Hoshi no Koe

Noboru Terao and Mikako Nagamine live their freshman year at high school on a future Earth (circa 2050) apparently still very similar to our own. What do they feel for each other? Nobody knows for sure, themselves included, even if the audience has many reasons to suspect something since the beginning...

In fact, many new things happened in this seemingly contemporary setting: humanity finally managed to send a large exploration party to Mars, and soon saw them annihilated without any apparent reason by the Tharsians, uchuu kaiju (space monsters) rather obviously modeled after those from Gunbuster that can survive and propel themselves in outer space without any support device.

This first contact experience, disastrous as it had been, nevertheless greatly accelerated the scientific development of mankind. Grasping at the scraps of technology and information captured from her enemies, the newly constituted United Nations Star Fleet feverishly works to launch a retaliatory expedition against the evasive Tharsians.... and needs pilots for its mecha weapons. Who will be picked, as usual, among the best and brightest of Earth's youth.

This is how the first space war intruded into the placid city of our protagonists: instead of spending her time between classes and Kendo clubs, Mikako will fly to Mars to receive mecha combat training. And then to Jupiter. And then.. into ever deeper space. And it's in the act of separation that Mikako and Noboru become aware of their blossoming love...

Even if the Lysithea and the other starships are fitted with superluminal drives, there is still no better means of communication than the old radio waves which carry the brief e-mails that Mikako continuously exchanges with Noboru during her flight. Those will form the only cord that connects the two youths; one imprisoned on a statical world, almost unaware of the fate of its astronauts, the other forcibly thrust into a grandiose situation that even High Command seems unable to comprehend, much less a lonely fourteen-year-old.

But the fight will be brought all the way to the Sirius star system, skirting the extremes of the Terran warships' range. And mr.Shinkai will show us whether Mikako will be able to survive through all this, and whether that cord will manage to bridge a gap that widens from light-minutes to light-months... to light-years.