Voices of a Distant Star: Words of Love/ Across the Stars

by Arata Kanoh (Adapter), Makoto Shinkai

Voices of a Distant Star novel is based on the original story by Makoto Shinkai and was adapted by Arata Kanoh. Sixteen-year-old Mikako Nagamine enlists as a pilot to fight in the interstellar war against a force of alien invaders, leaving behind her one true love. Mikako’s only connection to Noboru Terao, who’s living the life of an ordinary high school student, is through cell-phone text messages. As Mikoko travels farther away, it starts to take longer and longer for Noboru to receive her messages, until finally one arrives eight years and seven months after she sent it. The war rages on, and years pass, but out in space, Mikako barely ages. When at last the fighting ends, she is left stranded on the spacecraft carrier. A rescue mission is launched to help - including Noboru, who’s now a lot older. When they meet again, they’ll discover whether their young love survived.

Genres: Romance, Science Fiction, Manga, Light Novel, Fiction

190 pages, Paperback

First published September 29, 2006

About the author

Japanese & Chinese: 加納新太
Chinese: 加纳新太

Reviews

[alpacaman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful adaptation of Shinkai's OVA.

[Jon Chaisson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic novelization to one of Makoto Shinkai's early works, it captures the poetry of the original film perfectly.

[Juliko · Rating 4 out of 5]

I admit that I haven't seen a lot of Makoto Shinkai's movies. At this point, I've seen Children Who Chase Lost Voices, Your Name, Garden of Words, and the 5-minute Dareka no Manazashi short. I have, however, read quite a few of the companion novels he penned, such as 5 Centimeters Per Second, Lost Voices, Weathering With You, and the subject of today's review, the Voices of a Distant Star novel, called Words of Love/Across The Stars. Now, from what I learned, this is apparently the second time this particular film was adapted into a book format, but this particular version, the second novelization, is the only one that came out in the US, and fairly recently, at that. I might watch the short film for Voices of a Distant Star in the future, as it's considered Shinkai's first major work...but I have to admit that the art style isn't very appealing to me, even though I understand it was all animated by Shinkai himself, before he began working with a company that hired more experienced animators. I did read the manga before this, though a review of that will come later. I kind of blind-bought this novel, along with two others, on my birthday recently, and honestly, I'm glad I did, because I really like this one, as it expands on a lot of things that the short film doesn't cover.

In the year 2047, humanity is in the midst of a war against mysterious aliens called Tharsians and are in the process of recruiting people to fight them in mecha suits called Tracers. One of those pilots is Mikako Nagamine, a 15-year-old girl who was drafted into one of the space army's special squadrons, and has to search for the Tharsians in space. She leaves behind a friend of hers, Noboru Terao, but they promise to remain in contact as much as possible, usually by texting one another. But as the fleet goes deeper into space, text messages take longer and longer to reach Earth, to the point where years pass, and both Mikako and Noboru come to realize that they care more for each other than they realized, but now may not get the chance to even say so.

One thing about sci-fi that I found doesn't really appeal to be is that most sci-fi stuff I've seen rely on a LOT of technobabble and exposition to explain things, when some things don't necessarily need to be explained, thereby dragging the show down rather than letting things play out naturally. I can understand wanting to make the sci-fi world feel as rich as possible rather than make it into another bog standard sci-fi setting, but too much exposition and explanations just bog things down. Luckily, Voices of a Distant Star doesn't do that. Because the story centers on two kids and focuses entirely on their perspectives, it keeps its focus on the things they see, feel, and experience, rather than try to bite off more than it can chew by making the scale of the story bigger than it should be. Because of this, the sense of scale is smaller, but it feels more intimate and focused on the central conflict of the movie, which is the kids' realization that the farther away Mikako is from Earth, the more impossible it is for them to remain in contact because of the lack of faster-than-light correspondence and the regrets they hold because of not saying what they wanted to say to one another before Mikako leaves for space.

The prose is pretty good, too. I found it fairly engaging and descriptive when it needed to be, and while I don't recognize a lot of the names and locations that Mikako and Noboru reference, like their hometowns, or even some technological terms like Geodesic distance, the writing makes it feel seamless enough that I didn't feel lost. But if I had to name one flaw in regards to the writing, it'd be that at times, both Mikako and Noboru's thoughts come across as way too purple prose-y at times. I mean, teenagers don't exactly engage in a lot of overly philosophical navel gazing, and while the circumstances Mikako is in makes them understandable at times, I still found a lot of the kids' thoughts to be way too overwrought and self-aware for kids their age. There are other times when the prose is too blunt, with sentences like "I had a visceral sense of disgust," which to me is more telling than showing. Why not show Mikako being disgusted by having her express it with her face, like the scrunching of her nose or the contorting of her mouth and facial muscles? So the prose doesn't really strike much of a balance when it comes to showing when it matters and telling when it matters, telling things that could benefit from being shown and showing things that don't need to be elaborated on.

That being said, the novel does expand on both Mikako and Noboru's characterization, even developing them more than the film itself did proper. Since novels allow writers to really make an effort to convey their characters thoughts and feelings in more time than a half hour movie can do, the novel is able to go deeper into the kids' thoughts and feelings, giving them more development and nuance that was impossible to do in the film. It also shows why Mikako even chose to become a Tracer pilot in the first place, and how Noboru's life turned out to be like while Mikako is out in space, even introducing new characters, like one of Noboru's girlfriends (Who I wish had more page time! She wasn't even given a name, for God's sake!!) and Mikako's sick cousin Aya (Who I hate, by the way). So even with the prose making their thoughts a bit too overwrought at times, I still found myself liking Noboru and Mikako, and genuinely felt for them, even as they both tried to move on from their unrequited romance. The novel even explains a lot of things that the film left more ambiguous, and I think fans will definitely appreciate that. It's also interesting to read this having read the manga, as the novel and the manga have different takes on expanding the characters' and worldbuilding. In this novel, Mikako chooses not to socialize with any of the other soldiers on the Lysithea out of a desire to be true to Noboru and Earth, while in the manga, she does make one friend (Whose name escapes me at the moment).

As someone who hasn't seen the Voices of a Distant Star movie, I think the novel is a pretty good adaptation that really hit a slam dunk in regards to expanding on the characters, world, and Shinkai's vision. But your mileage may vary. In my personal opinion, I'd highly recommend this, especially if you want to experience some degree of Voices of a Distant Star but are put off by the animation of the original film.

[Gigi · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book and the OVA it was derived from do an excellent job creating the feeling of distance, yearning, isolation, and introspection. It's mostly an exploration of feelings, the impact people have on our lives long after they're gone, and assigning memories and experiences to places. Part of the book being from the boy's point of view changed the story from what I remember watching that short film so long ago where the main point of it was that there was no real way to know if you had disappeared from someone's thoughts after being removed from their presence physically, and sometimes as circumstances change we become less important to those we loved and begin to fade from their lives. Shifting the focus from Mikako's point of view sort of dampens the effect of the introspection (the anxiety in not knowing) since we know how Noboru is doing. But that's been a thing with novelizations of Shinkai's works I feel typically works against them, by saying some of the things left unsaid in the movie it's a lot less open to interpretation.

Buuuut anyway! I'm going to have to rewatch that OVA and possibly update this review once I do!

[Scott Mattson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Based on the Anime OVA it's the story of the Girl who went to Space and the Boy she left behind. While short, it makes an impact.

[Haze Book Treasures · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this and as much as I like sci fi, it's not my favourite genre but I enjoyed this and found it thought provoking and quite poinient.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really good read. Sort of a typical Japanese ending for the love part. There's some hope that they'll find each other again, amongst space.

[Aumi The · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful story! Recommend.

[Ninja · Rating 3 out of 5]

So I saw the movie of this quite a few years beforehand and loved it.
Reading this, though, was somewhat rollercoastery.
The initial intro of two shy 15 year olds not-quite going out was fairly well done, though not great. Then it dives into a sci-fi story of going off into space with the main theme of greater distance means longer time for messages to get back to Earth. Like from Mars it takes 3 days. From Jupiter 20 days. Even from USA to Japan (not just from timezones) it would take long enough that one person could see that not enough time would have passed for the email to get to its destination.
And I'm left wondering what's going on. And that's not even getting into the sci-fi space alien stuff.
So a good chunk of the first half or two thirds was pretty weak really.
But then the back third or so was pretty strong, with the character / relationship aspects coming back into it.

[Thong May Han · Rating 2 out of 5]

Struggled so hard to finish this. I love the concept and I watched the movie, but the writing here is so repetitive. Example:
Then drops of rain started to fall.

It was a sun shower.
*italics* It started raining. *end italics*
By the time the thought crossed my mind, it was already pouring. Rainwater streamed in and collected in my Tracer's footprints.
*italics* I'm going to get wet... *end italics* I thought, as I looked up at the sky.
The rain fell from directly above, like I was showering. But of course I wasn't getting rained on. The Tracer's cockpit was protected from all forms of external impact.
In any case, it was raining quite hard.

Like, okay, she's in a giant robot. We got it the first 20 times you told us. Also, how many lines are needed to tell the reader it's raining, huh? WE GET IT. WE KNOW WHAT RAIN IS. And this happened plenty of times, to the point where it's tedious. I find myself so annoyed that I stopped caring about Mikako.

[Matt Ely · Rating 4 out of 5]

Best, and most likely, read as a complement to the early 2000s Shinkai film, the book works well in telling a familiar story from both characters' perspectives instead of from a disembodied third person as in the movie. It's easy to write off stories of the importance of young love, and I was tempted to do the same. But then I ask myself: can't I recall so many trivial details of those first, halting attempts at romantic connection? What if that was the best and most real connection you ever had? Would that not be the bellwether that guided you towards what was valuable?

The novel is short, its descriptions regularly broken into single-sentence paragraphs. It is more concerned with communicating a feeling that a resolution, so don't be surprised to encounter some ambiguity here. But feelings? It's got you covered on feelings.

[Hyperion · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a tough decision as I was torn between a 3 and 4 star rating. I appreciated that we got a lot more of the girl's perspective than we did in the anime and manga (what she felt and what she went through in space over those 10 years), which makes up 3/4 of the book. The other quarter being a rehash of the same period but from the boy's perspective.

However, you don't this read book for the plot but to feel. The reason I decided to give this 4 stars is because of how evocative and lyrical the writing was, which, for me, is all you can ask for of the written adaptation of a Makoto Shinkai film.

[Carolina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Comprei esta novelização de um dos meus OVAs favoritos no Fórum Fantástico.

Apesar de o texto não ser de Makoto Shinkai, a autora faz jus à animação original. A escrita é melancólica e despojada, com uma caracterização muito curiosa das personagens - o que originalmente não existia. A forma como a autora nos mostra o poder da distância em relação ao tempo, com capítulos curtos, cortados, simples, é limpa e poética.

As descrições finais dos planetas desconhecidos remetem-nos para a animação, mas também nos permitem imaginar novas figuras e novas imagens.

Assim, foi uma light novel que gostei bastante e que vou guardar.

[Books · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really captivating story, and it definitely transported me to distant stars, but it ends so abruptly. I'm not sure if this is how the anime is, but it felt very unfinished to me. I was left with so many questions, but I did really care about the characters.

[S · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some differences from the film.

[Kevin Thomas James Atteridg · Rating 5 out of 5]

An enjoyable adaptation of star-crossed lovers.

[con · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 👽🛸📱🚀📨👩‍🚀

[Lawliettttttt · Rating 5 out of 5]

iyi kitaptı ya. yer yer sahneleri kafamda canlandırdıkça mahvetti beni. makoto shinkai abimizden tam makoto shinkailik bir kitap olmuş eline sağlık diyelim