romance.

I stumbled across 5 Centimeters Per Second on the web at the end of 2009, and it sounded interesting – a film in three distinct parts from Makoto Shinkai, who famously created the sci-fi short Voices of a Distant Star single-handedly on his computer. Getting a copy wasn't easy – details later – but a month or two later I finally got to watch it. As there are relatively few reviews available, I thought I'd put one online. I'll avoid spoilers as far as is possible.

The plot

The sequence of films follows two characters, Takaki and Akari. The first film, Cherry Blossom Story, is set as Takaki makes the (complicated, lengthy) train journey north from Tokyo to see Akari; as he does so a sequence of flashbacks explain how they met and became friends in elementary school before Akari's family moved out of the city. Since her departure a year previously the two have corresponded by post, but with his own family now moving far afield the two have one final – at least for the conceivable future – chance to meet.

The second segment, Cosmonaut, is set  years after Takaki's move to the island of Tanegashima – home of the Japanese space agency, NASDA. This section is narrated largely by Kanae, a female classmate of Takaki who has suffered unrequited love for him since his arrival, and who goes out of her way to arrange 'chance' meetings. The two, soon to graduate from high school, discuss their plans for the future, but Takake is somewhat distant and is constantly seen writing emails on his mobile phone. At several points we see Takaki and Akari together, but these appear to be dream sequences.

The final segment, 5 Centimeters Per Second, is set back in Tokyo. Takaki, now 26, is a computer programmer, and significantly depressed. One day, while walking across a level crossing, he spots Akari. The finale, which makes up the majority of this segment, takes the form of a montage of rapidly cut visuals shown as a song is played.

The look

It's worth noting immediately that 5 Centimeters Per Second looks beautiful. The animation slides between a slightly painted style and the more realistic look that you'd expect from computer animation but throughout the shots, and in particular the use of colour, are remarkable – many of the scenes are set in twilight or night, with an amazing luminous appearance and glowing pink washes that link the narrative back to the cherry blossom tree of the title.

The effect is a world that's immediate and real – Takaki's journey through and out of Tokyo is almost photo-realistic – and yet somewhat otherworldly, and in the second film this is taken even further as the setting introduces another glorious light source to both dream sequences and the segment's climax.

Swirling cherry blossoms are something of a specialism of Japanese animation – there's probably a firm somewhere in Tokyo that specialises in computer-rendering them – but here the blossom and snow swirl and dance beautifully as the camera moves through them, while light sources flare and glint off the surroundings. Even the rapid shots of the final segment, each on screen only momentarily, are beautifully put together.

The effect

Of course pretty animation is all for nothing in a drama if the viewer doesn't feel emotionally involved. Here, though, the Japanese voice cast does a wonderful job of conveying real-sounding emotion without recourse to the squeaky, shouty clichés that plague many teenage anime characters, and the plot is paced cleverly enough to suck the viewer in enough to build a sense of unease from that most mundane occurrance: a delayed train. Although ultimately a simple tale of young love it left me with enough emotion invested as to care what happened to both parties at the end, which is surely a success on the writer's part. And it's always a good sign when you watch a film through to the credits, then immediately pick up the remote control to flick back into the story again. Overall it's a simple but elegantly crafted tale that avoids saccharine sweetness in favour of the affectingly recognisable, and I'd recommend it to anyone.

Where to get it

Picking up a copy of this film (legally) is a pain. There's a Blu-ray, but you'll need to import it from Japan, play it on a Japanese or American Blu-ray player and, not least of the obstacles, understand the Japanese-only audio. A DVD with English subtitles was available in the US, but it's Region 1, out of print and currently selling for $150 or so. In the end I imported a Region 3 DVD from Hong Kong via Ebay – this has the Japanese audio track and English subtitles.

Early warning: expect some mild spoilers here.

Earlier this year Helen and I paid a visit – or perhaps a pilgrimage - to the Ghibli Museum in Mitaka, Tokyo. One of the main exhibits was filled with information about a film I hadn't at that point seen: Gake no ue no Ponyo. The exhibit was fascinating, with a special focus on the design and animation of the numerous wave and sea scenes in the film, and I made a note to search out a copy on my return to England. On getting back, however, we found out that for reasons unclear it won't be released here until sometime next year.

Last night, however, I finally got to see it. Ponyo, which seems to have picked up the rather unwieldly English title "Ponyo on the cliff by the sea", was being presented in Japanese as part of the Barbican's Japanimation season with an introduction by Helen McCarthy, and six of us managed to pick up tickets. Actually, on the subject of the title, if anyone with a better grasp of Japanese than I knows where the sea comes from, I'd love to know – it looks like "cliff (no) above (no) Ponyo", or "Ponyo on the cliff", to me.

The story is pretty simple: a young boy, Sosuke, meets a goldfish, Ponyo, and they fall in love. Obstacles are presented and – it's a children's film, so this shouldn't count as a huge spoiler – overcome. As with many of Hayao Miyazaki's films, though, this takes place in an environment where everyday Japan meets the supernatural, and with a subtle theme of environmental concern (the drag nets, the idea of nature being pulled out of whack, the moon, etc).

It's colourful, beautiful and beguiling, with a gorgeous look that mixes realism (the dry dock of the working port, the retirement home where Sosuke's mother works) with childlike drawings (the house on the hill, the simple boats bobbing out to see). And of course the waves – at times magically  transformed into giant fish and in one scene racing the camera as it tracks horizontally – are magnificently animated and almost worth the price of a ticket alone.

The film is funny, too – Ponyo's first encounter with a sheet of glass and her enquiries as to the profession of Sosuke's father, in particular, drew big laughs from the (almost entirely adult) audience, while the slightly crazed driving of Sosuke's mother Lisa raised gasps and smiles. The problems faced by Sosuke, Lisa and Ponyo don't ever seem *that* dangerous or frightening, and the conclusion isn't as uplifting as, say, the girls from Tonari no Totoro travelling by Catbus to check on their mother – but they build up and wrap up the plot neatly.

So, predictably, I'd entirely recommend Ponyo when she eventually swims up to these shores sometime in mid 2010. The English version is being distributed by Disney, is produced by John Lasseter and has a cast packed with well known actors – so I'm sure it will at least get a big release, and I suppose subtitles don't make too much sense for an audience of small children. See it in English, then rent the DVD or Blu-ray for the film as it was intended.

I spend far too much time on Flickr and a lot of that time gawking at photos shot on old-fashioned film. Flickr may have millions of users toting digital-compacts, and probably just as many who are unhealthily obsessed with their DSLRs, but it also has a really strong community of those who won't – and it's mainly won't, rather than can't – move from film to digital. And many of them take some really beautiful photos.

And you can see why. For one, some films seem to impart a unique look to photos that's at best time-consuming and at worst impossible to replicate on a digital image. I loved the look I could get from Provia in my F80, even if it did cost a fortune to process and posed serious questions about how much film it is acceptable to keep in a small home fridge:

Film also imposes some discipline that's helpful if, like me, you have a tendency toward crap photos. Each roll holds only a few shots, so you must compose each carefully. And then there's the cult-of-film aspect: unlike the millions of plebs who take digital snaps, film photography is, now, a more niche pursuit. Those with a liberal arts degree might want to to knock up one of those dichotomy lists so beloved of theorists and/or poseurs (digital/film, many/few, snapshot/art, blah), not that it would prove anything. But anyhow. I owned several film cameras, then sold my best to buy a DSLR because digital photography is, in every way, more practical.

And then on Sunday, while diving through cardboard boxes in pursuit of batteries, I found one of my film cameras: a "vintage" (old) 1973 Zenit E SLR. This camera was made in the USSR, designed with the aesthetic care and attention usually lavished on anti-aircraft emplacements and made from what I think is a solid chunk of aluminium. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out to be radioactive – it's got that "made before safetly considerations" look to it. And then, lurking in the bottom of the box, a spare roll of film. What better way to waste a sunny afternoon than to give it a whirl.

The Zenit has five shutter speeds (plus one for bulb exposures) selected via a dial that regularly falls off the camera and its light meter gave up the ghost some time ago. Probably before I was born, actually. Remarkably the results came out pretty well exposed, and a few of them look OK. I quite like the soft background and colours on this:

while Hunter survived his visit to the 1970s, too:

And there's no denying that using the Zenit is strangely fun: the viewfinder makes everything look like a 1980s Thames TV broadcast viewed on a slightly frazzled Trinitron, all colour-cast and barrel distortion, and there's an amazing mechanical KER-CHUNK noise when you press the shutter accompanied by the whiz of the speed selector spinning around and doing its best to remove the skin from your hand.

There's also something undeniably neat about taking photos with a camera that requires not a single battery: the Zenit could probably survive a nuclear blast and still work (in fact, it'd serve as a handy hammer should you need to take part in civilisation-rebuilding). Truth be told, everything about taking photos on film again was enjoyable. So will I start lugging the Zenit, or perhaps a more practical film camera, around along with the D80? No chance. And here's why:

Dust. Gets. Fucking. Everywhere.

That's the shot of Hunter in Lightroom, and each circle is a dust spot correction that I had to add to remove the assortment of crap, crud, grime, hair and fluff that my film scanner picked up. And that's on a negative strip straight from the lab (there's one, conveniently, across from my office). Argh. And many of the other frames were far, far worse, to the point where I couldn't be bothered to clean them up. If it weren't for Lightroom's tools I probably would have just given up and chucked the film out.

So that's quite enough messing around with stips of chemically-treated plastic for now. I've packed the film scanner away again, and put the D80 back in the bag with a 4GB card (400 JPEGs – luxury. In my day, etc). But I won't be throwing the Zenit away – I'll come back to give it another try. Next summer, maybe.