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The first time I saw Voices of a Distant Star was in the middle of the night back in 2007 when I was merely 14 years old. One of the biggest television channels in Sweden was holding an anime marathon from 12:00A.M. to 06:00A.M. and naturally, since I was an anime fan and this was a rare occurrence, I simply had to stay up and watch it all.
Out of every short, OVA and movie that aired, the single piece that stood out was Voices of a Distant Star. This is not surprising, considering how unique Shinkai’s works really are. The often substantial and realistically portrayed stories (either in the real world or the fictitious one) accompanied by wonderful music and visuals are honestly one-of-a-kind in the anime industry as far as I can tell. There is a clear vision of what Shinkai wants to tell and he does so without compromising his own goal, or at least that is how it comes across.
But Shinkai has always had trouble with making me feel connected to any of the characters, which is extremely notable due to all his works focusing on the characters rather than the stories themselves.
Voices of a Distant Star tells a story about two lovers literally being separated by space and time, as one of them is stuck on Earth while the other is travelling through space. Their only mean of communication is sending mail messages via cellphones, but as their distance grows, so does their lack of contact. It is a simple and perfect idea for a story, yet Shinkai misses the chance to make a heart-wrenching tale.
The problem mainly lies in the aforementioned lack of connection to the characters. We are never really shown how much they mean to each other and have to solely rely on the emails if we want to understand them. But because the emails are rather sparse and nonsensical, this does not work. In theory it should, particularly since we viewers are experiencing the same thing as the characters, but in practice is comes off as slightly hollow. I see that the characters care for each other, I understand the message, but why… why should I care, unless I have been through the same?
Another thing hampering Voices of a Distant Star is the overall production, which, especially today, is very simple and on the verge of outdated. While it is possible to ignore ugly heads and static images, it is harder to accept the poorly made CGI-scenes in space and a directing lacking a finishing touch (scenes dragging, odd scene expositions etc.). All of this is understandable since Shinkai essentially did everything by himself, but it does take away a little from the experience.
While not perfect in any way, Voices of a Distant Star manages to tell a fascinating tale in only thirty minutes. But sadly it never manages to reach any of the heights it could have had. This, however, does not mean it is bad. It is merely a missed opportunity.
