Wow! Such a good movie.

Wonderful character development!

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Blistering performances.

For me the movie did not grip me at any moment. I watched through the minutes and as half the movie passed I still patiently waited for it to pick up. The very beginning part was somewhat interesting, it was developing characters, a plot, and an idea. By somewhat the middle of the movie the plot and the characters were lost. The movie jumped onto details irreverent to anything in the beginning. Such tactic really does throw off viewers but is not completely wrong if you build up on the idea properly. Throughout the movie you had fillers, small lines that made the movie much longer, and further from helping to keep the audience engaged. I honestly was at the coastline of the movie the whole time, I knew the idea and where the plot and movie was going, but the movie did put an effort in tying the audience emotionally to the screen. In conclusion, the movie had too many irrelevant details, lines, very loosely tied together, with very unorganized plot. It very much tried to be a movie like "Inception" or "Fight Club" but in my view it did fail in that category.

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

Makoto Shinkai is unique in his directing style in that he often places more focus on a character's inner thoughts rather than his or her dialogue and interacting with the environment. While this style has its own set of strengths and weaknesses, Shinkai uses it to his advantage to often show a emotion driven story. Such as is here in "The Place Promised in our Early Days." It is not a good as some of his other efforts, but it is still worth the watch nonetheless. The story is about three friends living in a alternate reality Japan. Japan has been split in have by America who controls the south and "the Union" controlling the north. There is a tower that goes beyond the clouds and the three friends make a promise to go fly up to it using a plane that they salvage and start to repair. One day, one of the friends disappear and story follows the other two friends and how they cope and ultimately try to find and help her. Like I said, the setting is in a alternate history and there are some science fiction influences in the world. However, it does not detract from the highlight which is he story. The first part of the story involves the three friends enjoying their summer. It is so genuine in terms of emotion and the bright lighting and beautiful drawn environments really brings the story to life. The character animations is not the best and the voice acting is OK at best, but the environments themselves are so beautiful that you'll easily forgive the previous complaints. Shinkai excels at portraying emotions of lost and isolation, especially when it involves old friends and lost lovers. It is no exception here. The main character is the most developed here as we hear his inner thoughts the most and his desire to see his lost friend again is interesting. As much as I like this movie, it is hard not to compare it to another Makoto Shinkai film, "5cm per Second." The reason I like that film better is because there was nothing that distracted the main story. It was clear and to the point with nothing distracting. Same can't be said for this movie. There is a lot of background here involving politics and a weird dream/ parallel universe science that gets convoluted and messy and at times, it can get distracting. That being said, if you want a movie with genuine emotion, this is not a bad watch. In a age where anime tends to focus less on story and more and cutesy hi jinks and everyday nonsense of high school students who can't get a girl, "The Place Promised in our Early Years" is a refreshing, emotional, and occasionally beautiful film that won't leave and tears in your eyes, but might leave you staring at the screen even after the credits start rolling.

For a movie that goes for 90 minutes to last my group of friends 120 minutes to watch one must think it's pretty awful.We paused the film many times to talk about what happened but still ended up finishing the movie with no clue.The story was very nicely written but was all over the place. For some reason Hokkaido had been taken over or something and a tower was built... Why??? don't ask me What happens??? I don't know... it was nice but not good,. I may be writing a critique about this film but it was so confusing do not know what to write about. It was just so hard...Watch it if you need to fall asleep.