The multiplicities of empire and the libidinal economy in Makoto Shinkai's Th…

This article places Makoto Shinkai's Kumo no muko, yakusoku no basho (The Place Promised in Our Early Days; Japan 2004) within the context of Lyotard's libidinal economy and the desire-laden structures of empire. The film's unstable narrative frame, its alternate history context and its focus on the dual figures of Sayuri and the Tower as metaphors and objects of colonial conquest are explorati…