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Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#1 Old 22nd Jul 2010 at 3:26 PM
Default The Place Promised in Our Early Days [Anime - 2005]
Hey guys, I know I'm 5 years delayed but I just got into anime (sort of) just recently. Anime never appealed to me but after watching the anime movie "The Place Promised in Our Early Days", that changed.

Anyway, what did you guys think about that movie if you've seen it?
If you haven't, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? It's really good.

Basically, there are these 2 guys (Hiroki Fujisawa and Takuya Shirakawa) and a girl (Sayuri Sawatari) who are in their teen years (nearly at the "young adult" age). The 2 guys were best friends with each other and had no one else, they develop a deep friendship with the girl. The 2 boys were also building a small two seat plane (which they started on before meeting Sayuri, I think). On the last day before spring break, one of Sayuri's friends, named Kana Matsuura confesses her attraction towards Takuya however he declines, Takuya then suggests that Hiroki should date Kana but Takuya declines because he is actually romantically attracted to Sakuri. The 3 teens (Hiroki, Takuya and Sayuri) promise each other that they will fly to the really tall tower (the Hokkaido Tower) across the sea (This is the promise, the promise they made in their early days to visit the land where the tower was). It's so tall that they could see it from other cities and areas far away. Before they do this, Sayuri mysteriously disappears without a word .

Three years later, the 2 boys stopped working on the plane due to the fact that they took different paths because of the grief that the disappearance of Sayuri caused them. Still in highschool, Takuya is working as a physicist due to his amazing intelligence.
Takuya and his co-workers find out that the Hokkaido Tower replaces matter within a 2km radius with matter from a parallel universe. Sayuri is then revealed to have been hospitalized over the past 3 years having an extreme case of narcolepsy which had her sleeping continuously for most of the past 3 years. Her mind was trapped in a parallel universe which was unpopulated, leaving her completely alone (I'd be so, so freaked out, wouldn't you?). One of Takuya's co-workers discovers that she is connected to their research but doesn't tell Takuya because Takuya was once so close to Sayuri. Mr Okabi (Takuya's boss from where he was working in the past, sorry I didn't tell you about him, I forgot all about him!) plans to bomb the Hokkaido Tower to incite war against the Union (I forgot to tell you about them to, I'll add details at the end of the post) in hopes of reuniting Japan. (There was a separation, he was separated from his family which leads him to the plan of bombing the Hokkaido Tower)

Hiroki has moved to Tokyo where he studies, he is still haunted by frequent dreams of Sayuri and suffers from Depression (He separated with his Best and only friend, Takuya and the girl he loved, Sayuri so duh), he remains lonely and miserable.
Soon, a letter written by Sayuri before she went into her long three year coma reaches Hiroki (I think she wrote it in 1997, he received it in March, 2000, about bloody time!). It gives Hiroki a lead to go looking for Sayuri, he ends up at a hospital, asks the nurse were Sayuri is. The nurse tells him that she was transferred to another hospital (aka the research lab ), Hiroki then asks the nurse where Sayuri's room was before she was transferred. The nurse takes him to the room and departs back to her counter. As soon as Hiroki enters the room Sayuri was previously in, he enters a brief dream (or maybe he stepped into the parallel universe Sayuri's mind was in, I got confused there). Hiroki and Sayuri manage to make brief contact, Hiroki is then put back into the real world (well, the anime world) where he realizes that the only way to wake Sayuri up is to take her body to the land promised in their early days (which was the promise to fly over to the tower).

Tensions grow between the Alliance (US&Japan) and the Union (Soviet Russia I think), a war is about to break lose. It becomes obvious that the Union is trying to use the tower as weapon to replace the whole world with matter from other universes. The only thing from preventing the tower from activating is Sayuri's coma. (The closer she comes to awakening, the more earth the tower will replace with matter from other universes). This forces Hiroki and Takuya to decide between saving Sayuri, or saving the world. They have a fight and Takuya tries to destroy the plane but Hiroki convinces Takuya that Sayuri is worth risking the world for.

Takuya then steals the body of Sayuri and takes it back to Hiroki, the two finish the plane together and then Takuya gives the bomb to Hiroki, instructing him to fly 10kms away from the tower and launch the missile after Sayuri has awoken. Hiroki takes Sayuri to the tower using the plane they just finished, Sayuri tries to get in touch with Hiroki while still trapped because she realizes that she will lose all the memories from the past 3 years, including the love she developed from Hiroki when she wakes up.

She fails attempting to get in touch with Hiroki and wakes up on the plane, all her memories from her dreams are gone, she has unknowingly lost her love for Hiroki as well. Hiroki then flies back 10km and fires the missile, the area of earth being replaced increases quickly (because Sayuri is completely awake), the tower is destroyed however the matter replaced remains.

The movie ends with Hiroki vowing to Sayuri that they will start their relationship all over again.

Yeah, if I stopped making sense half way through (which I do sometimes), click here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pl..._Our_Early_Days

Anyways, I really liked this movie. If you haven't seen it, watch it!
If you have seen it, tell me what you thought about it!

Heres what I have to say about the movie:
I loved it, it was great, really entertaining and the story was quite nice. It felt really short (it ran for 90 minutes, I'm used to 2-3 hour movies) and the ending just killed my life! She lost all her love for him and memories, I hate it when love goes away and you have to start fresh!
Overall, I think the movie was great and is definitely worth watching!

If you're still having trouble making up your mind if you want to watch it or not, heres a sample:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huRNoXHQmX8

EDIT: Heres some extra details!

The Union - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Union

The Alliance (Info from Wikipedia) - By the 1990s when the story begins, the U.S. occupation of southern Japan has ended, and the two nations have formed a pact called the Alliance. Hokkaido remains under the control of the Union; contact between the North and the South is all but suspended; and border clashes are common. An underground group committed to reunifying Japan known as the Uilta Liberation Front exists in the South. Covertly supported by some Alliance government officials, it makes incursions into and executes attacks on Union territory.

You love me, I love you to :)
http://www.youtube.com/user/hssdamian <3
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