The Place Promised in Our Early Days (2004) on Netflix
TV-PG20041h 30mAnimationDramaRomance
In a divided postwar Japan, Hiroki Fujisawa and Takuya Shirakawa rebuild a crashed drone plane, and with Sayuri Sawatari they promise to fly it to the tower in Union-held Hokkaido.
- Netflix3.5/5
- IMDb6.8/1016,349 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes71%
Trailer
Plot summary
After a second world war, Japan is divided: the Union rules Hokkaido, called Ezo, while the United States holds the southern islands. A tower of unknown purpose, designed by the scientist Ekusun Tsukinoe, has stood on Hokkaido since 1974, and it can be seen from Aomori on the far side of the Tsugaru Strait. In 1996, three ninth graders in Aomori become friends: Hiroki Fujisawa and Takuya Shirakawa, both gifted, and Sayuri Sawatari. The boys recover a wrecked military drone aircraft and, at the plant where Mr. Okabe is their boss, set about rebuilding it as a plane. The three of them promise to cross the strait in it, to reach the tower and learn what it is.
Cast
- Yûki Nakaoas Joshi Seito
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Place Promised in Our Early Days (2004)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Makoto Shinkai's feature debut was a full-scale production, unlike his earlier short Voices of a Distant Star, which he made largely on his own; the larger effort shows in the animation quality and the longer running time.
- The poem Sayuri recites in class comes from the collection of the Japanese writer Kenji Miyazawa (1896–1933), who wrote it on the occasion of the premature death of his sister in 1922.
