Voices of a Distant Star

Voices of a Distant Star (ほしのこえ, 2002) is a Japanese animated film you can watch online on iFILM. Director Makoto Shinkai built this 25-minute feature almost entirely alone, animating it on a home computer over two years before it became a word-of-mouth sensation.

The year is 2046. Mikako and Noboru are high school students on the verge of being separated by something larger than either of them. She is selected to join an interstellar mission as a mech pilot, fighting an alien force at the edges of the known galaxy. He stays on Earth. They keep in touch by text message — but with each jump deeper into space, her messages take longer to arrive. Days become months. Months become years. By the time Noboru reads her words, Mikako is already somewhere else entirely.

Shinkai turned a short film about distance into something that stayed with viewers long after the runtime ended. It launched the career of the animator who would later make Your Name and Weathering With You. Stream Voices of a Distant Star (2002) online on iFILM.