released 11 dec 05 / last mod 01 jun 07 / greg goebel / public domain
* Makoto Shinkai made a good impression with his little "student project" anime video VOICES FROM A DISTANT STAR. Now he has followed that up with his "freshman" movie, THE PLACE PROMISED IN OUR EARLY DAYS.
PLACE PROMISED, to cut the name short, takes place in an alternate timeline. In our timeline, during the 1980s, a tunnel was dug with considerable pain and difficulty under the Seikan Straits between the main Japanese island of Honshu and the northernmost large island of Hokkaido. In this timeline, the Seikan tunnel project was begun but never completed, since Hokkaido seceded from the rest of Japan to join an unspecified "Union", with the Americans backing up the rest of Japan. The Union then erected a slender ribbon of a tower reaching into the high atmosphere from the middle of Hokkaido. It is so tall that it can be even seen from Tokyo on clear days. Nobody knows what the tower is for, and there are suspicions based on some evidence that it is a doomsday weapon. The fact that the Union refuses to comment on the tower or permit inspections creates frictions.
In the summer of 1996, two middle-school lads, Hiroki and Takuya, are working on their own homebuilt stealthy aircraft to take a visit to Hokkaido and inspect the tower. Their secret plan is uncovered by a pretty classmate named Sayuri. The two boys don't complete their aircraft and go their separate ways; Sayuri seems to abruptly disappear. A few years later, war between the Union and the US-allied Japan becomes imminent, bringing the three back together.
PLACE PROMISED is a "good news / bad news / good news" sort of production. The good news is that it is very pretty, utterly infused with sunlight and sunsets and cloudscapes and snowfall and contrails. The highly sentimental story certainly does not fall into the mode of sleaze and silliness that afflict much anime.
The bad news is that although PLACE PROMISED is downright memorable in places, overall it is weak, with a slow plot that seems to drift around the road, plus watery character design and development -- I had serious problems figuring out which character was which, something I don't have troubles with for other anime productions. The production is also rough in places.
The ultimate good news, however, is that Makoto Shinkai clearly has loads of talent. He has nothing to be embarrassed about over PLACE PROMISED, and if he can get on top of his aim -- coming up with plots with more depth and variation (some comedy relief would be really appreciated), bringing his characters fully to life -- he'll be one of the big stars of 21st-century anime. If you're looking for a great movie, PLACE PROMISED is not it, though it is very watchable; the true excitement in the work is in watching the emergence of a potential master. I'm looking forward to his next work.