As the boundaries between animated and live-action films blur and finally become meaningless (see the graphic-novel look of "300" for a recent example), perhaps a new category is needed -- call it live-mation. In any case, animators in Japan are breaking free of whatever limits on theme and treatment were once imposed on them by the industry, public or technology.

A pioneer in this regard was Hayao Miyazaki, who proved, with films like his 2001 masterpiece "Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi (Spirited Away)," that he could animate a world as rich as any in a live-action film. Combining CG-assisted realism and Impressionistic backdrops, Miyazaki created spaces that less mimicked nature than improved on it. What art director of a live-action movie, minus a massive CG assist, could duplicate the famous scene in "Spirited Away" of a train gliding across an expanse of calm, glittering water, a vision exhilarating, but somehow familiar, as though glimpsed in another, better universe.

In his new animation, "Byosoku 5 Centimeters (Speed of 5 Centimeters per Second)," Makoto Shinkai makes his own vision of an animated paradise entirely from the materials of the every day: trains, birds, snowflakes, sky -- and three teenagers with no magical powers whatsoever, only the common experiences of longing, love and loss.