Absolutely Fantastic

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

One of those movie experiences that is so good it makes you realize you've been grading everything else on a curve.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Watch the visual review at https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=pTvCA1i6B50Never would I have thought that so much emotion could be captured and work in a 25 minute movie. I was surely proved wrong.The Voices of a Distant Star follows a girl and a boy. These two are together but become distant as the girl is sent to war in different galaxies, and the only form of communication is over their phones, but the messages take almost ten years to send. This is a movie as you might be able to tell, explaining the distant relationship between some and even the issues that soldiers had to face when wanting to talk to their loved ones on the other side of the world. And I found it very surreal and scary, and that's why I got a little teary eyed. And I just want to say, that this isn't your normal anime. All of Shinkai's movies focus on emotions, and things like loss, love and finding yourself, these all tend to kind of break the fourth wall and make you analyse your own emotions and ask you if you're okay, regardless of the characters. He says through his story telling that sometimes the situation is out of hand and it is impossible for you to change anything, much like in Distant Star.The story, like most of Shinkai's work, is simple. But as I always say with his movies, it doesn't need to be anything else. This is beauty in simplicity. This is the same reason I loved The Garden of Words. Everything feels so real. Regardless of the mecha robots fighting in space, the characters aren't superficial and is a big part of what backs up this simple story. They don't have horns on the head, or have tails on the back, they're just people wanting to talk to their lover. Earth feels so much like Earth, from the rain and the landscape. A planet that the girl discovers seems a lot like Earth with the same looking creatures, landscapes and rain, and then she bursts into tears realising that there is nowhere like Earth. The real winner in this movie is the gorgeous soundtrack this comes with! Holy moly, what sound! I think that at times I felt I was going to cry from the music itself!This isn't a perfect movie though, it has its downsides. I can't say that it needed to be longer, as this director likes creating these shorter movies, and having this as a short worked well. The main issue I have is the machine that the girl is in. The 3D rendering of the objects looks so fake and extremely overdone, I believe they should have stayed with the 2D drawing style. The mixture of 3D and 2D in animation can work hand in hand with each other, but here, the mixture of both didn't gel and work. I think Shinkai learned from his mistake as I haven't seen another machine looking as bad as this since he made it in 2002. Another part I didn't like was the English dubs. I've definitely heard worse, but this is nothing to write home about.But all-in-all The Voices of a Distant Star is just another movie to persuade you that this guy can create beautiful films, from the music to the characters to the artwork. Everything is done with so much heart. This is a film that beautifully looks at war, love and separation. This is more of an emotionally investing film than most of Hollywood's movies. And seeing that this short 25 minute movie, that was created by one single person and is executed with a great amount of detail shows just how special this film and director is.OVERALL : A

Voices of A Distant star is a wonderful Sci-Fi love story running at a brisk 25 minutes, chronicling the parallel yet inverse experiences of two adolescents as distance and time isolate them from one another. This is a reoccurring theme in Makoto Shinkai's works and is executed so effectively here, that it creates an emotional space-time echo, while vesting the viewer heavily within the character's ordeal, it manages to play on the theme that emotions can travel the expanse that perhaps not even technology can conquer.Being as close to a one man project as anything you'll see that maintains such high production value, Voices comes off more like a story you wish would never end then an Anime short. Shinkai wrote, directed, and animated the entire project only handing off sound responsibilities to others. In the original directors cut the only two speaking roles were voiced by himself and his fiancé.Most notable are the settings, for which the director is perhaps the best there is in the medium. Here, the vivid backdrops and beyond realistic lighting play so prominent that they rival the characters themselves. As one Youtube poster put it, Shinkai's works are like, "scenery porn, with story lines that make you cry buckets." Voices of A Distant Star is one of the best original video animations, scratch that, one of the better shorts period this viewer has ever seen, while serving as the perfect introduction to his work, it also underscores the fact that the only limit animation has is the imagination itself.

The emotions in which this film garnered from me were such that I never thought one could feel when viewing an anime. Every Otaku/Anime Fan has that one ground breaking moment when they have no choice but to allow their emotions to explode and weep; whether it be in joy, agony, hatred, or sorrow. There have been only three anime's that have pushed my emotions to the edge in such a way. This is one of them. I felt agony whilst watching this film. The test of time and the great expanse of space that separates these two lovers can bring any person with the capability of understanding these emotions to their knees. I watched as Makoto Shinkai created magic which left me spellbound and entranced. Each silent whisper these characters pledged, each hopeful vow never heard by the other caused another tear to spill from my eyes. The use of space and the attack on humanity made by this alien race known only as The Tarsians are incredible metaphors that Shinkai did not try to hide or make subtle. The allegory is far too brilliant to write this director off so early in his career. Distance, especially between loved ones is a test that no one deserves to live through. Though time has all but stopped for the female protagonist, her lover continues to age. Messages from one character to the other increase in time to arrive. First a day or so. Then a week. Then a month. Then six months. Then a year. A year and a half. Eight years. The silent battle waging on within the male protagonist as he attempts to wait patiently for his lover to return parallels the physical battles the female protagonist endures every day during the war. Voices of a Distant Star is a beautiful film. It should not be judged as an anime, but as an all around drama. Keep a wary eye out for Makoto Shinkai. He will one day be as revered as Miyamoto.

Fantastic short film, all made by one man on a mac. Voices Of A Distant Star is the story of a future intergalactic war, and young couples separated by minutes, months, and eventually years communicating via texts, in one of the most entertaining movies about long distance relationships I've ever seen (the first one with space fights anyway). The direction alternates between simple objects and images caught in daytime shadows, and grandiose sweeping shots of ultra violet skys and vast alien landscapes and space. Likewise the plot alternates between introspective voice overs about longing and the passage of time, wonder at the magnitude and beauty at the psychical world, and anime style space battles with giant mech soldiers, aliens who resemble T1000esque Crustaceans, and Space Vessels which look like swans. Emotionally and visually moving anime, about growing up and growing apart.