bcheng93 Makoto can do no wrong, everything he touches turns to gold. i put him right up there with Miyazaki but with a certain sadness which touches you. you feel that lonely and sad feeling with everyone of his films, and trust me, evoking that type of emotion from viewers every time takes a genius to accomplish.that is one of the reasons i watch his films and i've watched all of them including his latest(garden of words). watching his films is like enjoying good poetry, it just flows. his artwork is breathe-taking and i will never get bored of that. i love the way he colors his films, evoking emotions and feelings of sadness and loneliness . i couldn't care if the story sucks or not, because even if the story is not that good the animation is always top-notch. but that doesn't really apply because in every one of his films the storyline was also very strong.the story is about 3 junior high school friends, 2 boys and a girl in an alternate postwar Japan and their continuing relationship into their early twenties. they split up right after junior high and never go to the place promised in their early days and then the subsequent fight to keep that promise at the end. this is a sci-fi, romance and drama movie, although the sci-fi part gets a little convoluted even though the ideas are very good. just like all his other films you can't help getting a lump in your throat while watching the movie.i recommend this movie to everybody that is above the age of 12 because any younger and they won't be able to grasp the content of the whole movie...hey, they can always just watch the beautiful artwork in that case.

Manish Dash Hey guys, I saw this movie when i had a craze for anime movies. I saw almost 100 anime movies, and undoubtedly, this is 1 of the best movies which i liked really much. The plot is a bit interesting and the sci fi touch is also awesome. You won't notice as you drift into the plot slowly and steadily and a time comes when you also feel the same emotions as the girl stranded all alone in her dream. This is a must watch for people who know what a movie really is .... PPl who just watch violent movies and expect to like this 1 is a complete no no ..... Adding it up == A MUST WATCH !!

lyrast I've watched Makoto Shinkai's "The Place Promised In Our Early Days" a couple times now and the film is an absolute masterpiece, easily fulfilling the great promise he demonstrated in "Voices Of A Distant Star". And when I say masterpiece I'm talking about a brilliant director on the level of the legendary Miyazaki. No description I give can possibly replicate or do justice to the experience of watching this film. It has to be seen. I will be watching it again--and soon! Still, I'll mention a few of the things about "The Place Promised In Our Early Days" that impressed me.The setting is a Japan of a parallel world and that science-fiction concept is reasonably important in the development of the plot and the relationships between the three central characters: The gentle Hiroki, his much tougher but close friend Takuya, and Sayuri the girl who returns Hiroki's love. All three characters are well drawn and highly sympathetic and their complex relationship unfolds in the context of a coming conflict which tests their loyalty to each other and to their society. This coming war centres upon a great tower by which the Northern enemy {the Union} will attempt to destroy the U.S. controlled South by replacing it with another parallel universe causing the South simply to disappear. The creator of the tower was Sayuri's grandfather and somehow she is linked to its implementation. After writing a final love letter to Hiroki she falls into a coma and finds her consciousness trapped in a lonely and desolate parallel universe. This prevents the tower from becoming operative and it becomes unusable as a weapon. As long as she sleeps, the stalemate continues. Obviously Hiroki wishes to wake her but Takuya who works in the compound where Sayuri is kept feels the choice is between saving Sayuri or saving the world.That's an outline of the essentials of the plot but there is so much more to this film! It wrestles with significant and profound themes. The division between reality and dream is a constant motif. Is Sayuri actually in a dream universe when she sleeps or is she instead in a different reality? Is that desolate world a landscape of the terrible inner loneliness we all sometimes experience? Hiroki experiences the misery of loneliness when he finds the girl he loves so much--his soul mate--is taken from him. On a different level, Takuya {who in a different way} is also a soul-mate must decide if he is honour bound to refuse to help Hiroki and Sayuri. Informing these conflicts is the great overarching theme of Love and Sacrifice. Not simply the romantic love of Hiroki and Sayuri but the love which exists between comrades in arms, close friends, and the great social nexus which makes all such loves possible. In some ways the film can also be seen as a meditation on Time and memory; the need to give up something if one wishes to move on.The visuals in The Place Promised In Our Early Days are truly stunning, but not in the flamboyant manner of "Appleseed". Rather Shinkai's colour palette frequently uses highly evocative, psychologically ambient textures--sometimes nearly monochromatic in effect. For instance, the final scenes make very controlled and beautiful use of blue with violet overtones.The music score is perfectly evocative and very, very beautiful {How hard it is not to use those superlatives!}Without giving anything away, the ending has the bittersweet quality of "Voices Of A Distant Star: and the gently reflective short feature "She and Her Cat". Something of the sensitive, sweet, and melancholy beauty of this film is present in the opening lines of the closing end song:The white clouds are blurred in the faded blue. It's the color of that distant day. In the depths of my heart Lies a pain I hide from everyone.See this film! You've missed something if you haven't.

Samuel Orozco Actually I would give it a 7.5 but as you know IMDb only allows hole numbers.This movie is basically about three friends (two boys and one girl). Their feeling towards each other is pretty well constructed and easy to follow. This is important because it is the important theme of the movie.The place, time and events in which the main theme develops is the great flaw of the movie. It is basically a separated japan at the border of war; there is a huge tower at Hokkaido that links to parallel universes and a couple of other strange things. this plot is hard to follow and actually not very interesting. Never the less, this should not prevent you from watching this movie because it is not really important for the movie. This is a very light film and I guarantee you will feel really nice after you've finished watching it (by light I mean easy with your heart, not easy to follow).Just as 5 centimeters per second, the animation is excellent. However, if you have not seen a lot of anime or you are just not a big fan I would recommend some other movies first. From the same director, 5 centimeters per second is much much better, although, is not as light as this one.