Voices of a Distant Star

Voices of a Distant Star is a romance, drama, mecha, science fiction, tragedy, Japanese anime 25 minute short film which came out in February of 2002. It was one of the first films by famous anime film director Makoto Shinkai, and it was notable for being almost entirely created by him alone, on a laptop.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) Decent animation.
 * 2) The story is a sad and tragic. The short film uses the real life concept of time dialation to make it seem more real and relatable.
 * 3) Good voice acting in both sub and dub.
 * 4) While this movie isn't amazing, considering that Makoto Shinkai made it almost entirely by himself, (animation, art, music, editing, cinematography, and even voicing the main male character), it's outstanding that this movie turned out as good as it did.
 * 5) Excellent soundtrack.
 * 6) This movie is somehow able to tell a somewhat interesting story despite the fact that there are only two characters in it.
 * 7) Impressive blend of CGI and animation for its time.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) The art style and character designs are pretty sub par.
 * 2) Because it's a short film the science fiction concepts, which had a lot of potential, were heavily underutilized, unfortunately.
 * 3) Abrupt and unsatisfying ending.
 * 4) The CGI didn't age well.

Reception
Voices of a Distant Star has a 86% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes, a 3.1/5 on Letterboxd, a 7.3/10 on the International Movie Database, (IMDB), a 7.38/10 on MyAnimeList, a 4/5 on AnimePlanet, and a 71.22% community approval rating on Kitsu.