rocket? pyramid? 46 billion years?

The significance of the rocket and the pyramid seem to me to represent the opposing factions of science and faith. I haven't seen this film since the LFF, but if I remember rightly, Ando's character believes in an afterlife and Matsuda's doesn't.

The butterfly in Western culture often represents metamorphosis. This could link to the transformation one is supposed to go under during prison time. Or maybe it's representative of Matsuda's metamorphosis, as a quaint, quiet young man committed a brutal murder.

I think the last shot has a lot to do with the 46 billion years. However poetic a love story their relationship was, life continues and will continue for a long time past their death.

The best way I could state it has kind of already been said... Rocket = Science or reality. The greatest things we can aspire to, reaching space in the physical world.

The pyramid represents heaven... If it really existed atop there, would you go for the pyramid or the rocket? Doubt that it exists up there and you are left only one option, have faith and you can attempt it but that rocket is about ready to take off.

4.6 billion years of love. The title, the span of existence, an emotional feeling... My opinion, it's part of the story, in all of existence of man love has existed for different things. People or ideologies, spiritual or physical... I think it's a shot that religion may be false, so what does it matter to everyone if two men you'd never meet can fall in love.

The Butterfly has come to represent to me; The self. Something frail and delicate caught in the winds of larger things. Indecisive and seemingly taken to one place or the other by forces out of it's control. In the movie it represents the main character's self. Sort of coming up when he seems going his craziest. Frying at the end and choosing space, something real but unimportant when he lost someone he cared about and his only real hope for redemption lying at the top of a mountain.

There's a lot to think about on all sides...

Interesting: "[A] butterfly was seen in Japan as the personification of a person's soul; whether they be living, dying, or already dead. One Japanese superstition says that if a butterfly enters your guestroom and perches behind the bamboo screen, the person whom you most love is coming to see you." (c) Wiki