Now And Then Here And Now (DVD)

A boy with an indefatigable sense of optimism and hope, Shu is like any other teenage boy in Japan. On his way home from kendo practice he sees a beautiful girl with strange eyes atop an abandoned smokestack. Just as he tries to talk to her assailants appear on snakelike machines to kidnap her. Shu is inadvertently dragged through time ten million years into a bleak dessert future and the grounded warship Hellywood.

The girl is Lala Ru, an entity capable of producing and controlling water, but at the cost of her life. The despotic dictator King Hamdo is hell bent on using Lala Ru’s powers to propel Hellywood back into the sky and exert his will over the entire Earth.

Can Shu’s undefeatable optimism and courage win against a world with no hope for a better future?

Both mature and dark, and beautiful and inspiring at the same time Now and Then, Here and There unflinchingly portrays the horrible realities of war and the innocence it destroys. Shakespearean in its tragedy this is one of the most thought provoking animes ever made. Brilliant design and animation and a superb score drive this series home as a story that will never leave you.