The place promised in our early years

Makoto Shinkai's Kumo no Mukou, Yakusoku no Basho is a film for dreamers, both figuratively and literally.

In an alternate reality, Japan is divided by American and "Union" factions by a giant tower that reaches into the sky. One summer, two boys and a girl make a pact to build a plane and fly it to the tower. Several years later, the girl lies in a hospital, asleep since that summer. One of the boys now works for the government and attempts to prevent the tower, now realized as a weapon, from replacing the area around it with a parallel universe. The other, the protagonist, is lost until he is visited in his dreams by the girl. He then takes on the mission to fulfill the promise he once made.

This is a gorgeous film. Now with a staff and a budget, this film is more ambitious than Voices of a Distant Star. Both films have some similar themes and share a heartfelt romanticism lacking from many animated works. In a lot of anime, romance is aplot device for the sci-fi; with Shinkai's films, it's the other way around. I don't think Kumo no Mukuo is as good as Voices, neither in content nor in concept, but it's still a tremendous effort worthy of your time and money.

Shinkai's star is definitely on the rise. He's up there with Satoshi Kon and Shinichiro Watanabe in terms of anime directors to watch.