The Voices of a Distant Star

Created by Makoto Shinkai, adapted by Mizu Sahara
Published in the U.S. by Tokyopop



Slugline: Relativistic space travel can break your heart.

There are some questionable practices in this story -- particularly the random selection of spacecraft crew from the general population -- but it's all to set up the separation that drives the drama. Mikako is tapped to be a mecha pilot (what else is a girl going to do on a spaceship?) and Noboru has to stay home in the aimless everyday of growing up.

The story illustrates very well the slow death that long distances can bring to a relationship, but in this case it's not life getting in the way but increasingly large lag times in communication. By the end of the book, Noboru is 25 and Mikako is still 16 because of the light-speed travelling she's done.

The science does get fudged here and there, but on the whole it's surprisingly hard science fiction for a romance.

This is a standalone story, and as such it works very well for me -- another volume of this level of anguish would burn me out fast. It leaves the future, and the consequences of Noboru's choice at the end, up in the air, which is good. You don't have to ride every emotional point to death in a story, but unfortunately that often happens in manga.



- Miranda