Film
The Place Promised in Our Early Days
A 90-minute anime film set in alternate-history post-war Japan, divided between Soviet and American control. Three teenagers promise to build a plane and reach a mysterious tower in the forbidden north. It's a dreamlike story about growing up, impossible love, and the weight of childhood promises—melancholic and visually lush, for anyone moved by sci-fi tinged with genuine emotional vulnerability.
Should you watch it?
Watch it if you love animation that makes a big political map feel small and personal, where a wistful teenage promise matters more than the war behind it, and lingering skies do the talking.
Skip it if you need your sci-fi to explain itself, since the mysteries stay deliberately vague and the teenage longing can feel repetitive across its hushed, unhurried stretches.
What it asks of you: Expect a lean ninety minutes that drifts between hushed, lonely stretches and bursts of big-sky spectacle, so you will need to sit with quiet and let the mood do the work.
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