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[Blimblim]

After quite a long wait and a lot of delays, Makoto Shinkai has finally delivered his first full length movie, Beyond the Clouds (aka The place promised in our early days). I've had the DVD on order since a few days on cdjapan, but a fansub group released it a few hours ago so I've finally seen it.
You may or may not know Makoto Shinkai, but a few years ago he released a 20 minutes anime called Hoshi no Koe (voices of a distant star), that he did completely alone except for the music. He wrote the script, did the drawings and CGs, and even did a first version with him and his girlfriend as the voice actors. That short movie was so amazing visually he won a lot of prizes and managed to hire professional seiyuu for a final version. I loved this anime so much I bought the DVD after seeing the fansub, even if I do not understand japanese.
I was really anticipating the release of this movie, and watched in awe all 3 trailers released. Shinkai has a very personal way to use colors, I love how every nuance is used to create such moody and beautiful scenaries. Now that I've seen the full movie, I'm even more impressed. Such a beautiful movie, with an very good story to go with it. You can see that this time Shinkai did have a correct budget for a full length feature, but of course nothing on the level of the biggest animated japanese movies. I don't want to spoil anything, so I'm hosting the latest 2 trailers of the movie (subbed) on my site :
http://media2.xboxyde.com/clouds/Triad_Beyond_the_Clouds_Pilot_02.avi
http://media2.xboxyde.com/clouds/Triad_Beyond_the_Clouds_Pilot_03.avi
And a few images

 

[FnordChan]

It's about goddamned time. Glad to hear it lives up to Hoshi no Koe!

FnordChan, who will be watching this posthaste

 

[Blimblim]

It's about goddamned time. Glad to hear it lives up to Hoshi no Koe!

Yeah I'm so happy Shinkai managed to recreate the HnK experience in a full length movie. This guy has some serious talent. I really hope the dvd will sell well.

 

[Drexon]

32 minutes left. 1.4 freaking gigs! But DAMN! I have to sleep in.. oh, 32 minutes, and then go to work, and then have my friends over and THEN finally get to watch it.

 

[Crazymoogle]

Yeah I'm so happy Shinkai managed to recreate the HnK experience in a full length movie. This guy has some serious talent. I really hope the dvd will sell well.

Didn't he hire a couple of assistants this time around? I mean, it's still pretty miraculous in terms of manpower versus output, but I thought there was some brief report mentioning he actually had a couple of staff members for Beyond the Clouds.

 

[Smiles and Cries]

7 days to download slow as hell

 

[Luscious LeftFoot]

Acquired it last night, I'll watch it this weekend.

 

[Jason]

Utterly, utterly fantastic movie. Music, visuals, animation etc. etc. were all top notch. I'll definitely grab it if/when it hits R1.

 

[Blimblim]

Utterly, utterly fantastic movie. Music, visuals, animation etc. etc. were all top notch. I'll definitely grab it if/when it hits R1.

I've just learned it's already been licensed for the US, so the wait shouldn't be long. I sure will buy it as well

 

[Bebpo]

Didn't he hire a couple of assistants this time around? I mean, it's still pretty miraculous in terms of manpower versus output, but I thought there was some brief report mentioning he actually had a couple of staff members for Beyond the Clouds.

Yea he didn't actually do the animation this time, but rather hired a team to do it. Still did the story boards, writing, directing, etc... but the manpower of actually animating it was left to the workers.

 

[Bebpo]

Utterly, utterly fantastic movie. Music, visuals, animation etc. etc. were all top notch. I'll definitely grab it if/when it hits R1.

Yea, it's just too bad the story is pretty weak and reads like a high school kid's creative writing piece.

Still I agree it's a great movie, but I think he needs to stick to short films or hire a scriptwriter.

 

[Blimblim]

Yea he didn't actually do the animation this time, but rather hired a team to do it. Still did the story boards, writing, directing, etc... but the manpower of actually animating it was left to the workers.

If you watch the credits you will see he also did some backgrounds and animations. Not much I guess. There are about 30-40 people credited for the movie, even some from Xebec.

 

[Cloudy]

I thought it was fantastic. I'd have liked a bit more fleshing out instead of the fade-to-black between scenes but overall it was awesome. Unlike "Voices of a distant star", you actually give a damn about what happens to the characters in the end since the thing isn't like 20 minutes long :lol

When is this out here?

 

[Meier]

I gotta wait till I can burn some DVDs of older series before I can spare the space on this.. but definitely looking forward to seeing it one of these days.

 

[MetatronM]

I finally got time to watch this. That was tremendous. I MUST have this on DVD.

 

[Pellham]

Well it is high school kids fantasy stuff, but that doesn't mean it's a weak story. I found it very entertaining and sentimental.

 

[slayn]

eh, I wasn't overly impressed. It was nice visually, and I liked the violin song.

The story was too... subdued I guess.

There wasn't enough substance there to really flesh out a movie and fill it with emotion. This felt like an interesting short story being stretched out to its absolute limits without trying to focus on any extra ideas to fill up the slow areas.

Spoiler

He should have done a lot more with the conflict between the two boys 3/4 of the way through. That could have gone a number of interesting ways but it took the most simplistic and most boring. (I'm terrible with names, especially those not of my own language). Whats more, they bring up the idea of choosing between the girl and the world solely to introduce this tension but then never go anywhere with it What was the point?

 

[Smiles and Cries]

I did watch it but I did hit stop half-way through (I was sleepy)

I did notice that the LIGHT EFFECTS wow...

but the story meh so I never went back to see the ending maybe when I'm bored

 

[bloke]

Haven't seen it yet, but I've heard director already apologized to viewers cause he thought movie wasn't very good or something, talk about modesty.

 

[LusDekkar]

I saw a few trailers for this in japan.. I've been waiting for this, i didn't know that english title was beyond the clouds, why didn't he stick with "the place promised in our early days"?

Anyawys looking forward to it

 

[Doom_Bringer]

Thanks for the pics and clips, looks really cool!

 

[Orin GA]

Just saw it. Dear Sweet God Ive never EVER been so fucking bored and Ive seen Ecks Vs Server!!!!!! . Yeah the visuals are nice but no amount of visuals make up for the confusing, drawn out, weak ass story.


MORE LIKE

BEYOND THE FLOP

AM I RITE FOLKS

Haven't seen it yet, but I've heard director already apologized to viewers cause he thought movie wasn't very good or something, talk about modesty.

No, not modesty. It really fucking sucked

 

[NetMapel]

I thought it was pretty good, and love the violin scenes I do not really like the girl though... too weak and stuff in my opinion.

 

[speedpop]

I grabbed this about a week or so ago and still haven't watched it. I guess I just want to be in the right mood for it to appreciate it a bit more. I have, however, gone through the soundtrack and Tenmon rocks yet again.

 

[RobotChant]

I saw it the other day and I'm very very impressed. It drags a bit when they break the formula and went into lengthy talking scenes.

Parts of the story didn't work for me, but that can be overlooked since it's such a gorgeous movie to look at.

 

[Crow]

Is this legal to download? if so could someone please post the direct link to the torrent as http://a.scarywater.net/triad seems to be down and I haven't seen any other torrents.

Thanks in advance.

 

[MetatronM]

ALL fansubs are illegal to download. So no, it's not legal.