{"id":1071,"date":"2013-03-19T19:12:24","date_gmt":"2013-03-20T01:12:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/animationrevelation.com\/readables\/?p=1071"},"modified":"2026-07-17T09:30:25","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T15:30:25","slug":"global-shinkai-day-movie-marathon-part-2-the-place-promised-in-our-early-days-2004-daemoncorps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/animationrevelation.com\/readables\/?p=1071","title":{"rendered":"Global Shinkai Day Movie Marathon part 2: The Place Promised in Our Early Days (2004)"},"content":{"rendered":"

I liked Voices of a Distant Star<\/em>. It was the first Makoto Shinkai work I watched, and considering it was less than half an hour long, I think it was able to make the most of every minute it was allotted. Details and backstory that established the OVA\u2019s world were given second seat to the characters due to its time constraints, and for the most part, I\u2019d say it was the right call. The Place Promised in Our Early Days<\/em> takes a similar concept, but in the wrong direction.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Doing a quick skim through posters of Shinkai\u2019s works, The Place Promised in Our Early Days<\/em> looked to be the most interesting of the bunch. Main couple playing the violin, an open meadow, complimentary colors, and a long yet intriguing title… I honestly thought this movie was going to be my favorite of the available Shinkai movies. And then I watched it.<\/p>\n

Clocking in at around an hour and a half, the movie essentially took what made Voices of a Distant Star<\/em> interesting, and made them not so interesting. In Voices<\/em>, the intrigue of the short taking place on a fictional Earth in the midst of an intergalactic war was that the actual war itself was kept rather vague. It made for a foreboding type of feel, like you were always on your toes because you weren\u2019t exactly sure what the war would mean for the main characters. The Place Promised in Our Early Days<\/em> takes a similar approach to explaining the setting of its own world, except it just came off as an incredible slog to get through.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s something going on with Japan being separated and occupied by the US and \u201cthe Union\u201d… something about a massive tower with a purpose that nobody\u2019s exactly sure about… it\u2019s all kept very vague, and even when things get clarified by the movie\u2019s end, it\u2019s not exactly done so for the best. While Voices<\/em> was short enough that I was willing to accept any explanation (or lack thereof), Early Days<\/em> is clearly long enough for a proper explanation to be given and thus better establish the story from the get-go, and yet for some reason, viewers are still left in the dark until the final act when I\u2019m too bored to pay attention anymore.<\/p>\n

The cast is equally boring to watch. You\u2019re introduced to main guys Hiroki and Takuya in their early teens, with main girl Sayuri introduced shortly after. With there being two male leads, you\u2019d think there\u2019d be some kind of love triangle involved. However, Takuya ends up being yet another means to poorly explain the political problems their world is currently undergoing, while the real couple to root for without any doubts is Hiroki and Sayuri. You find that Hiroki and Takuya are building a plane, while Sayuri, being as useful as most love interests, is just there for the ride.<\/p>\n

Three years pass, and the trio has gone their separate ways. And as current political events start to reach disastrous proportions, bits of science fiction begin to work their way into the story, only further complicating the plot. While all the political talk at least made an effort of giving a direction to the movie, most of that is undone when the sci-fi talk is introduced, leading to viewers asking just why certain things have to happen that way, and why characters act the way they do.<\/p>\n

By the end of the movie, the plot has become a convoluted mess that even the somewhat endearing-ness of the movies\u2019 main couple and at times poignant soundtrack can\u2019t fix.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I liked Voices of a Distant Star. It was the first Makoto Shinkai work I watched, and considering it was less than half an hour long, I think it was able to make the most of every minute it was allotted. Details and backstory that established the OVA\u2019s world were given second seat to the characters due to its time constraints, and for the most part, I\u2019d say it was the right call. The Place Promised in Our Early Days…<\/p>\n

Read More Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[16,35,39,38],"class_list":["post-1071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-anime","tag-makoto-shinkai","tag-movie","tag-the-place-promised-in-our-early-days"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/animationrevelation.com\/readables\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/animationrevelation.com\/readables\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/animationrevelation.com\/readables\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/animationrevelation.com\/readables\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/animationrevelation.com\/readables\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1071"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/animationrevelation.com\/readables\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1071\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7693,"href":"https:\/\/animationrevelation.com\/readables\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1071\/revisions\/7693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/animationrevelation.com\/readables\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/animationrevelation.com\/readables\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/animationrevelation.com\/readables\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}