The Place Promised in Our Early Days (2004)

While a popular anime, I find that the title (The Place Promised in Our Early Days) is more interesting than the slow, plodding script. Many will find this film unmoving and uneventful.

The animation is so-so. In only one scene (a mountain background with mist) was I impressed; otherwise it's very typical. I'm honestly surprised by the number of reviews stating this is "beautiful". It's really simply not that impressive animation-wise. I guess beauty really is in the eye of the beholder.

The characters are largely undeveloped. The plot line is simple and mono-directional, without much in the way of suspense, surprise or emotional impact. There are no highs or lows, no real climax to the film, and the ending is weak.

I am a fan of anime and very much enjoy artistic anime. I don't need giant robot battles in order to enjoy a film-- and enjoy many aspects of the drama genre where story is as important as the animation itself. But this work struck me as mediocre in all aspects. I do appreciate that some may enjoy the (very)subdued romantic aspect, but I found it as undeveloped and uneventful as the rest of the work.

As would be expected I give it 5 stars. Neither impressive nor bad... just a slow-moving story, weak plot line and so-so animation.

Fmovies: Read the title a couple of times.

It's lyrical, evocative, even elegiac, and yet could have been expressed in fewer words.

Such is this film.

Formally, it's a pure joy to behold. From sweeping countryside panoramas and old, weatherbeaten structures that somehow plumb deep-seated sparks of nostalgia, to sweetly-embellished details like a softly rattling electric fan, Shinkai creates a vibrant, human environment. The soundtrack is equally enveloping, with heart-melting violin and piano work.

Beyond this is quite a decent film, with believable characters in often hard-to-fathom situations. The boyhood friendship of the two male protagonists is very real -- but their ability to engineer, fabricate, and pilot a sophisticated aircraft at age 15 is purely the stuff of anime fantasy.

And yet, everything, no matter how incredible or convoluted, is wrapped in these Shinkai layers of lyricism and beauty. Through a very sensitive and even transcendent treatment, scene after scene is made to appear pivotal, even if it's not.

And thus we have a film that is almost cloying in its presentation -- it's not layered with pure sugar; most of the time it feels genuine, even if it's becoming self-indulgent. But indulge it does, because the director knows how to indulge gracefully.

Normally style over substance kills substance. In "Place," it gently infuses it with some sort of warm, nourishing milk.

Mind-bending sci-fi is a staple of Japanese animation, and many of them are complex in a way that makes them difficult to grasp immediately. This one, though, I really don't think the director has any idea how to tell a story. The film is just never coherent. Not only is its science fiction premise (which deals with alternate universes) never clear, nor its world comprehensibly established, but it's terrible at establishing characters and their relationships to each other. All of the characters are quite thin and clichéd. The artwork is nice(the animation is a bit choppy, though), and the music is pretty (but also occasionally too sappy), but this is an annoying mess of a film.

The Place Promised in Our Early Days fmovies. Approaching this from the perspective of a sci-fi enthusiast, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that, despite the complexity of its theories on divergent realities and their harmonic coexistence with dreams, there was a far simpler coming-of-age story that centered on a childhood promise. The score is haunting. The visuals and animation are stunning and the characters are charmingly awkward. Although there are some action sequences and a pint of blood thrown in for measure, the film's pace is decidedly that of a romantic reflection on loneliness and bittersweet affection. In the end, the story telling is adequate, but viewers who were eager to be exposed to fantastic alternate universes will be disappointed.

I rarely ever watch anything more than once, but this was my 3rd time watching this today, and I had even bought the DVD.. and I still think its as great as the first time I watched it. I think I feel some nostalgic connection to it somehow, I appreciate how brilliant the boys are, actually building something like that.. successfully.. while being so young. I guess I've always wanted to accomplish something like that. I also like the attention to technical detail like soldering and UNIX command lines. Even if you aren't into the story or the characters, watch it for the animation. Some of the most beautiful scenes I think I may ever see. Especially for those you who tend to like sunsets. I can hardly think of anything I don't enjoy about it, some people have said it doesn't feel tight or whole or well put together, but I think the pacing really isn't that bad, only thing that bothers me slightly is all the fades to black that are used for scene transitions, but really I'm not sure what else would have been better, it makes it a whole lot less confusing than just cutting to scenes and having to figure out whats going on and if its a different place or time. The DVD release is decent, some good interviews (motoko shinkai seems like a real nice guy), video quality is good, audio is fine (dont know about the English voice actors, id be afraid to really watch it in English). its good.

I gave 4 stars just for the art and the music, but I really got bored a lot watching this, the story makes no sense, it's all so dreamy, so epic, the author wants you to deeply feel all this emotions but to me the result it's an hollow movie with hollow character. I've never fallen asleep watching something, but with this I barely succeeded to end it. I definitively suggest not to watch it, there are so many other beautiful anime to see out there. One thing I've enjoyed is the artwork, the landscapes are really intense and make you dream, but also there sometimes there is too much over production, too many light effects, it seems like a punch in the eye. And I hate when authors use science fiction in this way, by throwing here and there some gibberish theory and then making a mess with a convoluted plot, so that people at the end can say that it leave you with the freedom to interpret it, I find this technique over abused lately, and by the way I've never seen using it so badly like in this case