Kanae Sumida is a female character in 5 Centimeters per Second, the protagonist of the segment Cosmonaut and a classmate of Takaki Tōno on Tanegashima.
Kanae Sumida is a girl in Class 1-12 of the third year of high school; in the novel version, she is placed in Class 3 instead.
She attended middle school on Tanegashima with Takaki Tōno and later became his classmate there.
She is portrayed as a sincere, emotionally intense, and deeply loyal person.
Although quiet on the surface, she hides strong passion inside and continues to love Takaki with remarkable single-mindedness.
Gender: Female
Height: 159 cm
Kanae lives with her parents and her older sister.
Her sister is a teacher at the same high school Kanae attends, and in the film her sister is voiced by Risa Mizuno.
Kanae is the kind of person who keeps her feelings to herself for a long time.
She is earnest, hardworking, and emotionally resilient, even when she is hurting.
Director Makoto Shinkai described her in an interview as a strong woman.
That strength appears in the way she continues forward despite uncertainty, heartbreak, and unspoken feelings.
In the spring of her second year of middle school, Takaki transferred from Tokyo to Tanegashima.
Kanae immediately sensed that he had a different air from the other boys, and she gradually fell in love with him.
She worked desperately hard in her studies because she wanted to attend the same high school as Takaki.
Her effort paid off, and she succeeded in entering the same school.
In high school, she and Takaki developed a routine of walking home together after he finished his club activities.
Even so, she could not bring herself to confess her feelings until their third year.
Kanae comes to understand that Takaki is aiming for a height she cannot reach herself.
Even with that realization, she feels certain that she will go on loving him for a very long time.
Kanae is troubled by the fact that she cannot clearly see her own future.
This anxiety is reflected in her surfing, which is one of her strong points, as she falls into a slump and cannot stay standing on the waves.
She decides that she will confess to Takaki once she regains her confidence and can stand on the waves again.
It becomes a personal test, tying her emotional courage to her recovery in surfing.
On the very day she finally succeeds in standing on the wave again, she senses rejection from Takaki’s attitude.
Because of that moment, she never actually confesses.
In the Shinkai novel version, a dream Kanae sees on the night of the rocket transport in the rain suggests a different future.
In that dream, she recognizes that by the time she reaches the age her sister is now, her love for Takaki will belong to the past.
The manga version presents her differently.
There, she is shown as still unable to let go of her feelings for Takaki even after becoming an adult.
💬 Community Discussion
Talk about this anime with people who actually care.