I first heard of director Shinkai Makoto through a brief mention of his work in Asia Pacific Arts’ Best of 2007: Asian Film roundup. I do not usually find anime recommendations over at APA, which made this mention worth investigating, so I added Shinkai’s work to my Netflix queue. I started with Shinkai’s most recent work, 2007’s 5 Centimeters Per Second, then jumped back to Voices of a Distant Star, the early short film that Shinkai created all on his own, just one man with his laptop. And finally, I’ve just finished watching The Place Promised in Our Early Days, and it’s edged out 5 Centimeters Per Second as my favorite of Shinkai’s works.

Like Voices of a Distant Star, The Place Promised in Our Early Days is a work of science fiction. It takes place in an alternate history where Hokkaido has separated from the rest of Japan and is part of a political power known only as the Union, while the southern part of Japan is controlled by the United States. The Union has built a mysterious tower that reaches high into the heavens; as political tensions grow between the Union and Japan, the tower becomes the focus of childhood dreams, scientific research, and terrorist plots.

Middle schoolers Hiroki and Takuya are two best friends growing up in Aomori Prefecture in northern Japan, just across the water from the Union, and the tower is an ever-present part of the landscape of their lives. Together they are building an airplane, the Bella Ciela, and their goal is to fly across the water to the tower to see what it is for themselves. Both boys are drawn to one of their classmates, Sayuri, a sweet smart girl who plays the violin and has strange dreams. Eventually the boys include Sayuri in their friendship and their secret, and they promise that she can fly with them to the tower.

But when Sayuri inexplicably disappears from their lives, Hiroki and Takuya abandon their project and go their separate ways. Three years later, as the Union and Japan hurtle toward a major war, Hiroki learns that Sayuri didn’t disappear of her own volition: she developed a strange sleeping sickness that seems to be linked to the Union’s tower. And to wake Sayuri up, Hiroki is going to need the help of his old friend.

This may sound like a lot of plot for a ninety minute anime, and in many ways it is. The premise of this work, while fascinating, is not its strongest point; the plot’s logic is occasionally shaky, and the overall sequence of events can be difficult to follow as it takes viewers through several years in the characters’ lives. Fortunately, the anime has other charms: namely its mood, its scenery, and its score.

As William Hong discusses in his excellent review of 5 Centimeters Per Second, all of Shinkai’s work is deeply concerned with the role of distance in relationships. In The Place Promised in Our Early Days, this can be seen in the changing friendship of Hiroki and Takuya, and Hiroki’s longing for Sayuri years after she’s disappeared from his life. What remains of a friendship after two parties have chosen separate paths? How much does first love matter when you’ve grown up? The anime doesn’t pretend to offer easy answers to those questions, but it succeeds in capturing the feel of the small moments that make up childhoods and relationships, like train rides from school, part-time jobs during vacation, and awkward conversations with the object of your affections. The anime’s ending is not surprising, but it is still moving.

The animation is amazing. Shinkai, as I mentioned briefly earlier, first came to prominence on the anime scene with Voices of a Distant Star, a thirty-minute science fiction anime that he created by himself on his Mac. That anime is already visually stunning, but The Place Promised in Our Early Days shows what Shinkai can do with trusted staff and a bigger budget. While the character designs are a bit pedestrian (though not so bad as to be distracting), the background scenery is incredibly detailed, especially in its use of light. There’s once scene where two of the characters are on a train, and tiny points of light move along the metal fittings of the train (the support poles, the roof, the window frames) as the train moves through the countryside. It’s such a little detail, but oh-so-real to anyone whose spent some time traveling on trains themselves.

I don’t want to steal screencaps from another blog, so I’ll point you toward a post that has a few good samples instead.

Last of all, there’s the score by Tenmon. For me, it’s not quite at the level of the great work done by Yoko Kanno in anime series like Cowboy Bebop and The Vision of Escaflowne, but it’s still very well done. Tenmon’s work here (and in other of Shinkai’s anime) plays a key role in establishing the emotional mood of the piece. The theme Sayuri plays on her violin and the ending song that plays over the credits are particularly memorable.

Now that I’ve seen all of Shinkai’s work that is available, I am eagerly awaiting his next project. His productions continue to get more and more beautiful; the animation in 5 Centimeters Per Second is even more gorgeous than that found in The Place Promised in Our Early Days. If Shinkai’s plots ever come together just tiny bit better, I think anime fans can stop talking about Shinkai as the next Miyazaki and start wondering who will be the next Shinkai.

Notes

The Region 1 dvd from ADV has some meaty extras for fans: interviews with the Japanese language voice actors for the three central characters and a long interview with director Shinkai himself. The Shinkai interview shows some of the work that goes into creating the distinct look and feel of his anime by showing reference photographs of certain settings and the subsequent animated versions.

Grade

A-