Anime: Hoshi no Koe

Review
We see a lot of space shows out there. Most of them are very action based, with huge wars, mechas and ships combats, lots of tragedy, revenge, saving the world, etc. Many even happen across the whole galaxy. However, none of them ever took a single element with a more serious approach: distance.

This is a beautiful short tale about two old friends separated by the immensity of the universe and how that can be absurdly sad when you think more about it. Mikako and Noburo, two long-time friends, are separated before entering high school. Mikako is called by the UN Army to search for an alien enemy, and for that she goes in a journey through the Solar System and beyond, while Noburo remains on Earth.

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1. Short but Deep
   The catch here is the fact the story is all about Mikako and Noburo talking to each other by e-mails. These short messages take more and more time to reach its destination as Mikako's spaceship takes her further away from Earth. The feeling of lonelilness grows stronger with each message sent, and the show is sure to make it even more acute by not showing anyone besides the protagonists. The fact that a single message can take months, even years, to reach an old friend evokes such a sadness that is remarkably shown in these few minutes of the show. For a single-episode OVA, Hoshi no Koe manages to be very deep with what it proposes to tell. It would certainly fit an extremely satisfying movie if the author wanted. It's just bad that is this short.
   
   Beautiful but lazy
   Hoshi no Koe features amazing backgrounds, an use of lightning effects completely new back in 2002, and a few CGI elements to complete the experience. All those elements are superbly done, perhaps with a little fault to the lack of motion of the CGI mechas. The character artwork, however, is very lazy, most of the time even badly distorted.
   
   Not much time to develop the duo
   Mikako and Noburo are all you'll find. We're not shown exactly how they are or act, as only a single episode can hardly serve to develop a cast, but their simplicity makes them very good character for this short tale. They suceed in transmiting their lonelilness and sadness, so there's little to argue here.
   
   Uniqueness is its glory
   Such a masterful work done mostly by such a small group of people is something quite remarkable. Sadly it's too short to build up a great momentum. If it was 60-minute long or more we could have been one of the saddest and most powerful OVAs in the early 2000's.
   
   You should watch it
   For such a small amount of time, Hoshi no Koe is a must see to everyone. Even if you don't like it, anyone can endure these few minutes and will certainly open your mind that such a small detail as distance can alone be the key element of a deep storytelling. It doesn't matter if you like mechas, slice-of-life, shounens, shoujos, etc. Hoshi no Koe is made to catch anyone who appreciates a good tale.
   

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Comments
Before anyone complains about the artwork or even the size of this, take in mind that this work was an independent job done by this guy called Shinkai Makoto, who later would do more powerful and high budget shows like Byousoku 5 Centimeter, and some few other people. For an independent work, Hoshi no Koe is a very good job. It can be boring if you're expecting action, comedy, or other cheesy stuff. All you'll find here is a tale that simply shows how distance can affect a relationship, especially when put to the absurd scales of the planets and the galaxy.

This makes me wonder how Legend of Galactic Heroes, Gundams, Stellvia, and other futuristic shows would be if they put the distance factor to work in their plots... everything would be a lot more sad for sure!

Note: This review is based on KAA fansubs. Recommended.



Originally created, directed and animated by Shinkai Makoto (Kumo no Mukou, Yakusoku no Basho; Byousoku 5 Centimeter) Voices of a Distant Star[/b] is a twenty-five minutes long melodramatic OVA set in what appears to be a distant future ready with interstellar travel and centered on two lovestruck adolescents who happen to get separated by a distance of a couple of light years. While this piece also offers some beautifully animated short mecha battles, its core is set on the relationship between its two leads, or rather, on the melancholic feelings their separation evokes.

My opinion of Shinkai Makoto is very mixed to say the least. I see weird people prowling around explaining how big of a genius he is and how all his anime are masterpieces and yada yada, but whenever I decide to actually give his work a try I end up with errr, that's it? feelings; and this comes from a person who has a soft spot for well-refined dramas. To tell the truth, I find Shinkai Makoto's work on the OPs for awesome minori's visual novels far more engrossing than the stuff he writes the script himself for. Nonetheless, I like Shinkai Makoto, be it his awesome OPs, or nice anime; no stuff he produces ever drops below average. At the same time, he hasn't produced any true to the word great stuff yet himself, and, of course, the decent, but not particularly exceptional OVA, Voices of a Distant Star is no exception. It has a clear idea, it implements it well. It gets slightly rushed at times, but the overall plot never breaks and remains interesting from the beginning to the end. However, this OVA is certainly not a creation to linger in one's head for a very long time, as even though it is indeed beautiful, Hoshi no Koe is still a simple love story with very little character development in the core.

Animation: 7/10

Unlike in the the eye dazzling minori's OPs Shinkai Makoto offers some really horrible character designs in this show. Our two leads are badly drawn to such extent that your brains might refuse to input their images in the human form library; I personally found them very similar to overgrown beavers... Rodentia Order. It is really a shame that beings with such messed up proportions are treated to the Shinkai Makoto's usual breathtaking background scenery and masterful use of lighting effects (though I must say this particular skill evolved great lengths during the years he was active - just check ef ~the latter tale~ op). The few space fighting moments are very nicely animated making you wish Gundam animators had as much energy and skill; there is little to nothing to gripe at when it comes to fluidity. All in all, horrible character designs bring the overall feel of animation down quite a bit, but when they are not on screen - be ready to treat yourself to some really refined visual pleasures.

Sound: 8/10

Voice of a Distant Star never stuck in my head for long, so by re-watching it for the damn fourth time (again hoping to find where exactly that proclaimed genius of it is hidden) I found its music surprisingly familiar. Then I check it, and whoa, it's the Tenmon (ef ~tale of melodies~)! I know him better for composing music for minori's visual novels, but it seems he is also a good friend of Shinkai Makoto, good enough to compose music for all his shows. And I must say, Tenmon is one of the best composers in the business when it comes to composing melancholic themes, some of his violin and piano compositions are worth buying. So no wonder music is what I like the most in this show. Still, while he does indeed offer many high level heart soothing melodies in Hoshi no Koe, none of them struck me strong enough to make me rip the particular theme out and put it into my mp3 player (and you bet, some of his other works did).

Voice-acting is... mhm, adequate for the most part. While not particularly professional (as the show was voiced by Shinkai himself also borrowing the help of his wife) voice stage sounds fresh and still believable.

Story: 6/10

The best thing about the story in Hoshi no Koe is that it never wastes time. Worst thing about it - it is too short. Even though the idea goes through, I found this OVA over before I even had a chance to start feeling emotional. Still, even if it was a bit longer, I don't think two separated adolescents is that much of a heartbreaking theme; nor is it particularly original (though the mail system was indeed a nice and original touch). Since the whole melancholic atmosphere is probably the most important factor in the enjoyment of this show, I recommend watching Voice of a Distant Star during time when you are sure no one will disturb you (best at night).

You could go and say that there are limits to what can be done with a show no longer than twenty-five minutes (and of course you would be right, but I'm not doing charity work here), but there are also examples of deep philosophical sci-fi stories in such mediums *cough* Pale Cocoon. And I say, Pale Cocoon is three times the masterpiece Hoshi no Koe is.

Characters: 5/10

From the beginning to the end the two characters of this show are not particularly interesting. I mean, the protagonist is a normal guy living a normal life and heroine is a normal girl piloting robots few light years away from earth (for some reason). They like... or rather love each other. That's it; all the foreshadowing there is. I know not of a single original trait belonging to one of them, and if they were exchanged by another lovestruck couple nothing would in essence look different. Well, the guy appears to have a liking of introspective melancholy, but that's about it. However, considering quite a lot of stuff happens in the plot, I must say that characters do cope with their situations pretty well. Voice of a Distant Star is also pretty good at making you believe that those characters develop (though of course you can't trace it since you have no idea what state they even start from). It is still nice, however, that the protagonist has enough backbone to make an important decision near the end.

Value: 6/10

Okay, this grade might be a little bit contradicting to the fact that I have watched this show four times, but I must stress, I didn't really have that much fun with it during consecutive watches. The only reason why I have re-watched Voices of a Distant Star so many times is that I simply forget it very easily, and whenever there is a discussion about it or something (in this particular case writing a review) I have to re-watch it to remember what the hell is it about. Anyway, nice animation and good music is certainly a thing worthy to be experienced twice; would not say the same thing about the plot, it's just okay.

1. Conclusion[/u]:[/b] Voices of a Distant Star is a refined twenty-five minutes long melodramatic OVA regarded as a masterpiece by many (I don't understand them, frankly). If you enjoy melancholic stories and have an evening to spare - give this show a shot, you might or might not be disappointed, but a couple of minutes isn't that much of wasted time is it? Of course, if you've liked Shinkai Makoto's later works, Kumo no Mukou, Yakusoku no Bashou or Byousoku 5 Centimeter; you likely have already seen this show, if not, what you are waiting for? Personally I don't think it is as good as his two movies, but they have their similarities. If you simply enjoy watching anime shorts however, then I'd recommend Pale Cocoon and Comedy

, I personally find both of them better than Hoshi no Koe.

Hoshi no Koe was among the first Anime I've ever seen quite a few years ago. As it was then it is still kind of sad, incomplete and beautiful. At the time when the song starts playing in the last few minutes I was on the edge of crying. But let's look a bit closer at every single section.
As Hoshi no Koe is relatively short and not that complex I saved myself the trouble of pointing out each and every spoiler. But if you only read the first passage of the Story-section you should be fine.

Animation
First the character motions. Very often the characters just stand or sit and are not moving that much. But judging only the scenes with character motion they are quite smooth.
Most of the action is carried out by mechas which are CGIs. The robots (Tracers) of the human race (which resemble Gundams a little) are well animated as are the ships of the Tartians (even though the Tracers sometimes don't fit into the scene perfectly). There are times when you recognize that computers from back in 2002 just didn't have the possibilities of todays machines and the objects seem like little plastic toys (which I only saw after the third watch) but for being that old the CGIs are quite a bit above the standard of todays animated mechas (and yes, the new Evangelion movies are a long way above todays standards too).
The character design is very rough. The characters have edges and I got the feeling like they were just cut out from a sketch book for drawing prototypes. But even then the design has something beautiful. Right from the beginning the design seems to tell you that school or mechas or the Tartians don't really matter in this OVA. There is something more deep inside... but that's for the story-section.
Last but not least the magnificient backgrounds. Until today I haven't seen an Anime that catches up with the realism of the background images in Hoshi no Koe. Every scenes is worth halting the play just to look at the scenery. May that be the the view above a big city, the road near a train station or an exotic view of Mars. The backgrounds are one of the reasons I'm really fond of this OVA.

Sound
The general background sounds of Hoshi no Koe add to the feeling of solitude and loneliness and by this support the mood of the scenes. But except for one track they are only supports and none of them stands out very much.
The only exception is the track "Through the years and far away". It is played in the last few minutes when a big fight is going on and the main characters seem to be connected through their hearts. You get the feeling that their solitude will never end and the only choice they have got left is to go on despite them being so far apart. As I wrote before I nearly cried at that time because was really moved.
As for the voice acting I found it just above standard. I don't think that voice acting get's better over the years just because time has gone by as it is with animation and computer graphics. The voice acting of a single person will of course get better over time when trained, but I think the overall quality of voice actors remains the same over the years. For this I do have to confess that there was nothing bad about the voice acting but it wasn't that outstanding either.

Story
A girl called Nagamine tells her boyfriend Noboru that she will be a part of the crew of the military force that will go after a race named Tartians which have seemingly attacked earth only a short while before. Their only means of communication are mails sent through their cell phones although only Nagamine is depicted writing such mails. As the force travels more and more far away from earth the time the mails take to reach Noboru increases from a few hours to about eight years and seven months in the end. In that time Nagamine fights many enemies and clings to her hope of returning to earth someday so see Noboru once again. Meanwhile Noboru loses more and more hope as her mails are getting sparse. But everytime he receives one his motivation to wait for her gets recharged.

Finally the fleet returns to earth having suffered heavy losses in a deciding all-out attack from the Tartians but if Nagamine has survived or if she and Noboru see each other again is not told. Therefore depending on your imagination this could be a happy end (even though this would be kind of a boring end in this case) or a tragedy (which is of course very sad but would be the most fitting end).

Character
Nagamine Mikako is about 15 years old as she leaves earth to fight aliens at the edge of the known universe. She draws the power to go on from a thin hope of seing her beloved boyfriend again. Over the course of the plot she stays about the same age.
Noboru, whose first name I didn't hear mentioned from start to end stays on earth and leads a "normal" life. He goes to school and finally joins the military (maybe in an attempt to find out about the whereabouts of his girlfriend). He ages as the story progresses and when he stands on his balcony at the end he is 24 years old.

Value
This Anime is very melancholic. If you are crying easily in sad scenes I guarantee you will when watching this. For all the others: I think one must have had harsh trials in his/her past not to at least feel a stab of pain sometimes. (No offence meant.)

Enjoyment
The first time it goes ok, but this would be one of the Animes you'd really WANT to watch again. Nonetheless I have enjoyed every time I watched it. You won't find new details or hidden meanings everytime you watch it. You either watch for the background images or for the melancholy and the mood at the end.

From the outset the art style didn't really appeal to me. The fact that the CG was of low quality and didn't blend well with the rest of the other art only accentuated this problem.
Further I felt that the character design was rather stereotypical, which also extends to the bland Mech design and the ship/enemy designs.

What did stand out in the art department were the backgrounds on earth, which were all beautifully drawn with nice subtle effects added. This aspect though, is not without it's failing too, because I felt a lot of the backgrounds became monotonous because of repetition.

On the story side of things I felt that although well executed, it was pretty predictable and clichéd. Not extremely cliché, but still enough to make me frown throughout the show.
The story moves extremely slowly too, which can be fitting in some cases, but for the little story this Anime has to tell which leads up to the inevitable clichéd ending it just drags on too much for it's own good.

The music is somewhat of a drab affair and not too incomparable to elevator music or that tinny music you would hear at a cheap little Chinese restaurant. The real downside to this is that it taints what is happening on-screen with a sense of cheapness.

Not much more to say about this Anime - in part also due to it's running time which at 25 minutes is on the short side.

I found out retrospectively that most of this Anime was created by a single individual - which whilst being an impressive feat doesn't change how I perceived the film without knowing that fact.
I know that my opinion goes against what most people feel for this Anime, but it is how I experienced it.
__________
Good:
+ Nice background art
Bad:
- clichéd, predictable and slow moving story
- Poor 3D graphics which don't blend well with the rest of the art

(The scores in this review are on a scale where 7 is considered "average", or acceptable quality with little to differentiate it from other works)[br][br]This short OAV style production can only be described as generic, shallow, and forced. Given a purely standalone 24 minute feature your expectations are liable to be either very low or very high - with the clamor surrounding this particular animation my own expectations fell more under the latter category. All I can really say is that I'm glad it only cost me the time it did to realize that my expectations would be far from met.[br][br]Animation: The 2D animation was inconsistent in stilted. The character designs were overly crude and angular, and the different camera angles led to strange deformities. There was a definition lack of frames that at times made it look more like a picture book than an anime. The city backdrops were decent, but seemed like cruder versions of cliches taken out of many an anime movie. As for the 3D animation... sub-par. The design of the one mecha shown was bland and shiny, but on the other hand it faired tremendously compared to the aliens, which were awful shiny blobs of some sort. The only thing that stood out as high quality were some of the colors used (although at times it was too saturated) and the well polished effects shown for the various interfaces and displays.[br][br]Sound: I honestly can't give a very solid description for this because it was really difficult to notice. Possibly because, like much else used in this anime, it was very generic - it was basically exactly what you would expected to highlight the themes used. Which I suppose is sufficient, but nothing made me feel anything to accompany the scenes. And the song at the end was generic and meaningless to me.[br][br]Story: I'd like to say "what story" - any impression that this anime was meant to have a story is really just that, a vague impression. It's not so much that there is a rich detailed plot, but more that it gives a few details to try to make it seem like there could have, or should have been one. If it succeeds in tricking you into thinking that it has a plot then you can chalk it up for basically giving you glimpses of one that has been done about a thousand times before. It seemed like it could have been a decent idea, but it's simply not fulfilled in any way whatsoever. But that obvious complaint aside, here are some more focused complaints:[br][br]- The focus of the plot seems like it should be about the human's pursuit of the Tarsian's. But this is actually nothing more but a plot device to create distance between the two main characters (who are essentially the only characters in the anime). Unfortunately, since this is such a short piece, it really can't afford to waste as much time as it does on something that's little more than a background premise, but it does just that. Including showing fights with an enemy that has no known motivation, and no clear resolution. In the end both major plot lines given in the story are completely dangling with no resolution, and in fact, barely any visible progress.[br][br]- The circumstances of the plot make no sense. Why would a random, scatterbrained Japanese schoolgirl who is "good at sports" be enlisted into an elite fleet of only 1000 sent to pursue dangerous aliens? Why does she still wear a schoolgirl's uniform while piloting a futuristic mecha? How does she apparently somehow manage to be the best fighter they have? Why do the two main characters have to wait for each other's messages before they send responses, as opposed to sending a constant stream of messages? Why do the aliens seem to be providing personal insights while beating the crap out of people?[br][br]- The distance and message waiting concept is an interesting plot device, but unfortunately the movie places its significance front and center as opposed to using it as a vehicle to accomplish anything.[br][br]Character: I'm sure many won't agree with the score I've given, but it's as low as it is not only because there are only two real characters, but because they're as pointless and arbitrary as they are. Hoshi no Koe is supposed to be a love story, that much will be quickly apparent, but what will leave you confused is exactly why the characters love each other. Their speech is stilted and unfocused, and their thoughts seem to be outright contradictory. I understand that teenage relationships in anime are often exaggerated in an attempt to portray "purity", but this has just gone too far. When you're in a constant life and death situation and yet can only think of some boy you sort of knew a long time ago then you're just a shallow idiot of a character. We are made to feel as if this is a relationship that really matters, but instead of convincing us it's just done artificially (such as by removing other characters). Also, if I heard them start a sentence with "ne" one more time then I think my head was going to explode.[br][br]Value: I felt the value was overall low because this anime had so little to tell. There was no strong message or purpose, merely themes ripped from many an anime before. Fortunately it's a very short anime, but honestly, that only makes it seem as if it's worth even less.[br][br]Enjoyment: It didn't make me want to run out and hurt something in rage, but an anime this short shouldn't feel this difficult to want to care about or pay attention to. Like many others, I feel as if it's trying to trick me into feeling something and cover its tracks for an overall lack of meaning and insight, and in this way it both fails monumentally and falls further for its manipulative efforts.[br]

This series had some pretty good potential but I feel its way too short and too many things left unexplained for me to give it a really high rating. The story starts off with a highschool couple finishing their final exams to graduate but the boy stays on Earth and the girl joins the Army of the future which is the "UN Army". The army has been fighting an alien race of blob things that fly around and have no weapons since their made out of organic materials and the humans have giant robots that have an endless supply of rockets, a light saber/laser sword and jetpacks (all by the year 2050? wow). Well anyhow the couple gets split up since the boy stays on Earth and the girl joins the army to explore the galaxy and kill aliens but they still love each other so they write to each other over text messages via their cellphones but the messages take longer and longer to reach each other as they go deeper into space.

Then the show ends :P

The animation style was kinda cheap too, it reminds me of Vandread but on a lower budget. Dont get me wrong the planets, spaceships and outer space look beautiful but I dont like the way they drew the characters or the robots.The show has potential but if they make the animation quality better and the story a little more detailed by explaining how the future has changed aside from the war with the aliens.