This movie shows the love between a boy and a girl, who are not only separated by distance but also time. A masterpiece by Makoto Shinkai.
When a strange alien force called Tarsians attacks, of which nothing is specified, some specified individuals are chosen to commander battle robots aboard human spaceships to battle the aliens. The girl Nagamine, who wishes to participate in the battle gets selected, and she comes out to be the topper of the batch. The boy Norobu on the other hand gets onto ground duty on Earth. Both get separated by distance. Since the technology not being so efficient every message that Nagamine sends takes 6 months to reach Norobu for the distance.
All during every battle all she wishes is to be with Norobu back again on Earth. Once during a battle when the human UN Forces are heavily outnumbered, they flee some light years away on some course. Then she comes to know that now they will take a course from which it will take nearly 8 years 6 months for every message of her to reach Norobu, and mails him the same. Though Norobu knows that he won't, in fact can't get mails from her everyday, still checks everyday. All during the travel since she travels at lightspeed, Nagamine still remains 15, the age when she left Earth but Norobu ages. Time comes when Norobu doesn't actually check mail for an year. Yet a day he receives a message, it says "Happy 24th birthday." The rest of the message is lost. It shows how much she cares about him.
She enters another solar system, with many UN forces, but they encounter very large alien force, which takes away all the UN ships except one big one Lysithea. Even though her already loses one arm she goes to defend it. She destroys the remaining one big alien ship and other ships, and her battle robot also loses energy. It is shown that everything blows out and only she in her damaged robot is drifting away. All during the battle both Nagamine and Norobu think, that thought can go beyond distance and time, and if its true even to be with each other for one moment, to experience the memories they had, going to school, walking pasts roads at night, even just for a moment, what would they think, what would the other think. Both think "I am here" and she drifts away all alone into to the infinite space with nothing.
The ending is very nice, though some people didn't like it and wanted more precise ending. I liked it. It was like she is still 15 years old, still thinks of him. Even knowing that all has ended for her, thinks of him with images in her mind, says to herself "I am here", something she wanted to say to him, and drifts away into the infinite space.
A very nice movie with very strong emotions and a very sad and emotional ending.
Greatness, everything fits in 25 minutes of its running time. One of my favorites.
