The Place Promised in Our Early Days (2004)

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The feature film debut from Makoto Shinkai, the acclaimed director of Weathering With You and Your Name., is a haunting and beautiful story of friendship and loss, with stunning visuals and the emotional approach to science-fiction that would become the director's trademark. In an alternate post-war Japan, three teenagers become obsessed with a mysterious tower across the Union border, which reaches far into the sky. Hiroki and Takuya work on a makeshift airplane, which they promise their friend Sayuri they will use to visit the tower together someday, but she disappears before it is completed. Several years later, the tower suddenly activates, starting a phenomenon that threatens the world. And the young men now discover their long-lost friend Sayuri may hold the key to it all.