From a purely production standpoint, Kazuya was genuinely impressed by 5 Centimeters per Second. He seriously considered adapting it into an anime. But now he found himself conflicted—what should he do?
Haruki had brought not one, but two works. So rather than rush into a decision, Kazuya decided to watch the second one as well and think things through.
The moment Voices of a Distant Star started, all of Kazuya's doubts about Haruki's talent vanished. The raw creative power behind it was undeniable.
As the story unfolded, he became fully immersed.
The protagonists, Noboru Terao and Mikako Nagamine, shared a deep affection for each other.
The narrative began with Mikako selected for a space mission led by the United Nations Army to investigate alien life. The plot was told almost entirely through inner monologues and the text messages exchanged between Mikako, now aboard a deep space fleet, and Noboru, who remained on Earth.
Even as Mikako traveled from Mars to Jupiter, she continued sending messages back home.
And Noboru kept waiting—always hoping to hear from her again.
No matter how far apart they were, they never stopped caring.
But the farther the fleet ventured—from Mars, to Jupiter, and eventually to Pluto—the harder it became to stay connected.
Haruki had carefully included a technical detail in the manuscript: although the fleet had reverse-engineered alien technology and achieved interstellar travel, they still relied on electromagnetic waves for communication.
In other words, messages could only travel at the speed of light.
On Earth, that's practically instantaneous. But in the vastness of space…
Even light is too slow.
Light travels at 300,000 kilometers per second, but even so, it takes 5.5 hours to reach Pluto from the Sun under the closest conditions.
And that's just within our solar system. Beyond that lies the Milky Way—150,000 light-years across.
And beyond the Milky Way, countless galaxies.
When Mikako's fleet left the solar system entirely to pursue alien forces, Kazuya stared at the distance noted in the script:
13,477,536 million kilometers.
To him, it was just a long string of numbers—until the story clarified what it meant.
It would take over 1.4 years for a message to reach Earth from that distance.
That realization hit Kazuya like a ton of bricks.
What kind of relationship could survive this?
Imagine texting someone: "Have you eaten yet?"
Then getting a reply two and a half years later: "Yeah, I did."
It was absurd. And yet… in the story, Mikako's first instinct after arriving at her new destination was still to reach out to Noboru.
Even knowing it would take a full year for her message to reach him, she sent it.
Back on Earth, to everyone else, the fleet had simply vanished. For a whole year, Noboru heard nothing.
And just as Mikako worried whether Noboru would forget her during that silence… Noboru, after a long, painful wait, had begun to give up.
But then—more than a year later—her message arrived.
Her tone was gentle, almost casual. She didn't want him to worry.
She explained that a year-long communication delay didn't feel that strange anymore. The fleet was about to make another jump—this time 8.5 light-years away.
She wrote, "By the time you receive this message, I'll have already arrived…"
"The next message might not reach us for another 8.7 years…"
"I'm sorry."
"It's like we're lovers separated by the entire universe."
Kazuya felt his chest tighten. Both 5 Centimeters per Second and Voices of a Distant Star wove a heavy emotional atmosphere—but it was the quiet, accumulating kind that eventually broke through in a single line of dialogue.
If 5 Centimeters left him feeling quietly melancholic, then Voices of a Distant Star pushed that emotion even further.
What on earth was going through the mind of this barely twenty-year-old boy? How could someone so young create something this emotionally devastating?
And yet, no matter how painful it was to watch, Kazuya couldn't stop.
The story shifted again. One year earlier, Mikako had just arrived on an alien world, piloting a mobile suit across its surface.
She saw unfamiliar mountains, strange clouds, and alien rain.
And in that moment, what popped into her mind was painfully human:
"I hope the rain clears soon."
"I want to go to the convenience store and grab a cold drink… together."
The "together" needed no explanation.
Back on Earth, Noboru slowly came to understand these moments through the messages she'd left behind.
But Mikako? She had jumped from Pluto to a galaxy 1.2 light-years away… and now to one 8.7 light-years from Earth.
She didn't know if she would ever see Earth again. She didn't know if she'd ever see Noboru again.
Maybe she would die out there, fighting in an unknown war on an alien world.
That was the reality for a 15-year-old girl.
Her text message had been calm. But when she stepped onto the soil of that distant planet, she broke down in tears.
Still—she didn't let herself cry for long.
She pulled herself together and did the one thing she had promised herself:
She sent a message.
Even if it would take eight years to arrive.
It began:
"Hello, twenty-four-year-old Noboru. I'm fifteen-year-old Mikako."
"I still really like you."
Kazuya stopped reading.
It was too much.
He felt something heavy and sharp twist inside him.
If the fleet never returned, then by the time Noboru could reply, Mikako would be thirty-three.
How could a relationship possibly survive across that kind of distance—across that much time?
Shout out to Vongola Flame, Dio_Medes, Angel for joining my p-atreon! your support means everything to me.
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