Voices of a Distant Star
May 23rd 2008 23:18
Category: Videos, Television
Based on the novel by: Waku Oba
Director: Makoto Shinkai
Written by: Makoto Shinkai
Producer: Yoshihiro Hagiwara.
Starring: Cynthia Martinez (Mikako) & Adam Conlon (Noboru).
Produced by: 2002 CoMix Wave
Released by: 2003 ADVFilms
Distributed by: Madman Entertainment.
Running time: 25 minutes. Rating: PG.
This particular show screened on SBS TV on Monday 19 May in the witching hours, the hours that are not quite the dead of night and yet not quite the wee hours of the morning. A fairly strange time to show something that is PG rated; still I am sure that the good people of SBS had their reasons. It is also interesting to note that this particular film is very short, it runs for half an hour (including ad breaks) and would have to be the shortest stand alone anime feature I have seen so far. In actual fact when I noticed it in the pages of the TV guide I thought that it must have been a printing mistake claiming that this show ran from 11.50 pm to 12.20 pm. Such however was not the case, and here in lies the problem with this show, it’s too short. Its length would have been suitable if it was a pilot episode for an anime series but as far as I am aware this is a stand alone feature.
If you haven’t already guessed this is a science fiction/mecha anime set at some time in a nebulous future at a time when humanity has finally gone beyond the confines of its homeworld and finally set up a colony on Mars, the planet that has filled the contents of science fiction stories and films since that genre’s inception. Things thus look peachy for the human race; there is a sense of achievement, of a frontier waiting to be tamed. But as ancient maps of strange and unknown places were oft won’t to say; here be dragons. Mars is not the safe place the world believes it to be as an unknown alien attacker swiftly proves. The colony on Mars is destroyed by the Tarsians, an unknown species who for equally unknown reasons have declared war on humanity.
Naturally the people of earth just don’t sit back and let this happen without any response to what is no doubt seen as an atrocity – after all humanity has not done anything to harm or hinder the Tarsians, they just seemed to have taken it upon themselves to attack. Under UN auspices a retaliatory strike force is recruited and assembled in space to take the fight back to the Tarsians. Enter our two protagonists, Mikako and Noboru, these two teenagers are in love and in high school seeking to join the space forces that are about to embark on the attack against the Tarsians. Mikako it seems manages to make the cut and is accepted as a pilot in the UN space forces for their retaliatory strike, she is fifteen years old when she is taken into orbit and trained for her mission.
Essentially Voices of a Distant Star is a love story, one that demonstrates the strains that distance can have upon the hearts of those involved in a long distance romance. Though in this case Voices takes that particular theme to the extremes, pushing the envelope with the distance between the two protagonists. After all when Mikako is chosen as a pilot for one of the combat mecha in the UN armada the distance initially starts at several hundred miles then grows exponentially from there. Initially she is only separated from her boyfriend Noboru by what could be considered a geographically bearable distance; low earth orbit. When the armada embarks to Mars that distance becomes millions of miles, yet using the text message capability on her mobile phone she still keeps in touch with Noboru back on earth.
As anyone knows though time and space are effectively one and the further Mikako gets from her home and Noboru she is not only traversing great distances but also an increasing time span. She is not only separated by distance the further the armada traverses into space but by time, she doesn’t age yet for Noboru years pass. And as the armada has continued deeper and deeper into the interstellar void she has become less of the school girl and far more the hardened pilot racking up enemy kills and combat sorties, even though she has hardly aged she has transformed in ways that no normal girl would have done back on earth. Noboru himself has undergone similar changes, though they are only hinted at, he says he has had to grow colder to become stronger and eventually he is accepted into the ranks of the space forces and will be shipping out. It is his fervent hope that somehow he will be re united with Mikako out their in the deeps of space, a sentiment she shares but due to being so far away cannot voice as the message would take years to reach her boyfriend.
The story that forms the basis for the drama in Voices of a Distant Star is extremely touching and heartfelt, demonstrating that the production team has crafted a finely tuned feature. Its animation is certainly up there with the really big name blockbuster features such as Akira and Appleseed, the surprising thing is that apparently it was all done on the home computer of Makoto Shinkai (according to the SMH TV guide). A very impressive feat if that is the case. The only problems with this feature were as I said initially is that it’s too short and as a result leaves out a lot that is not explained or perhaps this was down to the English vocals. I found that the two protagonists suffered from serial mumbling, they were both so soft spoken that I was constantly having to adjust the volume up to here the dialogue then dropping it back down when their was carnage a brewing, and there was plenty of that. For my opinion this is a show that needed to either be part of a series or lengthier. Still despite this it was interesting and somewhat poignant viewing. The other point I’d probably raise is considering it was only PG rated perhaps it could have been shown at an earlier time slot?
Director: Makoto Shinkai
Written by: Makoto Shinkai
Producer: Yoshihiro Hagiwara.
Starring: Cynthia Martinez (Mikako) & Adam Conlon (Noboru).
Produced by: 2002 CoMix Wave
Released by: 2003 ADVFilms
Distributed by: Madman Entertainment.
Running time: 25 minutes. Rating: PG.
This particular show screened on SBS TV on Monday 19 May in the witching hours, the hours that are not quite the dead of night and yet not quite the wee hours of the morning. A fairly strange time to show something that is PG rated; still I am sure that the good people of SBS had their reasons. It is also interesting to note that this particular film is very short, it runs for half an hour (including ad breaks) and would have to be the shortest stand alone anime feature I have seen so far. In actual fact when I noticed it in the pages of the TV guide I thought that it must have been a printing mistake claiming that this show ran from 11.50 pm to 12.20 pm. Such however was not the case, and here in lies the problem with this show, it’s too short. Its length would have been suitable if it was a pilot episode for an anime series but as far as I am aware this is a stand alone feature.
Essentially Voices of a Distant Star is a love story, one that demonstrates the strains that distance can have upon the hearts of those involved in a long distance romance. Though in this case Voices takes that particular theme to the extremes, pushing the envelope with the distance between the two protagonists. After all when Mikako is chosen as a pilot for one of the combat mecha in the UN armada the distance initially starts at several hundred miles then grows exponentially from there. Initially she is only separated from her boyfriend Noboru by what could be considered a geographically bearable distance; low earth orbit. When the armada embarks to Mars that distance becomes millions of miles, yet using the text message capability on her mobile phone she still keeps in touch with Noboru back on earth.
As anyone knows though time and space are effectively one and the further Mikako gets from her home and Noboru she is not only traversing great distances but also an increasing time span. She is not only separated by distance the further the armada traverses into space but by time, she doesn’t age yet for Noboru years pass. And as the armada has continued deeper and deeper into the interstellar void she has become less of the school girl and far more the hardened pilot racking up enemy kills and combat sorties, even though she has hardly aged she has transformed in ways that no normal girl would have done back on earth. Noboru himself has undergone similar changes, though they are only hinted at, he says he has had to grow colder to become stronger and eventually he is accepted into the ranks of the space forces and will be shipping out. It is his fervent hope that somehow he will be re united with Mikako out their in the deeps of space, a sentiment she shares but due to being so far away cannot voice as the message would take years to reach her boyfriend.
The story that forms the basis for the drama in Voices of a Distant Star is extremely touching and heartfelt, demonstrating that the production team has crafted a finely tuned feature. Its animation is certainly up there with the really big name blockbuster features such as Akira and Appleseed, the surprising thing is that apparently it was all done on the home computer of Makoto Shinkai (according to the SMH TV guide). A very impressive feat if that is the case. The only problems with this feature were as I said initially is that it’s too short and as a result leaves out a lot that is not explained or perhaps this was down to the English vocals. I found that the two protagonists suffered from serial mumbling, they were both so soft spoken that I was constantly having to adjust the volume up to here the dialogue then dropping it back down when their was carnage a brewing, and there was plenty of that. For my opinion this is a show that needed to either be part of a series or lengthier. Still despite this it was interesting and somewhat poignant viewing. The other point I’d probably raise is considering it was only PG rated perhaps it could have been shown at an earlier time slot?
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