A girl descends into an underground world and learns that some people you love are already gone, you just haven't finished saying goodbye. The animation doesn't just show you this, it feels like loss, every frame colored in the specific loneliness of knowing something beautiful can't stay. Makoto Shinkai builds a movie where the real journey isn't finding a lost civilization, it's learning to let one go, and by the end you'll understand why that costs everything.

Asuna Watase is a top student who keeps the house running alone while her mother is away. Her only escape is the crystal radio that belonged to her late father, which she listens to at her secret hideout in the mountains. One day it picks up a strange, sorrowful melody unlike anything she has heard. Soon afterward a monstrous creature attacks her, and a mysterious boy named Shun saves her. The encounter draws her into a centuries-old mystery and a long journey to a lost land deep beneath the Earth, pursued by a relentless enemy. The film is a fantasy adventure with drama and romance, and along the way Asuna faces a parting and sees both the cruelty and the beauty of the world.