PinkuBentoBox

Several years ago a relative newcomer to the anime scene, Makoto Shinkai, caused some massive waves in the industry when he released a short film entiled Hoshi no Koe (”Voices of a Distant Star”). This film was significant because, despite its extremely average character animation, it had lush CG and most importantly, it was the work of only the one man.

Shinkai’s latest work, Kumo no Mukou, Yakusoku no Basho (”Beyond the Clouds, The Promised Place” or officially “The Place Promised in Our Early Days”) takes the work he did in Voices and in every way refines it, creating one of the most impressive films I’ve experienced.

Like Voices, Beyond the Clouds relies heavily on its story. The story itself is quite simple, but the characters are fascinating and are a lot more dynamic than they were in voices as they can interact with each other directly.

The story is set in an alternate timeline, in which after losing World War II, Japan was divided. The “Union” took control of the island of Hokkaido, while the other islands south of there remained under the control of the United States. A mysterious tower was built in Hokkaido, stretching high into the sky - so high that it is visible from Aomori, the northernmost province of Honshu.

While in 9th grade, the main characters, Takuya, Hiroki and Sayuri make a promise one evening, that they will build an aircraft and fly to the tower to unlock its mysteries. However this is not to be as Sayuri is diagnosed with a rare sleeping disorder. She has to move to Tokyo in order to get treatment.

The scene in which the three make their promise is one of the most visually impressive scenes in the whole film. Sayuri puts her foot into the water, causing it to ripple gently. Then the shot opens out, and we see the Tsuguru straight between Honshu and Hokkaido, with the mountains in the background. A huge stormcloud is billowing down over the mountains, and we can see bolts of lightning lighting it up. Breathtaking visuals like this are pretty much the norm for the whole movie.

The story really begins to get into motion when Hiroki discovers that Sayuri has been in a hospital bed in a coma ever since the day that they made the promise. It’s clear that the Tower has something to do with this. Meanwhile Sayuri wanders her strange dream, as if in another world. Takyua, in the mean time, is working on researching devices that can affect parallel universes, of which the strange tower is one.

Eventually the two boys meet, and they decide that they must fulfil their promise, and somehow revive their friend by taking her to the tower, to the place they had promised they would go so many years before.

I think the defining moment in the whole movie was towards the end. It is visually and emotionally stunning. Hiroki stands beneath the aircraft that the boys have finally completed after their many years of work. It’s snowing outside, and the hangar they are in has glass on much of the cieling. The clouds part and the moonlight seeps in. Within the moonbeams you can see the shadows of the softly falling snow outside, looking a lot like ashes. Hiroki plays the violin, a tune that Sayuri had played for the two boys many years before, before she had fallen unconscious.

Aurally, the film is reasonably good. For the most part the voice acting is superb - Sayuri especially. She is voiced by Yuuka Nanri, who is probably best known for her singing voice. She regularly collaborates with Yuki Kajiura as part of ‘Fiction Junction’ - check out the insert track ‘Akatsuki no Kuruma’ from Gundam Seed, or any of the vocal pieces from Madlax. The one voice I really didn’t like was, unfortunately, Hiroki. He needed a little bit more expression. The music is once again by Tenmon, who did the incredibly emotive Voices of a Distant Star score. Beyond the Clouds’ score is one of the main highlights besides the lush visuals, managing to enhance and perfectly capture the mood desired.

The CG in this film is incredibly impressive. I’ve seen very few films with CG this flawless, and the anime I’ve seen to top it was Ghost in the Shell: Innocence. The difference here though as that the CG is still primarily by Makoto Shinkai, with some help from one other person (Takumi Tanji) where Innocence has a gigantic group of animators and artists. Truly a magnificent effort.

One of the weaker parts of Voices of a Distant Star was the character animation. Fantastic artist though he may be, Shinkai’s character style is a little lopsided and is overall nothing too incredible. For a short indie film like Voices it was sufficient, however Beyond the Clouds calls for a lot more character interaction and emotion. As such, Shinkai worked with friend Ushio Tazawa, who designed the characters and directed their animation. The result is very good. The character designs now are well rounded and appealing, but still have a little of that Shinkai charm. While they are very simple designs, around par for a high-end TV anime, it’s worth noting that Studio Ghibli also uses simplistic character designs.

It’s stunning to think that a film this well polished and beatiful, with such a strong story and excellent direction could have been the result of work by such a small core team. I may sound like I’m lavishing praise on it, but I’d rank Beyond the Clouds up with some of the all-round great animated films. A must see. Sadly, the film is still unlicensed, and only available in straight Japanese (which is what I watched). Hopefully a company like ADV will pick it up like they did with Voices of a Distant Star and give it the english-language subtitling job it so richly deserves.