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.