Place Promised in our early days (2004) // Voices of a distant Star(2002)

So after seeing a trailer for a new Makoto Shinkai film, i figured i should check out the rest of his stuff, I was sort of looking forward to tear jerkers from both of these but neither really did it...

The Place promised in our early days (2004)

So I had already seen 5cm per second, and heard this was sort of similar, hearing this... I was pretty terrified to watch the film, 5cm per second was depressing to the core, I dont mind sad but... sheez.
Anyway. So in Makoto Shinkai fashion, the films visuals are fantastic, easily better than the average ghibli film, the film also had a very powerful score to go with the emotions in the film, the film itself however - for me anyway, was a total bore....

Synopsis here :
In 1996, three teenagers, Hiroki, Takuya and Sayuri, make a pact—they will build an experimental aircraft, almost invisible to surveillance, cross over to Hokkaido and unlock the secrets of the tower. Their dream was never realized, because Sayuri was sent to Tokyo for treatment after she fell into a coma. It is now three years later. The rosy illusions of youth have fallen away, but not the unbreakable strength of the trio’s promise. The truth of the tower will be uncovered, and with it, the link between it and Sayuri’s mysterious, carefully tended condition.

While I know for this sort of film its important to build on the characters and spend lots of time on the characters relationships with each other, its basically the entirely of the film, very very little seems to occur, the pacing was just too damn slow, and then the climax of the film is depressingly underwhelming  after waiting 80 minutes for it...
Just not for me I guess, It has a very high rating on aniDB so im sure its just a taste thing, I'd say the film was mediocre but then I get bored pretty easily, and I did just watch Aachi and Ssipak the other day (review of which coming soon)
6/10

Voices of a distant Star (2002)

VOADS isnt a proper film, but a 25 minute OVA, despite this, it manages to achieve about the same emotional impact as The Place promised... (above) which ran 90 minutes.
The film tells of a couple seperated by space, with one of them flying deeper into outer space as a gundam pilot or some shit, they try to communicate by mail but the distance between them results in messages taking longer and longer to arrive...
The film gets its point across well enough, and manages to do so without amazing visuals and music, sort of proving that a good story is way more important than the former. Its a good watch for 25 minutes and I recommend it if you feel like watching something a little depressing.. You all love watching depressing stuff right?

85/100

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And heres the teaser trailer thing for the next film that the director is doing....

'Children who chase lost voices from deep below' - which im pretty sure is a completely different title from its japanese counterpart 'Hoshi wo Ou Kodomo'