Director Makoto Shinkai started out working for a game company by day, creating animation for their releases, while at night he worked on his own projects at home.  All by himself he created She and Her Cat, a five minute short which went on to win some prestigious awards.  Growing even more ambitious, his next project was the 25-minute feature Voices of a Distant Star, a gorgeous tale of two lovers separated by space and time.  The amazing thing about this production was that, once again, he did everything by himself (except the music and the voice overs) on his Mac with off the shelf software.  His next project was a full fledged movie, The Place Promised in Our Early Days.  ADV had previously released these films, but now they have collected them into a very attractive boxed set and appropriately named it the Shinkai Collection.

Voices of a Distant Star:

Noboru Terao and Mikako Nagamine are two middle school students who are about to advance to high school, and are growing close to each other.  As they think about which high school to attend, Mikako is selected for military service.  The Earth is in the middle of an interstellar war against the alien Tarsians, and Mikako has just the abilities that they are looking for.  Their budding relationship is over before it could really begin, but the two adolescents promise to keep in touch by sending text messages through their cell phones.  But as Mikako goes to Mars, then Jupiter and even fights in orbit around Pluto, the time that it takes for one of her messages to reach Noboru grows and grows.  To add to their problems over the months that she's gone traveling at relativistic speeds, he's aged years.  How will they ever be able to keep in touch when Mikako travels to anther star and the messages take years and years to transverse the distance?

This was a wonderful film, made all the more amazing since it was a one man job.  In a lot of ways it is reminiscent of The Forever War by Joe Haldeman, which is considered a SF classic.  The budding relationship between the two students was done nicely, and their longing to be with each other came through in a very realistic manner.  The fact that well crafted mecha battles serve as a counterpoint to these emotions makes the film all the more touching.  Though some will be confused or disappointed by the ending, I thought it worked wonderfully.

The Place Promised in Our Early Days:

Don Houston reviewed the original R1 release of this movie on DVD here.  He basically thought that the animation was very good, but that the story meandered a bit too much.  I usually enjoy 'slice of life' movies, so I thought that this would be right up my alley.  Sad to say, it isn't.  Don hit the nail on the head with his review, this movie is gorgeous looking but is too slow and uneventful.

This is the story of two friends in middle school, Takuya and Hiroki, who live in an alternate Japan.  In this world, the country has been split in two; one side autonomous and the other closely allied with the US.  The US side has created a huge tower that climbs up into the clouds, of unknown purpose.  Takuya and Hiroki are obsessed with the tower in a foreign land and come up with an ambitous plan: They are going to build a plane and fly over the border to the see the tower close up.  The scrounge parts, and get jobs to afford the pieces they can't find.

The pair is joined by a classmate, Sayuri.  She likes them and hangs around while they build their plane.  One day though, something happens at the tower.  There is an explosion that Sayuri sees and gets hit by the shockwave.  After this, the friends don't see each other for three years, and when they do meet up, things have drastically changed.

This movie has some excellent animation and is gorgeously rendered.  The movements of the characters are smooth and realistic and the scenery is beautiful.  Unfortunately this eye candy doesn't make the content of the film and more solid.

While I found the first feature in this set powerful and emotional, this one came across as pretentious and bloated.  The movie is very slowly paced and nothing really happens through most of it.  That isn't always a negative, I loved Gerry which is basically two guys walking through the desert for two hours.  The problem with this film is that it's almost impossible to relate to any of the characters or their motivations.  They were way to philosophical for their ages, and the actions that they took weren't believable.

The narration is also a bit over the top.  It is filled with poetic exclamations, it only served to make the main character seem less realistic.   "The smells of the night wafting into the train, the trust I had in my friend, and the hint of Sayuri that lingered in the air, these things were everything in the world to me." Teenagers don't talk like that.

Though this film shares a lot with Voices of a Distant Star in both plot and subtext, where the first work succeeded brilliantly this one fails to a large extent.  I can't help thinking that Makoto Shinkai is much more suited for shorter works.

This set contains two DVDs  each in their own keepcase and enclosed in a thin slipcase.  In addition to the two movies, which appear to be identical to their earlier releases, there are two 20 page booklets, one each film, with notes and production sketches.
 

The CD soundtrack to Voices of a Distant Star is also included in the same case as the DVD.

Audio:

Both films come with the original Japanese 5.1 audio and also a 5.1 English dub.  I viewed the movie in Japanese and spot checked the English track.  Both languages sounded very good.  The range was excellent and the music was very impressive sounding, especially the battle scene near the end.  The whole soundstage is used for music and sound effects, though most of the film consisted of just dialog that was centered on the screen.  There are optional subtitles in English.

Video:

The picture quality of these movies were both very impressive.  While Voices has a full frame image, Early Days is presented with a nice 1.85:1 widescreen picture that has been anamorphicly enhanced.  One both discs the colors were bright, the blacks were solid, and the image was sharp.  On the digital side there wasn't anything to complain about either.  This was an excellent looking set of DVDs.

Extras:

Voices of a Distant Star: This disc is packed with extra features.  First off there are three different cuts of the award winning She and Her Cat; a digest version that runs a minute and a half, a three minute cut and the five minute version.  This is a nice quite story about a woman and her cat, told from the cat's point of view.  Next up is an eight-minute interview with creator Makoto Shinkai, in which he talks about the production.  The director's cut of the film in included, and it plays very much the same except Makoto Shinkai and his (then) fiancee.  The original production animatic is also included for people who would like to see how the project was developed and created.  There is also the original trailer.

Included on a separate disc is the soundtrack to the movie on CD.  Altogether a very nice set of extra.

The Place Promised in Our Early Days:   This movie has sone nice bonus features.  There are four interviews each that last from 10-15 minutes with director Makoto Shinkai and the lead voice actors Masato Hagiwara, Yuka Nanri, Hidetaka Yoshioka.  In addition there are a series of trailers of varying lengths that were used to promote the movie.

Final Thoughts:

This is a mixed bag.  Voices of a Distant Star, though short, is a powerful comment on early love, isolation and loneliness.  It works quite well and quickly ensnares the viewers in the relationship between the two middle school students who are separated but circumstance.    The Place Promised in Our Early Days has the same themes and treats them in much the same way, but this movie doesn't work at all.  While Voices was a simple and touching story, Early Days tries to be deep and meaningful but just comes across as being pretentious.  In both cases though, the images are beautiful and striking and there is no doubt that Makoto Shinkai is a major talent.  This set comes recommended on the strength of the first movie and the images of the second.