Entotsu Machi no Poupelle: Yakusoku no Tokei-dai

Growing up in a town so choked with chimney smoke that nobody believes stars exist, Lubicchi has always known a different kind of sky. In the first movie, he and a trash golem named Poupelle proved everyone wrong. Now, in this sequel, Lubicchi gets pulled into a strange world where time itself is stuck at one minute to midnight. No Poupelle by his side, just a broken clock tower and a bitter old man carrying the weight of a promise he never kept. To get home, Lubicchi has to figure out how to make time move again — which turns out to be less about mechanics and more about what people owe each other. Studio 4°C is behind the animation here, and if you know their work, you know they don't do things the conventional way. The visuals lean into this steampunk-fantasy hybrid that feels handcrafted and a little eerie, like walking through a snow globe someone forgot to shake. The soundtrack does a lot of heavy lifting too — quiet moments hit harder than they should. If you liked the world-building in Made in Abyss or the feeling of a kid navigating a strange adult world like in Spirited Away, this sits in that same space. There's also a bit of The Boy and the Beast in the unlikely bond between Lubicchi and the old man. It's a movie about time, grief, and keeping your word, wrapped in a fantasy adventure that doesn't talk down to you. Based on Akihiro Nishino's picture book, and it carries that storybook weight throughout.