Audience reviews
20 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
1stDecame4Danime
Created/animated pretty much entirely by Shinkai. I see now that he is pretty much in charge of CoMix Wave Flims, the nepotistic self-fellation of him there makes now.
Only 2 characters with no background or character traits of any kind beyond apparently having been classmates/friends with unvoiced crushes and 1 went off to be a space mecha pilot fighting aliens in space. These noncharacters fundamentally break the entire point of the movie centered around their star-crossed nonlove story of longing because it's all about their wanting to communicate over a long distance relationship despite the difficulty of time delay, yet NEITHER EVER ACTUALLY HAS ANYTHING TO SAY TO THE OTHER because these are noncharacters with nothing between them nor anything themselves to talk about. And it's not as…
Read at the sourceInvertiHerikawa
Intro: Voices of a Distant Star is probably one of the most appalling anime I've watched, next to Orange Road (which I still regard as the worst anime ever created).
Story: 2/10
Yeah, yeah, I get it. It's a love story. Seen plenty of those. Sadly, VoDS does not stand out in this regard. And for god's sake, who the HECK would use a flip phone in 2047? So much for advancements in technology.
Art: 0/10
This honestly looks like a fan animation than a professionally produced anime. I'm not kidding. The frame rate is so god awful that I can't even...! Argh. Sound: 6/10
The ONLY redeeming quality of the show. Even then, only Cynthia Martinez (Mikako) and the Siri-esque voice for the AI system is good. Adam Colon (Nobuo) was FLAT. Could barely even hear him half the time. It's really no wond…
Read at the sourceomegavesko
This OVA definitely felt like it had potential, but for me, it didn't really deliver on what it promised.
Anyone who takes a look at my anime list will know that this is definitely the kind of story that I would expect to thoroughly enjoy; from the sci-fi, to the romance, to the unique element that drives the plot.
However, it just didn't feel like it.. went anywhere. Of course, I don't expect much character development from a 20-minute OVA, but the characters felt like they had close to no personality at all. There were no developments that weren't already obvious from the start, and little character development or plot progression - the premise from the MAL description basically _is_ the entire story.
Also, while it's always deceptively easy to retroactively point out false predictio…
Read at the sourcemilnivek
I first watched this movie in 2004 in university and remember being blown away by the sheer depth of emotions and feelings that this short film manages to convey in the time that the typical shounen anime may have managed to advance the plot by about 2 screams, a power-up and a fireball.
Coming back to this film over 10 years later, I was apprehensive at how my memories of the film would hold up to a rewatch by my older, cynical, 30-something self.
The art is pretty mediocre especially given the advances in animation in the past decade. The faces especially tend to be distorted and out of shape though some of the landscape shots were pretty breathtaking. The plot is also pretty normal and if summarised is nothing special. In the short amount of time we spend with the 2 main characters, w…
Read at the sourceran614
Have you ever tried having a long distance relationship? It’s not easy, believe me. I once tried it for a year and a half and it was really hard. The trust issues men, they’re killer. You don’t know what she’s really doing because you are not always together. Though she tells you want you want to hear, you will not know if it’s really the truth. After the relationship, we became friends (can you believe it?) and she told me she was having an affair during that time. What a bitch! Anyway, my situation was just one of the millions of long distance relationships all over the world. Being apart from the one you love by just a couple of miles is really, really hard. But can you imagine if the distance is light-years away? Will you still love her even if you have no idea if you’ll ever see her a…
Read at the sourceAnimeElitist
Melancholic story about love and long journey full of beautiful images. In less than half an hour Shinkai will drag you from the "boring dead end" train station somewhere in Japan to remote galaxies. He is executing the whole process very skillfully by mixing poetism with sci-fi.
It is remarkable that he did all the work by myself. Deficiencies seen in particular on animation of characters, static backgrounds are however very nice. The film deserves more elaborate scenario. Fights animations are in my opinion, completely unnecessary and in this genre we should feel pretty comfy even without them. On the other hand, it must be said they are very nicely done. Same goes for sound effects and music which are splendid. Especially in romantic moments sounds of rain, wind, the city in the backg…
Read at the sourceSavepoints
“There is no long distance about love, it always finds a way to bring hearts together no matter how many miles there are between them.”
Telling a good story in only 25 minutes can be a difficult task, but Shinkai Makoto (almost) single-handedly managed to do so with Hoshi no Koe. However, since it was in fact only made by one person, it does have its fair share of flaws (some more prominent than others).
Story: (8 / 10)
The story is simple. Two childhood friends are separated, but try to stay in contact with each other, even as the distance between them grows. This creates a rather emotional love story, and it does it all in the short time period of 25 minutes.
Because it’s so short, there’s not too much to say about it, but Shinkai did a great job of delivering a story like this.
Art…
Read at the sourceobtrice
Voices of a Distant Star — the work that made Makoto Shinkai famous and touched the hearts of angsty teenagers everywhere. Feel free to help me understand why this is revered. I get that it’s remarkable that Shinkai did everything but the music, but I fail to see how it gives him license to write a hollow story and be called the next Miyazaki for it.
Let’s start with the good. Shinkai is a master of animation, arguably the best in the business, and Voices of a Distant Star is no exception. While it may have been made by one man on his laptop, it is superior to the work of some studios. Even at this early stage in his career, you can see Shinkai’s obsessive attention to detail that brings his worlds to life in a way that few others have accomplished. This stunning world is set to a beautif…
Read at the sourceMarow
Originally published on Anime Viking: http://animeviking.wordpress.com/
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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…
Read at the sourceVGCKenny
Voices of a Distant Star is a very well received anime. For what reason is beyond me. This anime is just bad. Maybe I'm not the most cultured person, but seeing two people whining and complaining isn't my idea of entertainment.
Story: The story has the right idea, it just doesn't seem to do anything. The idea that two people who care about each other but are split apart by distance is a noble idea, and one that could have worked, but it doesn't because it just shows the two people just complaining, and hardly anything else. Sure there are some action sequences in there, but they are boring. If your going to do something like this, at least show the characters interacting with characters in the place they are. Just going back and forth between the two is not at all interesting. I honestly…
Read at the sourceShuu-chan
After watching the amazing 5 Centimeters Per Second, I figure I owed it to myself to watch Shinkai Makoto's first work Voices of a Distant Star. Reviews praised it and I assumed that it must be good. Well you know what they say about assuming.
Story:
Right off the bat I was unsure about the story. I liked the concept of love separated by distance as it worked quite well in 5cm Per Second, but the idea of lagging text messages is just ludicrous. You'd think that in the year 2046 we'd have invented a more effective form of communication, but I guess Shinkai Makoto didn't think so. Also look at the phones! No effort was made to even design phones that even had a hint of futuristic technology. Oh yeah, they could invent gigantic, space traveling, mechas, but more advanced forms of mobile comm…
Read at the sourcekekekeKaj
I'd heard some really good things about "Hoshi no Koe". Considering the amount of praise there's been for this seemingly insignificant half hour long OVA, I felt that it was something I simply HAD to check out.
Having watched it, I feel a bit... disappointed. The main problem is that it's just too short. Due to all the hype, I was expecting a lot more. Though in some places "Hoshi no Koe" does succeed in generating a certain special atmosphere, the amount of stuff you can pack into a half an hour show is simply not enough for it to solidify into something more substantial. The dialogue/monologue heavy format reminds me a little of "Seikai no Danshou", as that is also a short OVA that relies more on words than flashiness, But "Seikai no Danshou" has an extremely strong background already p…
Read at the sourcethresholden
Texts from a Distant Star:
Story: Voices of a Distant Star is an update to the war letters to a loved one story, such as the real case of Sullivan Ballou's famous letters during the Civil War. The slow agonizing wait of reply is given a sci-fi spin as the characters age at different rates due to the effects of space travel. As Nagamine travels ever further into the depths of space, her texts take longer and longer to reach her childhood friend and lover, Noboru. The concept is very poignant and one can feel great empathy for the couple as the cold distance of time and space separates them, slowly tearing them apart. 9/10
The Problem:
The problem however is the bad execution of characterization in a very short time. The OVA is only 25 minutes long, which is not enough to build the necessa…
Read at the sourceLaevus
The story line is just simple but how they portrayed it was just FANTASTIC. We all probably can think of a story like this one but its how the story was full of passion between the two characters which made this anime's story so beautiful. This anime shows how easily love can determine one's future and thoughts.
Although the story was good there were some "not gonna happen, even for an anime" moments, which was the heroine was still in high school and was going out to the universe. Although, this gave the anime a dramatic effect to it.
It was interesting to see how 2-D and 3-D effects were going to be used together. The ships and meccas were nicely done in its 3-D style. Unfortunately the characters design were HORRIBLY done. Even for a 2002 OVA, the character designs could have been gr…
Read at the sourceSamFury
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Story
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“And ever has it been known that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.”
-Khalil Gibran
The sheets of rain curtained onto the barren streets, while a single boy runs for shelter into a bus stop. He looked skinnier than usual, as the white fabric clung to his pale flesh and the shadows plastered to his features. Sliding onto the bench, he slipped out his cellphone, fiddling with it for a bit before the screen came chirping to life. The beep ricocheted through his heart like a jolt of electricity, bringing his attention to the email he received. He had waited a year to see her name typed, “From: Mikako”.
Voices of a Distant Star doesn’t have ambitions to be some theatrical space opera or intergalactic epic of Star Wars-like proportions. It’s a roman…
Read at the sourcechrisosaurus
An absolutely beautiful masterpiece in all but a few regards.
Voices of a distant star tells the tale of two lovers, separated by time and space whose only connection is through txt messages which arrive at exponentially increasing delays, to the point where a message is sent wishing happy 24th birthday, from a 15 year old me.
Voices of a distant star is the end result of getting a perfect love story, trimming off all the excess fat, and shrinking it down to 25 minutes of raw emotion.
This was a very hard anime to rate, if you were to take this 25 minutes and compare it to the same length of time in any other anime, Voices of a distant start would win hands down, but because its so short when it came to the end, I was just wishing it would continue for even just another 20 minutes. It l…
Read at the sourceSplitter
One of the shortest anime out there, Voices of a Distant Star is also in my most humble opinion, one of the best I've ever come across. Following the story of two young friends, they are suddenly divided by the reaches of space. Their contact with each other becomes limited to text messaging. Soon the messages take days to reach, then months, and eventually years. The work that put the now-well-known Makoto Shinkai on the map, this bittersweet tale is one not to be missed.
Voices of a Distant Star is a story that packs more emotion into its entire 25 minute run than an average series will in 25 episodes. The progression of the narrative leads to more hopeless outcomes with every passing moment, yet it never loses the one small ray of hope it offers. A short story in nature, it does it's b…
Read at the sourcesabermetrics
With such a short OVA, you can't really expect much out of this... was what I thought first. Watching the first 5 minutes of the OVA, I realized that this was much more than a regular OVA.
Story (10/10): Given that it was a short OVA, to be able to fit an entire storyline behind a 30 minute sequence shows the ingenuity of director Shinkai Makoto and his ability amaze. With drama and romance put together, you really cannot go wrong with this. This story really puts you in the driver's seat, and makes you experience what the main character really goes through.
Art (8/10): With such a rating, most people would find that quite a low score for such an anime. But, to warn any potential watchers, Shinkai Makoto made this within a short period of time, and although released in 2002, the animati…
Read at the sourceElectricSlime
Voices of a Distant Star, short... but sweet. As a one off OVA by acclaimed director Shinkai Makoto it comes with a rather impressive pedigree, but I feel like it never really got moving. The story tells of a young boy and girl who are separated by an intergalactic war. Sounds excellent, but it never really gives you a sense of why they are fighting or even who they are fighting. If the story was more fleshed out and placed in a movie format I feel that this would have been a real winner. It isn't bad as it is, but it could have been a lot more.
The animation and art direction are where Voices of a Distant Star really stand apart. In every scene the smallest details are animated perfectly and realistically. The CG mechs are very well done, especially considering this was produced six year…
Read at the sourceStormy_77
Another hidden gem gets reviewed.
I randomly picked this DVD up at Blockbuster's Anime section and expected nothing much from it and 25 minutes later I was ...... !!!!!! The next day I told 10 people about this movie. That's how much it *got* to me.
Hoshi no Koe ~The Voices of a Distant Star~, is essentially a story of a long distance love and mail messages between a boy and girl. The movie is really short, but in that time you discover that the two of them are friends, the girl is sent out with space forces, but they "text" each other. As time passes (on earth) the boy will age quicker than the girl who is millions of light years away.
If you've ever been separated from a loved one by time or distance, this movie will resonate very strongly with you. Prepare the Kleenex. You won't real…
Read at the source