Makoto Shinkai got recognized after his success with his indpendent short film "Voices of a Distant Star" in 2002. That success propelled him to make his first feature length film called "The Place Promised in Our Early Days" in 2004. He's a (otaku's) household name now, but at the time he was still learning the craft of storytelling. As such, "The Place" is probably his weakest film, but has some bold ideas, and fans can see themes that would carry onwards to future projects.The story takes place in the near alternate future, and can roughly be cut into three acts. The first shows three children: two smart boys in Hiroki and Takuya, and a girl they befriend named Sayuri. The boys dream of making aircraft that can fly them to the infinite tower in the distance. Years later, Sayuri disappeared, which we learn later was due to her being trapped in a coma. The boys have grown up and gone their separate ways, one working for the military that controls that mysterious tower, and the other trying to fullfill that promise he made to her all those years ago. All of Shinkai's films have a similar theme of characters trying to connect to each other across impossible situations, be it time or space. In this case, it's alternate dimensions. We learn that this mysterious tower is actually a government sponsored research project to connect to other universes, and that it is coming close to collapsing and destroying the planet, with only Sayuri's comatose state keeping it under control. Later, we... wait a minute... what?!?! This story is really heavy in its science fiction. This could be good in a few ways, and "The Place" does offer some unique and interesting ideas for the genre. But almost all of this is through telling and not showing, breaking one of the biggest rules of filmmaking, and it shows. Further, Shinkai tends to rely on love stories and meloncholy, so about fifty percent of this film is of beautiful sunsets, falling snow, and unfullfilled promises of love made between children. This does not mix well with the ambitious but flawed story. Which is not to say it fails entirely. I still found myself fascinated by the love triangle of the main characters, and was curious to see how it played out. The animation and art comes across is a similar manner to the story; it has some beautiful, colorful and detailed scenery, a staple of Shinkai's future productions. However, the character designs and animation is clearly limited, something that would be improved in later years. Despite the larger budget, it is only barely an improvement over Shinkai's debut short "Voices of a Distant Star," even though that was originally done entirely by Shinkai alone. 
The movie was released in the USA, but the home video release has since gone out of print. The best I could find was a Chinese Bluray copy, which seemed ligitimate. Only a couple of odd English-subtitle translations and some color banding occurred, otherwise it was a hgh-quality experience. An English dub does exist, but unfortunately this Chinese release had no such option. The Japanese voices perform well, and in a dialogue-heavy film, that's a good thing.It is unfotrunate and confusing that the film isn't easily available for the US market. True, it probably isn't worth seeing compared to his other works, but Shinkai's fans will want to see this at least once to see the evolution of his craft. And if you have never seen any of his films, or like the idea of a sci-fi romance, this might surprise you enough to seek out more.UPDATE: By chance, I came across a copy of ADV's DVD dual-release of "The Place Promised in Our Early Days" and "Voices of a Distant Star," brand new, for a reasonable price. After taking a moment to sample the English dub, I found it to be as expected, similar to "Distant Star" and "5 centimeters per second." Like those, the dialogue is often whispered and melancholy, the type of writing that would come across much better in a book rather than out loud. To its credit, the cast tries to make the characters feel real within the script's constraints. Otherwise, the DVD's visual quality was acceptable, but the Bluray was enough of an upgrade to be the recommended format of the two, even if that means only Japanese audio and a Chinese Bluray case.