Millennium Actress

I found Millennium Actress and 5 CM to be very similar. Each is about the pursuit of love - the characters "love to love" a unique person, ignoring even time as it passes by. Both main characters refuse to give the present a chance, and ignore all of the options that life and love offer to them because they are stuck in the past.

In both of these series, while there is a romance going on, neither of the couples come into contact for much of the film. The romances are the centers of the films, and in the end, they conclude smiliarly. Their artwork is not to be overlooked, and are amazing pleasures to view. Enjoy!

In Millenium Actress we have our protagonist, Chiyoko Fujiwara, chasing after a vision of a man she met once. In 5 CM we have Shinohara Akari chasing his memory of a promise that may or may not have been made with a childhood sweetheart. The chase, the dream, the vision ... the ending. Both bittersweet and both unrequited. I think you'll greatly appreciate the stretches of reality both protagonists put upon themselves in each film.

"Where you lead, I will follow" - whether it means long train journey, waitng for years, or chasing after throughout the country... These two series show how strong love can be and how many problems it can overcome with its power, so in this matter they are much alike.

Both series are about "love that could have been".  They talk about how life goes on in spite of all of the loved ones we may have lost.  The animation styles in both Millenium Actress and 5cm per Second are equally stunning.

Both Millennium Actress and 5 Centimeters tell the story of the pursuit of an unobtainable love. They both do so in a style unique to their director (Kon and Shinkai, two masters in their genre) and thus present their story in a different way. At their core though, they are about the same thing. If you loved one of these movies, make sure to check out the other as well.

Besides the rather obvious correlation that these anime are the work of genius Satoshi Kon, there is a more fundamental similarity, in that they both deal with an unreliable reality. In Paprika, the world of dreams intrudes itself forcibly on the world of the waking; whereas, in Millennium Actress, there is a gradual melding of the fictional world of film with the documentary reality of the actual world. This overarching theme of Kon's is also present in other works of his, such as Paranoia Agent.

Although it might be because both movies are from the same director (Satoshi Kon) Millennium Actress and Paprika, while having totally different themes, create a very similar atmosphere when you watch them.

As both movies progress though their respective stories it becomes more and more difficult to distinguish the different layers of reality and fiction (Millennium Actress) or the psyche of the characters (Paprika).

Both movies are festivals of colors and imagination and succeed in engulfing the viewer in true fantasy cinema.

Millennium Actress and Paprika share the same thematic core: blurring the borders between fictional projections and reality as we see it. MA blends cinematography with real life events while Paprika unleashes the world of dreams unto our own. Both are imbued with Satoshi Kon's unique flair for the bizarre and take anime as a medium to a whole different level; the stunning visuals fuse perfectly with non-linear plots that immerse the convoluted yet appealing narrative into the fabric of imagery itself.

These two films, by the same Satoshi Kon, are very alike in that a lot of the time you find yourself asking, "...Wait, what?" They're intriguing and wonderful, and you can easily get lost in the storyline.

Both films have historical settings and have engaging plots. If you feel like watching something with much more substance than most anime, then these films are for you.