A collection of theme songs, insert songs, and background music from 5 Centimeters per Second
5 Centimeters per Second is an animated film directed by Makoto Shinkai, released in 2007.
It tells the story of Takaki Tōno from his elementary school years to adulthood, centered around his first love from childhood.
Warm, bittersweet, and heartrending, it’s a favorite among many fans who consider 5 Centimeters per Second to be Shinkai’s best work.
And of course, it also features one of Shinkai’s trademarks: excellent music.
Beginning with Masayoshi Yamazaki’s One more time, One more chance, the beautiful tracks are as deeply moving as the story itself.
In this article, we’ll introduce the music related to 5 Centimeters per Second, focusing on the songs that appear in the film.
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- Songs from Spirited Away: theme song and insert songs
- The song from Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea. Theme song and insert song.
- The theme song of a romantic film that gives you a heart-fluttering, moving feeling.
- Song(s) from The Tale of the Princess Kaguya. Theme song and insert song(s).
- Theme and insert songs of 'Your Name'
- Anime BGM compilation: background music and insert songs that color the story
- Songs from 'When Marnie Was There': theme song and insert songs
- Songs from From Up on Poppy Hill. Theme song and insert songs.
Collection of theme songs, insert songs, and BGM from 5 Centimeters per Second (11–20)
Waltz for ShinoEsaki Fumitake
A delicate waltz-form piano miniature included on the soundtrack of the live-action film adaptation of 5 Centimeters per Second.
Composed by Fumitake Ezaki, it is one of the score pieces whose triple-meter lilt and restrained harmonies quietly mirror the protagonists’ missed connections and the reverberation of their memories.
Within its brief span of roughly 30 seconds, the condensed lyricism fulfills its role as cue music that breathes with the film, accompanying those moments when faint light and tranquil scenes linger in the heart.
HakuboEsaki Fumitake
This is an original piano piece written for the live-action adaptation.
Mastered by an engineer in Berlin, its resonance and overtones are meticulously crafted.
With a lyrical melody, it captures the subtleties of the transition from dusk to night, while modal harmonies and minimalist ostinati evoke nostalgia and introspection.
It is a work that gives sound to twilight itself, tenderly accompanying the film’s sense of longing shaped by distance and time.
LonerEsaki Fumitake
A short score track placed near the beginning of the soundtrack written specifically for the live-action film.
Though only about 38 seconds long, it delicately renders the nuances of a lonely psyche suggested by its title through subtle timbres.
The combination of piano and fine-grained electronic textures gently brings out the original work’s worldview, centered on themes of distance and time.
It accompanies that poignant feeling of thinking of someone yet being unable to reach them.
Once AgainEsaki Fumitake
A short piano piece from the live-action film, composed by Fumitake Ezaki.
Positioned mid-way through the soundtrack, this work lasts just over a minute, yet it quietly depicts the film’s motifs of “reunion” and “return” with gentle piano melodies and restrained reverberation.
Included in the album Five Centimeters per Second Original Soundtrack, which comprises 31 tracks.
Why not experience this score that expresses the accumulation of time and memory through sound?
First Light of Quiet MoonEsaki Fumitake
This piece is a film score that captures a serene moment where dawn and moonlight intersect, condensed into a 40-second short work.
It is one of the 31 tracks included on the album “5 Centimeters Per Second (2025) Original Sound Track,” released on CD and via digital distribution in October 2025.
As the title suggests, it paints the scene of the “first light of a quiet moon” with delicate piano tones and synth textures, serving to support scene transitions and lingering afterimages in the film.
Memories of distant daysTenmon
Composer Tenmon, whom Director Shinkai trusted and partnered with—even back when Shinkai was working at Nihon Falcom and made the 1999 short animation She and Her Cat—delivers a piano piece that, as the title Memories of Long Ago suggests, evokes the faint, beautiful inner landscape of first love.
It’s soothing, offering the kind of relaxation you feel when you surrender yourself to quietude.
Nostalgic and romantic, the piece may be expressing a slender ray of hope to take a step forward—while looking back on the happiest days and feeling gratitude for the encounter that made them possible.
Collection of Theme Songs, Insert Songs, and BGM from 5 Centimeters per Second (21–30)
Cherry Blossom ChapterTenmon
The intro that begins with beautiful piano arpeggios is striking! Using the melody of Masayoshi Yamazaki’s “One more time, One more chance” as a motif, it features a gentle, unhurried development.
At first, only fragments of the melody are repeated, but at the climax, the chorus melody resounds movingly with a powerful piano tone, and it ends with an unexpected harmonic cadence.
“Oukashou” is used in a memorable scene from the first of the film’s three short episodes, and the first episode shares the same title as this piece.
