Voices of a Distant Star

Voices of a Distant Star is a Japanese animated film set in the middle of the twenty-first century, when an alien force attacks human colonies and Earth's fleet sets out to confront it. Mikako, still a teenager, is selected to pilot a combat robot and leaves her classmate and close companion Noboru behind. The two stay in touch through messages sent from mobile phones, but because the fleet travels far beyond Earth, each exchange takes longer to arrive. Their separation widens as the distance grows.

The film was written and directed by Makoto Shinkai, who also produced it with Yoshihiro Hagiwara and voiced Noboru. Mika Shinohara voices Mikako, with Donna Burke as the operator of the Lysithea. Running twenty-five minutes, it was Shinkai's first directed feature, followed by The Place Promised in Our Early Days and later films including Your Name. and Suzume.

Released in 2002, the film holds a rating of 7.1 out of 10 on IMDb from around ten thousand votes, while on TMDB it stands at 6.5 out of 10 from a much smaller number of votes. The higher score on IMDb, drawn from a far larger group of viewers, suggests a dedicated following for this early work within Shinkai's filmography.