Now here’s a bit of a change from the usual manga-to-anime news. As you might / should know, Makoto Shinkai’s latest animation Byousoku 5 Centimeter (5 cm per second) debuted this month in Japan, and we can barely abstain ourselves from watching the first of the three stories fansubbed so far, while stocking up on tissues for the full movie. And thanks to our favorite Shinkai fansite, as of today we can how look forward to another one of his works - though somewhat static this time around.

During a nearly hour-long interview posted on the official 5cm website, and available for online viewing (until April 6), Shinkai reveals that he will serialize a Byousoku 5cm novel in the Da Vinci magazine. He made the announcement right at the end of his interview (see the stream from minute 53:00), so didn’t go into any details, aside from saying that the first episode will be released in April.

If you don’t plan on watching the whole thing, at least jump to minute 12:00 and wait a few seconds… Would you hit that?