Anime: Voices Of A Distant Star
An intergalactic war is the backdrop for the story of two high-school graduates separated by space and time as one travels light years away from Earth to fight, leaving her best friend Noboru behind on his own. The only way they can communicate is through cellphone text messages, which take longer to arrive as they move further apart.
Voices Of A Distant Star (Hoshi No Koe in Japanese) has one of the more individual takes on intergalactic war in anime. Whereas most would focus on the larger picture of such a conflict, Voices keeps it’s focus very tightly on how it affects only these two people, and their relationship. While this does limit the scope of the story, it’s probably necessary for the entire thing to fit neatly into the 25-minute running time. It’s pretty incredible how attached you can get to the two characters within such a short timeframe, which is a testament to both the acting and imagery provided.
The art in Voices is, overall, of a very high standard - it’s hard to believe that it was all produced by a single person. Digital 2D animation mixes with 3D, and although the 3D is generally very noticeable it somehow fits in with the hand-drawn characters very well. Character designs are some of the more realistic I’ve seen, but with only two human characters I suppose it wasn’t hard to come up with this level of design. There are occasionally some off-model shots, but generally the characters look excellent. Expressions are also very good; as seems to the norm in anime, a lot of attention has been paid to details on the eyes, especially for close-ups. The 2D animation can be slightly jerky from time to time, but it’s not terribly noticeable for the most part.
The 3D elements are very fluid in their movements, although during their walk cycle, the Tracers seem to slide on the ground. The design on the mecha is excellent, however; the cockpit layout in particular is very interesting. The other UN ships are massive battleships like the Lysithea, which have some very nice warp effects when jumping into and out of hyperspace. Design on the Tarsians is very strange, and it would very difficult to guess exactly what they are from Voices alone. They appear to be bio-mechanical, and exhibit some characteristics that are pretty difficult to describe. Their movements are just as fluid as on the rest of the 3D animation, but with slight differences that add more to the idea of their alien origin. Given the viewer’s interpretation of the Tarsians, however, it’s difficult to say whether what you see is the Tarsian itself, or some kind of vehicle.
The audio in Voices is excellent as well. Music is just about the only thing that wasn’t provided by director Makoto Shinkai. It’s an appropriate score; a lot of the more emotional scenes tend to use the main theme, but Tenmon (the composer) seems to be equally at home with the faster-paced and tense music for the space battles. The music relies a lot on solo piano, although from time to time there are underlying strings to add depth. Sound effects are extremely believable, with seemingly special attention paid to how the protagonists’ cellphone keypads sound. There is the usual inaccuracy of noise in space, but that’s hardly unique to either Voices Of A Distant Star or even anime in general.
This is the first DVD I’ve come across with three different vocal tracks, and none of them a commentary. In addition to the Japanese and English tracks, there’s a “director’s cut” dub, which was performed by the director and his then-fiancée Mika Shinohara. Since neither is a professional dub actor, they do an admirable job. They do sound a little to old for 15-year-olds in places, but overall it’s excellent. As is the “professional” Japanese dub track; the actors here make more of an effort to sound the right age, and pull it off pretty well. Neither of them has had much experience in dub-work before either, though Chihiro Suzuki (Noboru) had a major role as Arima in Kare Kano. The English track is equally well-acted, and although I wasn’t too keen on Cynthia Martinez’s voice as Mikako at first, her performance does grow on you. There are some lines right at the start of the English track (literally, the first two or three) that aren’t delivered as well as the rest, but they aren’t massively noticeable.
All of the dubs do an excellent job conveying the emotion of the characters, from Mikako’s total loneliness in the depths of space without her best friend, to Noboru’s listless desperation and insistence on burying himself in work to distract him from his loss of Mikako. Sadly, the subtitles aren’t always outstanding; they can be very blocky and often late, especially on the extras. She And Her Cat in particular suffers from rapid subtitle changes, often too fast to read.
In terms of extras, Voices is very impressive. As well as the main feature (and three dubs), there are three separate cuts of Makoto Shinkai’s previous award-winning short She And Her Cat. Coming in two-minute, three-minute and five-minute versions, this is a brief story from the point of view of a cat taken in by a woman living on her own. It’s quite touching and pretty uplifting, and is also voiced by Makoto and Mika Shinkai. As I’ve said above though, the subtitles on this are pretty poor, often having difficulty keeping up when on-screen text and dialogue occur simultaneously. There is a pretty major mistake in them as well; at one stage of the five-minute cut, a title on the screen comes up for “Sec.5″, which is translated in the subtitles as “Sec.4″. In addition to She And Her Cat, the disc features an interview with the director, the original production animatic, original trailers, and the ever-present ADV Previews.
Packaging is fairly plain, although the reversible cover has an interesting explanation of She And Her Cat from the director. There’s a similar, but shorter, summary of Voices on the inlay sheet, which also has the lyrics for the end theme, Through the Years And Far Away (Hello Little Star). The presentation overall is fairly plain, both on the standard DVD case, and on the disc itself; menus are very standard, with no animation or any interesting layouts. It’s easy to navigate, though I can’t help but feel they could have made more of the importance of cell-phones for the menus, or even the Tracer HUD.
Verdict: 16/20
Overall, Voices Of A Distant Star is an excellent work. It’ll easily appeal to anybody who likes thoughtful or emotional animes, and especially fans of SaiKano or GunBuster. It’s pacing and character-oriented plot might put some viewers off (especially those anime viewers who prefer action-based shows), but Voices is well worth a look.
Running time 30 mins. approx. Distributed by ADV. Rated PG.