Voices of a Distant Star

Voices of a Distant Star (ほしのこえ) is a Japanese anime OVA by Makoto Shinkai. It chronicles a long-distance relationship between two close friends who communicate by sending emails via their mobile phones across interstellar space. It was originally released to DVD on February 2, 2002, and has since been broadcast across Japan on the anime satellite television network, Animax.

Plot
A middle-school girl named Mikako Nagamine is recruited to the UN Space Army in a war against a group of aliens called the Tarsians, named after the Martian region (Tharsis) where they were first encountered. As a Special Agent, Mikako pilots a Tracer, a giant robotic mecha as part of a fighting squadron attached to the spacecraft carrier Lysithea.

When the Lysithea leaves Earth to search for the Tarsians with Mikako on board, Mikako's friend Noboru Terao remains behind. The two continue to communicate across interplanetary, and eventually interstellar space via the email facilities on their mobile phones.

As the Lysithea travels deeper into space, the emails take increasingly longer to reach Noboru on Earth, and the time-lag of their correspondence eventually spans years.

The narrative begins in 2047. Mikako is apparently alone in a hauntingly empty city, trying to contact people through her cell phone. She finally says, in an empty classroom with stacked chairs, "Noboru? I'm going home, okay?", a rhetorical question which is answered with a busy line on her cell phone. Then she wakes up to discover that she is in her Tracer orbiting an alien gas giant. She then goes to a moon or planet in the background, the fictional 4th world of Sirius System, Agartha.

In the middle of the anime proper, she sends an email to Noboru (which shows the date 2047-09-16), with the subject "I am here", saying "to the 24 year old Noboru, from the 15 year old Mikako" which would only reach him 8 years, 224 days and 18 hours later, and just hopes it reaches him. Some flashes of imagery, perhaps indicative of memory, a hallucination, or even a mystical encounter, are then shown. It is a morphing character that looks like a younger Mikako. While they're speaking however, that character morphs into a Tarsian and then into an older version of herself. The same room where she woke up in the beginning of the animation is presented again, with the same ambience, but this time she is squatting in the corner, sobbing and pleading with her doppelganger to let her see Noboru just one more time to be able to say "I love you" to him.

The other being says "It will be all right. You will see him again". The ship's alarm starts warning her that the Tarsians are suddenly coming from everywhere. Mikako cries even more, yelling "I don't understand!". A climactic battle ensues. Meanwhile, back on Earth, Noboru receives the message, albeit almost 9 years in the future. A voice-over dialogue commences between the two of them which functions as a synchronous soliloquy on the same subject. Meanwhile, back at Agartha, three of the four carriers equipped with the warp engines which brought the expeditionary force to Sirius have been destroyed. The Lysithea is still intact after Mikako joins the fight and stops its destruction. After winning the battle, Mikako lets her damaged Tracer drift in space.

Production
Voices of a Distant Star was written, directed and produced entirely by Makoto on his Macintosh computer. Makoto and his fiancée provided the voice acting for the working dub (A second Japanese dub was later created for the DVD release with professional voice actors). Makoto's friend Tenmon, who had worked with Makoto at his video game company, provided the soundtrack. Shinkai and Tenmon had earlier worked together in the making of Kanojo to Kanojo no Neko ('She and her Cat'). The duo later also collaborated in the 2004 release of The Place Promised in Our Early Days and the 2007 release of "5 Centimeters Per Second".

Awards

 * 2002 Digital Contents Grand Prix - The Award for image design (Entertainment Category)
 * 2002 Tokyo International Animation Fair 21 - The Highest Award (Public Offering Category)
 * 2002 Animation Kobe - The Award for Packaging
 * 2002 Agency for Cultural Affairs Media Arts Festival - Digital Arts Special Prize
 * 2002 Japan Otaku Award - The Gunbuster Award
 * 2002 AMD Award - Best Director
 * 2003 Seiun Award - Best Media of the Year

OVA
The single disc OVA was released on February 2, 2002. It was later broadcast across Japan on the anime satellite television network, Animax.

In July 2002, ADV Films announced that they had licensed Voices of a Distant Star for U.S. distribution and would release the 30-minute short. The finished DVD premiered in May 2003 at Project A-Kon in Dallas, Texas. The DVD version also includes Shinkai's earlier work, She and Her Cat.

CD
A CD soundtrack was released for the OVA, with music by Tenmon and all song lyrics written by K. JUNO.

Manga
There was a manga serialization based on the series in Afternoon magazine from Kodansha in Japan. It was run monthly from February 2004 to December 2004. The story of the manga begins at the same point as the start of the anime and carries the story a little bit beyond the anime itself. Makoto Shinkai wrote the manga, with illustration work done by Mizu Sahara. The manga was translated into English by Tokyopop.