Voices of a Distant Star – Synopsis and Thoughts
Brett | July 14, 2009 | 3:27 am
Voices of a Distant Star is a touching story of two lovers separated by space and time.
Well here is my first post in a long time, sorry for the delay!
School is finally out, work has started, and some time has freed up.
I would say it is nice to not have school work, but working 40 hour weeks is just plain boring.
Beware of spoilers ahead!
Voices of a Distant Star is an anime OVA that was released way back in 2002. All of the work was completely done by Makoto Shinkai, whose other works include The Place Promised in Our Early Days and, one my personal favorite anime of all time, 5 Centimeters Per Second. Voices of a Distant Star is unique in various ways. The OVA runs is about 30 minutes long, with a touching story, and interesting character designs.
The walk home |
Mikako and Noboru |
The story centers around the two main characters. The female lead being Mikako, and the male lead being Noboru. The two grew up together as best friends; however, Mikako was very smart and became a very capable mech pilot for UN Space Army. Mikako is sent on various missions in space, fighting the alien enemy known as Tarsians. This sets up the main chunk of the plot. While Mikako is in space, Noboru is left behind at home on Earth. The only way the two lovers can communicate it through email/text messages. Due to the lack of better technology to send messages, the emails take anywhere from months to years to send, based on the distance Mikako is from Earth. This really creates and interesting twist in the story where Noboru is heart broken, always waiting for messages from Mikako. As the UN Space Army ventures further and further into space, the messages keep taking longer and longer to arrive to Noboru. As Noboru ages, he tries to get over Mikako because he feels he can’t just keep waiting. I won’t ruin anymore, but if it sounds at all interesting or you are familiar with Makto Shinkai’s other works, it is definitely worth checking out.
Glorious 3D Artwork |
Some of the scenery |
The animation coming from one man is simply extrodinary. The battle scenes are exciting. The mechs and Tarsians have great 3D animations.
I watched Voices of a Distant Star with the English dub (my only option) and had mixed feelings about the acting. Basically the only people who speak the entire OVA are the two main characters, Mikako and Noboru. Mikako’s voice actor did a good job except when she drops the unnecessary word “bitch”. It seemed out of place and unneeded. Besides that small gripe the voice acting was fine.
Voices of a Distant has a fantastic soundtrack from Tenmon, who also did the music for 5cm/s.
Noboru |
Shinkai loves his train tracks |
All in all, Voiced of a Distant Star is worth checking out if you are a fan of Makoto Shinkai’s other works, or you are looking for a touching story of love. The animation, all though great as the product of one man, looks dated and old with iffy charatcer designs. The 3D mech and battle animations are more than exceptional. I think that Voices of a Distant Star can reach out and touch anybody with a little bit of heart.
~Brett
