A Single Voice
Makoto Shinkai's masterpiece is truly a one-man show.

By Jonathan Mays

In a world of large studios and massive production teams, Makoto Shinkai stands alone. Voices of a Distant Star (available now from ADV Films) is a work of love, created, produced, and animated all by a single man. The 25-minute sci-fi drama, an astonishingly beautiful and emotional piece of work, marks a significant achievement in modern animation. Shinkai bravely defies the commercial current of anime, offering a personal story with exceptional clarity and honesty.

Noboru Terao and Mikako Nagamine were once inseparable. Throughout middle school the young couple had enjoyed each other's company, sharing their lives at school, eating ice cream at the convenience store, walking each other home, and dreaming of a fulfilling life together. Their future seemed perfect. But they could never have imagined the planetary disaster that would steal one of them away.

Now, they are friends separated by war. In the year 2046, the United Nations has assembled a force to hunt down the mysterious alien race that ambushed a Mars expeditionary team. Among those recruited to defend humanity is Mikako herself, selected for her intelligence and physical prowess to pilot the Tracer assault machine. With only cell phone text messages to keep in touch, the weeks, months, and years of distance begin to take their toll on the star-crossed lovers. As Mikako struggles to reconcile her responsibility to mankind with her longing for Noboru, her companion fights to live through each day's loneliness, waiting faithfully--perhaps futilely--for the day that they may embrace each other again.

Origin aside, Voices of a Distant Star is a stunningly magnificent film, weaving artful storytellin g into a fabric of elegant animation; it is a tear-jerking featurette laced with love. A thrilling yet sobering piece, it is among the very best half-hours anime has to offer. That it was created, directed, and animated by a single man on a Macintosh G4/400 computer only adds to the magnitude of this achievement. Even the voice acting in the original cut (included on the DVD) was performed by Shinkai and his fiancée. It's difficult to qualify Shinkai's masterpiece because, simply put, it has no equal.

Path to a Distant Star

It takes a gifted individual to be an industry pioneer, and Makoto Shinkai fits the bill perfectly. A graduate of Chu University, Shinkai studied Japanese literature before taking a job at a local video game company. For five years he created short animation clips for a wide range of games, but he felt the brevity of in-game animation was stifling. Seeking an outlet for his creativity, Shinkai privately began making short anime films on his computer.

From as early as his first work, 1997's Other Worlds, it was clear that Makoto Shinkai possessed a gift he was destined to share with a wide audience. Shinkai expressed his fascination with subway trains, telephone lines, and other images of everyday life in Japan, an interest that would earn him comparisons to accomplished anime directors Yoshitoshi Abe and Hideki Anno.

By May 2000, Shinkai's stature was rising quickly. She and Her Cat, which featured sound effects and dialogue recorded from his very own living room, won two Grand-Prix awards in Japan, earning Shinkai widespread recognition among the animation community. Following its success, he boldly resigned from his position at the video game company, devoting himself exclusively to his blossoming animation career. Numerous studio job offers accompanied his transition, but Shinkai refused them all, each time citing his desire to animate with as small as staff as possible.

Despite constant pressure to accept a studio position, Shinkai would not abandon his dream. "It's often said that animation is an operation with hard labor as its main characteristic," he commented in a 2001 interview, clearly stating his distaste for modern anime production. Shinkai aimed more for the type of personal influence of music, manga, or a novel, mediums in which "the individual's taste comes out more." Free of the constraints of the anime and video game industries, Makoto Shinkai embarked on his most ambitious project of his career. Hoshi no Koe would feature a real story with character development, a tale told in color with a length of almost half an hour. Seven months later, Shinkai's visionary production--known here as Voices of a Distant Star--was complete.