http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Place_Promised_in...
(Lazy link here)

Great anime movie. I loved it. I bought the DVD today so I could show my parents. That's all beside the point. The interesting thing about this movie is that the plane the two main male characters are building is called the "Bela Cielo" - At first I thought it was just slaughtered italian (I'm getting used to the fact that the only languages anime characters are fluent in are Japanese, German and English). However then I started thinking that it was funny the way they used the Esperanto way of adjective agreement (e.g. not agreeing according to latin grammar rules).
Then today when I reread the DVD's blurb as I was about to buy it for keeps, I noticed that "Bela Cielo" was spelt "Bela Ĉielo" - that's right, that crazy accent mark that is pretty much out of place in the European language world. But internet searches yield nothing about the director Shinkai Makoto (US order: Makoto Shinkai) being an Esperantist, and there seems to be nothing connecting the the movie with Esperanto - it's as if they are from two different dimensions! But I can't believe that "Bela Cxielo" could be anything else other than Esperanto because even Australians trying to be fancy and cultural can still get the adjective agreement right in Italian
So anyone heard anything about this or am I alone here?

That Wikipedia page says Bella Ciela in two places... here's your chance to make a couple of corrections! (If you're not a vikipediisto, remind me to fix it!)

Only thing I found on the Web related to this was a post by Don Harlow on the per-esperanto-SF mailing list a few years ago; he had noticed the name too.

If we can verify that it is indeed Esperanto and not just some coincidence, then this would also be an opportunity to link that page to the Esperanto page. ([[Esperanto]] for Beautiful Sky (Heaven?)) Every little link helps to advertise!

I would assume that Bela Ĉielo is the translation of the Japanese name... or was it Bela Ĉielo in the original? Perhaps it was the translator who snuck in a bit of Esperanto.

Here's an interesting page:

http://members.iinet.net.au/~kleung1/kumo/r1.html ...

Going back a bit into the film, you can see the "official" translation of the plane name. The fan base of Japan and also the fansubs (as well as myself) had translated the name as "Velaciela", which in my opinion was quite elegant. "Bella Ciela" has a much more robust feel to it, as well as looking quite Italian. Using hybrid European linguistics, this name could roughly mean "Beautiful Sky". Image12.jpg

Later on the same page ...

The front side of the cover. Note an extremely awkward translation of the plane's name. As opposed to the subtitle's, it is here "Bela Cielo". [Actually, Bela Ĉielo] Image1.jpg

And in conclusion ...

Secondly, the plane's name is a recurring problem between the cover and the translation -- they do not even match up.

Cheers Ailanto.

I see a problem here, it looks as if the fan subbers translated it some way and and officials another and then the cover some other way and I swear the dub sounds the same as the cover (although I can't tell, the US 'o's confused me with 'a's sometimes).. Oh dear.

Well I have already made a note on the wikipedia page's discussion section. It is quite interesting that EO was used, but now that I've read this it just leaves me feeling confused. And even more confusing is that the cover got translated as "bela cxielo" when most assume it to be Italian rather than Esperanto, even if the translator were an esperantist (because they would probably assume that the makers of the movie were not Esperantists too).
Unless the translator didn't realise that 'ci' in italian = chy and not 'ciy'.... either way... argh...