As June arrived, the temperature soared, matching the heat of Japan's competitive manga industry.
While the Top Six national magazines maintained unmatched prestige, that didn't mean smaller publications lacked a future.
Readers' tastes were more diverse than ever.
Because the biggest magazines prioritized commercial value and action-heavy shonen titles, romance series were comparatively scarce.
And that was precisely why romance-centered weeklies like Sakura-iro Weekly continued to flourish.
Although distributed mainly across Tokyo and surrounding prefectures, Sakura-iro Weekly still achieved impressive sales, around 800,000 copies per issue.
Within its region, its brand recognition wasn't much lower than the top-tier magazines dominating the national charts.
Even though the official debut of the new serializations was scheduled for next week (the 13th), this week's issue, which released on the 6th, had already started heavily promoting the two new manga.
The promotion included full-color spreads illustrated by Rei Kirishima and veteran artist Yuto Amamiya.
Rei's promotional art depicted a girl in a knee-length skirt and a boy catching his breath after running downhill, meeting at a railway crossing as a train approached. Cherry blossoms drifted through the air, overflowing with a quiet, nostalgic beauty.
Across the illustration was the title:
5 Centimeters per Second, by Shirogane
The accompanying tagline read:
"Do you know what 5 centimeters per second represents?"
The aesthetic and composition clearly hinted at a bittersweet, romantic coming-of-age story.
Within the Sakura-iro Weekly discussion boards, loyal fans quickly reacted:
"5 Centimeters per Second… unusual title. Is this replacing Love After School?"
"Never heard of 'Shirogane' before. Must be a newcomer."
"But damn, this art style is CLEAN."
"And Love Like Fireworks is debuting too! Yuto Amamiya's first new series in a year. Everyone, please vote for it! Don't let a rookie beat it!"
"Sakura-iro Weekly needs something fresh ASAP. Most of last year's new serializations were mid. Only Lament was decent."
"Too many school romances. It's getting repetitive."
"But 5 Centimeters doesn't even look like a typical school romance.No uniforms, city railways…Could be a retro-style romance?"
"I'll check it out next week for the art alone. Hope it surprises me."
"The Sound of the Clouds sold 20k last volume. But Love After School barely sold 10k and was last place for six weeks straight. Of course it got axed."
In Japan's huge manga market, two new serializations barely created a ripple. Discussions surged, then faded into the background noise of the internet.
Outside of Rei and a handful of industry insiders, most readers greeted the newcomer's series with mild curiosity at best.
Wednesday Morning
The newest issue of Sakura-iro Weekly hit bookstores across Tokyo and surrounding prefectures early Wednesday morning.
Priced at ¥650, the anthology contained 18 serialized manga, nearly 400 pages total, each chapter roughly 20 pages long.
For many office workers, finishing the entire magazine in one week was nearly impossible.
But for Kana Uehara, things were different.
Two weeks earlier, she'd broken up with her boyfriend. Last week, she'd finally resigned from her draining job.
Now, she drifted through her days numb, exhausted, and heartbroken.
Only good food and romance manga could soften the ache.
Still wearing the neat, stylish office outfit she hadn't fully let go of, Kana entered the already bustling bookstore.
She walked straight toward the rack displaying the newest magazines.
There it was, wrapped in glossy plastic.
The cover featured two contrasting halves:
Left side: a railway crossing under drifting cherry blossoms, a boy and girl face-to-face.
Right side: the cast of Love Like Fireworks in crisp, youthful styles.
Kana stared at it for a moment, quietly hoping:
"Please… let these be good."
Kana Uehara took a deep breath. After paying for the magazine at the counter, she turned left toward a nearby café. She ordered a coffee and a small cake for breakfast, went up to the second floor, found her favorite window seat in the corner, and carefully unwrapped the latest issue of Sakura-iro Weekly.
Flipping through the index, the first chapter featured her long-time favorite romantic comedy.
"High-Scoring Romance"
It had been ranked #1 in the reader polls for eighteen consecutive weeks and was the fifth serialized work of popular mangaka Yuta Shiba.
At this point, it was considered one of Sakura-iro Weekly's flagship series.
Of course, every romance manga eventually faced the same problem,once the couple gets together, the charm fades.
After spending ten minutes on the chapter, Kana sighed slightly.
It wasn't bad. It just didn't have that spark anymore… the youthful shine she loved.
She then flipped to Lament, created by the genius high-school mangaka Saki.
She read quietly for a long while before letting out another sigh, this time of admiration.
Unlike High-Scoring Romance, Lament's pacing tightened in the later arcs, completely avoiding filler. The reading experience was far smoother.
After that, Kana turned her attention to the newly serialized manga.
"Five Centimeters per Second," huh…"
She murmured softly.
Drawn in by the illustration style she'd noticed earlier, she flipped straight to its first page.
The opening spread was a watercolor-soft depiction of falling cherry blossoms, accompanied by simple but poetic narration:
"Did you know? It's said they fall at five centimeters per second."
"Hm?"
"Cherry blossoms. They drift down at five centimeters per second."
"Is this the origin of the title?" Kana wondered, sipping her coffee as her interest grew.
Lines like these didn't explain the setting. They didn't push the plot forward.
But they flowed beautifully, and carried quiet emotion.
'Whoever the creator Shirogane was,' Kana thought, 'they must be a very sensitive person.'
In the manga, the girl named Akari opened her palm, letting petals slip between her fingers.
"Doesn't it look like snow?"
Ah.
That kind of ambiguous, delicate dialogue.
Some readers might call it pointless.
But people like Kana loved it.
A girl running down a gentle slope, a boy chasing after her. Just as she crossed the railway tracks, the crossing gates fell, trapping them on opposite sides.
The tracks became a visible line between two worlds.
Akari lifted her red umbrella against the drifting petals and smiled, a smile soft as spring itself.
"I hope we can see the cherry blossoms again next year."
Same scene as the film.
Different artist. Different paneling.
A completely new emotional impact.
Rei's draftsmanship still had room to grow, but his ability to convey emotion, the subtle shift in eyes, the trembling of a smile, was astonishingly strong.
The panels were deceptively simple, but somehow Kana felt a quiet sadness forming in her chest, even though she had no idea what happened next.
Why…why did this scene feel so lonely?
As the chapter moved from color to black-and-white storytelling, the atmosphere shifted.
The faint melancholy deepened.
The story shifted into Akari's inner monologue, Takaki written like fragments of letters addressed to.
[When I think back… I even miss the unbearably hot Tokyo summers, the melting asphalt roads. The last time we met was at graduation. Takaki do you still remember me?」
[To Takaki.
Thank you for your letter.
Autumn has already arrived. Yesterday was the first time this year I wore a sweater…」
A few short panels, paired with Akari's gentle narration and Takaki's increasingly lonely expression, were enough for Kana to grasp the situation:
The boy and girl who once promised to watch the cherry blossoms together next spring…hadn't seen each other for an entire year.
Akari had transferred schools.
Their only contact now came from exchanged letters, each telling small pieces of their days. Their longing grew stronger.
Originally, they lived only a few prefectures apart.
But now that Takaki was also transferring, this time far, far away, the distance between them would stretch into something impossible.
A distance two middle schoolers could never hope to cross again.
Before he moved, they decided to meet one last time.
[There's a huge cherry blossom tree near my home. When spring comes, the petals fall at five centimeters per second.
I kept thinking, how wonderful it would be if spring, and Takaki could arrive together.
Akari]
The plot unfolded slowly but delicately, and combined with the soft backgrounds and unique paneling, Kana felt her chest tighten the moment she reached the scene of Akari sitting alone, writing.
One lone bird in the sky.
A quiet town dyed orange by the setting sun. A single girl writing words she couldn't say aloud.
The loneliness seeped straight into the reader.
The two, desperate to see each other again, arranged their meeting.
Takaki would travel by train.
Akari would wait at the station at 7 p.m.
The manga never explicitly said it, but Kana felt it deep in her heart:
If they failed to meet this time…they might never see each other again.
Thousands of kilometers was enough to defeat even adults, much less two kids.
Kana closed the magazine for a second.
"What kind of manga is this…?"
She had never seen anything like it.
It wasn't a typical romance comic. It was almost like reading poetry, beautiful, quiet, painfully delicate.
Then the manga shifted into a flashback:
How Akari and Yuto first met. How they bonded over shared loneliness and similar interests.
How they promised to attend the same middle school. And how everything shattered the night Akari's family made her transfer away.
She had called Takaki, hoping for comfort… a chance to see him one last time.
But the boy, devastated and frightened by the idea of losing her, could only choke out:
[Enough. Stop talking…]
Kana slammed the page.
"What the hell!? How could you say that to her!?"
Akari had been forced by her family to transfer schools. She had no choice.
She called Takaki that night to apologize, and this was the only response she got.
Anger welled up in Kana's chest as she read on, but she couldn't stop turning the pages.
The flashback ended, and a year later Takaki boarded the train heading toward the town where Akari now lived.
But a sudden snowstorm ruined everything.
He had to change trains twice, and each connection was delayed, something Takaki had never anticipated.
During the long wait, he wrote a letter:
Everything he'd wanted to tell Akari for the past year.
His apology for that night. His honest feelings.
He planned to give it to her the moment they met.
But while waiting at the transfer station, the letter slipped from Takaki's coat pocket.
A sharp gust of freezing wind lifted it high into the air, and carried it away into the dark, snowy sky.
Gone.
Standing on the platform, the boy hung his head.
Tears gathered at the corners of his eyes. It wasn't just the lost letter.
It was because he was already late.
Their meeting time-7:00 p.m., had long passed.
Now it was 8:15 p.m.
…
Kana Uehara flipped the page.
But there was nothing more.
The first chapter of 5 Centimeters per Second ended there.
A heavy pain settled in her chest, the kind that comes when a story cuts off right before the most important moment.
"Why do mangaka always do this? Why stop right here?!"
Was Akari still waiting for him?
If she wasn't, then Takaki would soon be moving even farther away, to a distant prefecture thousands of kilometers from Tokyo.
Would this snowstorm truly separate them forever?
Would they never meet again?
Kana felt a dull ache rise inside her.
The sadness wrapped around her like her own heartbreak had two weeks ago.
'What kind of manga is this? How can a first chapter hurt this much? Is this really the work of a newcomer?'