This film should serve as inspiration to all the up-and-coming filmmakers out there! The creator of this masterful short, Makoto Shinkai, not only directed “Voices of a Distant Star”, but wrote, animated and did the voice-acting for the film as well…..and with very limited resources! The animation here is standard at best, but Shinkai more than makes up for it with an extremely heartfelt story. He succeeds where most Hollywood directors fail in that he really makes you care about the characters and in only 25 minutes no less!

The futuristic story centers on two star-crossed lovers, Mikako and Noboru, who are girlfriend/boyfriend ending their time together in middle school. She joins the “Space Force” to fight in a war, while he goes on to high school. She keeps in contact with Noboru via text message but as she travels further light years away from Earth, her messages take longer and longer to get to him….by the end, her messages take years to arrive!…yes, YEARS! As the separation between them increases, every line delivered becomes more and more emotionally draining. I don’t want to give anything else away, but all I can say is that at the end, you’re left wanting more!

If you’re a feminist and a hopeless romantic at heart, then you’ll probably love this film. I say that because in “Voices of a Distant Star”, the gender roles are reversed. Here we see the girl joining the army to fight bravely at war, while the young man stays at home eagerly awaiting the girl’s next message. I give the creator credit for making this unorthodox decision, because he could have easily made it the other way around without affecting the storyline too much.

In conclusion, this is one of the most heartfelt and powerful animes I’ve ever seen. It’s 25 minutes of pure poetic beauty! I’ve gone on to see the director’s later efforts, and although good, they failed to affect me as much as “Voices” did.