[Show Intro] Jala Hey, thanks for coming! I'm glad you're here. Come on in! Everyone's out on the patio right now. Looks like a couple of people are in the garden. I can't wait to introduce you! Can I get you anything? [turned away] Hey folks, our new guest is here! [Intro music] 00:00.00 Jala & Dave Hello world and welcome to Jala-chan's Place I'm your host Jala Prendes (she/her) and today I am joined by Ollie (he/him) and Dave (he/him). Woo yay yay I don't even know if they can hear you Dave because the mic is very good at drowning people out. They are over there. 00:14.30 Ollie Whoops. 00:18.99 Jala & Dave But anyway so yeah Ollie is a brand new guest that has not been on the show before but is a good friend of mine from some time ago who gave ah gave me some shit through some shade and was like hey I haven't been on an episode of your show and I'm like Ollie you don't talk to me. Um. 00:36.17 Ollie I I feel I feel like it's important I feel like it's ah it's important to say that myself and Jaa are internet friends have never met in real life and probably never will because I live in Ireland that you can probably tell from my yeah distinctive accent here. Um. 00:41.54 Jala & Dave Um, the spot right? at the top. Yes, yes. 00:55.43 Ollie So myself a ja met I can't I can't even remember how we ended up chatting to each other jala but it was probably me getting really animated about something you talked about in video games I was like I'm going to give this woman a piece of my mind and then it turned out that the piece of my mind was really small because my mind is not very big. And and then you probably schooled me in several things and I was like all right yeah this girl's cool all right fine we'll ever fine fine. Okay I take back my criticisms and but yes, so we I I think we've known each other since like 2014 or 15 kind of off and on. 01:26.87 Jala & Dave Um, it's been some time. Yeah and then not only that but it it must have been 2014 because you introduced Greg to me and you were giving me throwing me shade on the simulacra episode which was a media episode from last month 01:43.58 Jala & Dave And you know like Greg posted about it and then you made a comment on it and I was like ah excuse me so I was like ok fine, you will be on an episode here. 01:53.32 Ollie Yeah, well I knew you've had you've done episodes with Greg before and I have done quite a few episodes of Greg True his PlayStation podcast and his SNES Podcast and um I was like oh my god how come Greg's getting the invite to be on chat chances place. 02:10.78 Jala & Dave Um, well hey, hey if you want some real shade I'll give you some shade you told me you were going to have me on Best Acquaintances once upon a time sir and you ended the podcast before I was ever on it! 02:24.14 Ollie So the situation of Best Acquaintances. Ah, hopefully it's okay, they talk about this is we ended up myself and my co-host and investments ended up dating and then it became less interesting to us. 02:27.34 Jala & Dave Yes, go for it. 02:39.26 Ollie To basically have people listen to us having our private conversations like oh crap. So we ended up just doing all of that private. So I I still maintain the best acquaintances group and like I'll hang out with people and people who are guests you know in 2015 and we'll still like. 02:58.24 Ollie Hang out with them every now and then have little chats and stuff so it's like it's fun. It's it's just a great way to keep a little community and I've never had a a discord but haven't been in Discord now for about a week um various discords and I've joined of people who've been seeing to me for years. You should join their Discord now John was like oh my god. What a really helpful and easy way to communicate with people. 03:19.41 Jala & Dave Ah, oh yeah, yeah for sure. So yeah, so anyway I guess you're doing all right today. Ollie. 03:20.00 Ollie Excuse me. Yeah I'm I'm feeling pretty good feeling. Pretty good. So Everything is everything is fine and I'm looking forward to talking about these heartbreaking pieces of Media. You force me to watch. 03:35.86 Jala & Dave Yes, and that's that's what you get Ollie for complaining anyway, um, yes, so we will be talking about Voices of a Distant Star as well as She and Her Cat. I also have to ask Dave how are you doing today I'm doing all right? it's it's the weekend everything's fine the weather is not freezing. It's getting hot again though. So I don't know can't can't win that one here. Well at least today the high is only eighty it's not 90. That's next week. So you know we got a nice ah Ru in this morning we went to the park and we wandered around and saw several deer and an armadillo that all informs us you cannot shoot with a nine millimeter so that's how we're doing. But yes, so before we. Dig into the topic of today though I do want to give both of the guests time to talk about where they are from What do you do? What's your stuff. What's your story. So Ollie you already mentioned 1 podcast that you had done at some time and then stop doing so what are you doing right now. 04:48.40 Ollie So um, in my everyday day to day life I'm a dad of a 10 year old autistic boy Donal and he's the light of my life is that the greatest thing that's ever happened to me I also teach physics um ahm trying to think of what the the best to describe it would be so it's not it's not like high school. It's like a level after high school but wouldn't be full college level so kind of like community college and I don't want to sound like I'm insulting community colleges there but that's where I teach physics. Um, and then in podcast podcast word I have no longer got my own podcast or at least so. Like to say it that way I am now currently a permanent guest host on a couple of podcasts. So I guest on one called Media-eval which is my good friend Sarah F Decker who is a medieval historian and we talk about movie set in the medieval past and. She tells everybody what to get right? and what to get wrong and then I tell everybody how much you know they rank on my stabbing people in the face scale which is a real scale. Um, and you mean it goes from 0 to getting stabbed in the face. But if a movie doesn't have that in it. It's not good enough for me. 05:56.38 Ollie And then I do another one called Judging Book Covers which is like a monthly book club podcast where I'm on every episode there but I just want to make it very clear I'm not a co-host I'm merely on all the episodes as a color commentator coming over from Ireland and giving irish perspective on things like The Other Black Girl. A book that I have like 0 cultural touchstones for but was it's always really interesting to talk about that sort of stuff and we're going to do a spinoff of that called judging boy bads because for some reason every single episode ends up with us discussing like I don't know Nsync and Backstreet Boys which is another. Um. That would be an area of music that I wouldn't necessarily consider myself an expert on. 06:41.30 Jala & Dave All of that sounds absolutely wonderful. Also it's great that you are just like the serial guest on everybody's shows. So ah, definitely like it the longer that you talk to people who also do podcasts the more you're going to find that you're just gonna be everywhere. So. 06:53.20 Ollie Yeah, that's how it feels. 06:57.98 Jala & Dave yeah yeah for sure so Dave how about you? What do you do? I already know what you do but tell everybody else what you do I am one of the co-hosts on monster dear monster so we basically discuss monsters in popular culture. Um, we try to look at some primary source material. So. Wherever that monster originated in and then what's kind of changed over time in their multimedia depictions which you can find at monsterdear.monster. We'll have links in the show notes. Ah for everybody for all the stuff that you have heard about already. So ah, my little admin for this show that I'm going to go ahead and get out of the way at the start. First off I want to give a shout out to Matt Storm Matt storm is now one of my favorite people in the universe. Ah Matt was already one of my favorite people. Ah, but anyway, ah, they are so kind to be 1 of our newest patrons. So yay. You know fanfare I am doing the jazz hands. You can't see it but that's cool. Imagine it. So ah Matt is somebody who's been on this show a couple of times actually Matt was on the last episode as of the date of this show's release so Matt was on the empathy episode if you want to take. To check that out that would be great. He's also a podcast host on several different shows. There's Reignite, Screen Snark and "Fun" and Games Podcast and by the time we're recording this I was just on episode 263 of "Fun" and Games, their Side Quests series where they let somebody rant about something they love and I talked about Lunar: Eternal Blue. So ah, check that out if you want to hear me talk sugar about this thing that is one of my favorite games. But yeah, so thank you so much Matt and also if you want to be like Matt you can go to kaohyphenfi. Dot com slash fireheart media and you can kick us a one-time donation or become a subscribing patron there is extra goodies for patrons. There will be more goodies in the future as I actually can get them rolled out. There should be like extra episodes and reviews and stuff like that. So definitely check that out. That's all my admin now we can talk about these 2 heartbreaking and moving pieces of media. Oh yeah, yeah. 09:14.44 Ollie Wait I I have a very quick question for you Jala like so Eternal Blue you said is one of your favorite games. Do you prefer that to Silver Star Story Oh well I go listen to. It's just that I I've. 09:26.31 Jala & Dave Hell yes I talk about it on that episode of "Fun" and Games. You should go listen to it. Oh yeah, well. 09:32.10 Ollie Always loved Silver Star Story and I've never actually played Eternal Blue so I'm I'm kind of excited to know that somebody prefers the second one. 09:36.88 Jala & Dave I I specifically talk about what I like about it and why I like it better than Silver Star Yay! So yes, so we are talking about Voices of a Distant Star and She and Her Cat. 09:53.59 Jala & Dave Ah, both of these are works by Makoto Shinkai who is a solo creator. He was working with Falcom he was doing um the environment art. For Falcom and he was working in video games for a long time. But then as a passion project on his own. He started to do his own animation and directing using his power mac and light wave Adobe photoshop and after effects and some other stuff. And that's how he started animating his own stuff and directing his own pieces after being directed by someone in video games for a number of years. So ah, these 2 pieces I think we'll actually talk about she and her cat first because it's shorter. Um, she and her cat was. The first thing that he had directed it. It's only 5 minutes long you can find it on Youtube um, it was produced produced in 1999 and it was a work that made him popular and led to him creating the production company comics wave films. For which he produced his other films and it's not just these two films. He's also made several other ones after that, but these were just like the first couple of them and once upon a time in like 2002 it was brought over to the us as a dual feature on a Dvd. 11:24.67 Jala & Dave And I picked up that Dvd right? after it first came out watched them and then like had them in the back of my head for years and years and years but I hadn't gone back to like rewatch them. You know, very often just a few times because they're short. But like once you get the idea behind it and you get the emotion behind it. You know like I think it doesn't require lots of numerous rewatches for it because like the takeaway is so strong it sticks with you is kind of the way that I think about it Dave what do you think. Yeah I would say the same thing they're not something that you're going to get um, repeated viewings aren't going to be as additive. Maybe a second time. It's about all, you'd need to kind of really understand what's going on. They're short enough that if you wanted to repeat viewings. It's it's a few minutes out of your day. Ah. And they're narratively. They're not like super strong leaning on any 1 thing. It's more about the emotion that's kind of inherent in what's going on right right? So ah. Makulto shikka had the idea for she and her cat way back in 9097 when he was still working with Falcom and he ended up deciding to make she and her cat black and white to save space on his computer basically and the time to process it because it takes so long to process color. 12:52.98 Jala & Dave So ah, he was actually working on an rpg at the time with detailed backgrounds and that influenced the detail and she and her cat. So after he completed it. He actually distributed the film himself with cdrs and sell you know sold. 5000 copies at onime conventions. He literally was just handing the dis out to people at at onime conventions in Japan and that's how he became popular and that's how people started to pay attention to him was just doing that legwork. That's it's wild to think about that now in like 2023 but like especially back then that would have been like. The way that people would view that you know nowadays people just upload stuff to Youtube and that's how you know it goes viral or it doesn't but back then you had to do all that leg work and talk to the people face-to-face you know, but um, yeah, the only release for she and her cat in North America was the subtitled version that was released with voices of a distant star. In 2003 and in 2016 a short anime adaptation was created called she and her cat everything flows and it was followed by a manga adaptation. Both of those have been released in the us I have not read the manga nor watched the little short. Um you know series. That it's based you know that is based on this 5 minute film but ah we're not going to have a spoiler wall for these 2 pieces of media because she and her cat is 5 minutes and voices of a distance star is like 23 minutes so um just a heads up listeners. 14:27.16 Jala & Dave We're about to talk about the story. So um, definitely ah, go check these out. It's not going to take you very long. So so yeah, Ollie you haven't been able to say anything about she and her cat yet. Did you watch that one first. Or did you watch voices of a distant star first. 14:46.88 Ollie I watched she and her cat first because you said it's like VOllie and only take 5 minutes don't worry about it. That's that's exactly what you wrote in that message. Ah, don't worry about so I watched it not not planning to worry about anything. And then and then felt like ah something had just reached down and riffed out that organ in the center of my chest there like beats blood around the body and yeah, so thanks Jalla um, like you would watch this like in 2002 when I can only imagine you were what. 21 or 22 years old something along those lines. How did you react to that back then because I can tell you as a 42 year old man that's heartbreaking. Um, just this girl seems so lonely and her only friend is a cat and the cat is like. Totally in love with her. But there's no way for them to communicate beyond the way that we communicate with our pets I was like oh my god what's going on here genuinely close to tears watching that. 15:45.27 Jala & Dave Yeah, yeah, and the thing is is that like both Dave and I watched both of these 2 pieces of media right? when they came out so in in the us that is so we both watched it around the time that um I was in college and I don't know where you were Dave in the military. Probably. Ah, you were in college too. Okay, um, so yeah, ah, both of us were in college at the time and that we watched this when I first watched she and her cat I was like yeah like I I can relate to a lot of what this girl is feeling because I was working full time. And going to school full time and I did have a relationship while I was doing that and I did have friends but it was like my time was so spread out among so many different things that I did feel very lonely for vast lengths of time and there was a long period before that that I had been. Just really lonely and you know I had always been close to my animals and things like that so that didn't really affect me. You know in a in you know, like oh my gosh I can't believe that cat loves. You know its owner or anything it wasn't that it was it was just like ah it felt bittersweet. Ah, the thing that for me was the interesting thing. So so in this in this 5 minute video what is happening is like you see this life of this cat that is picked up I guess off the street by this girl and you know she takes him in and you know he becomes her pet. 17:15.91 Jala & Dave And it goes through 1 year of their life together and so the seasons are changing and as the seasons are changing different things happen. It comes to spring. He finds himself a little kitty girlfriend. He thinks that the little kitty girlfriend is too silly and you know he prefers more mature women and thinks about his owner. 17:34.52 Jala & Dave You know and that's really cute and sweet and um, you know like oh she's the little kitty girlfriend is like oh you need to marry me and then you know the little cat's like I can't do that I'm in love with someone else and you know it kind of goes on from there and then the owner. Ends up having a phone call one day that she starts crying and she's devastated by whatever happened on the phone and then the cat doesn't understand what's going on and just knows that you know he loves her and is just there for her and the way that he can be there and then at the end you know like she's moved on and there. Still just living their life together just the two of them. You know there's never anybody else around just them and you know then it just kind of ends with these words of this world I think we like it and you know that is the part that was kind of poignant to me because it's like you know she has this very lonely existence. She's there with just her cat but she can still find the beauty in those small moments and that's really like a big theme that Makalto Shika works with in both of these pieces. So Dave what do you think How about you? Yeah I remember watching this this to pack. Um, when it came out I was working at a video store and going to school so just working full time I could empathize with the characters in these because I was I was so busy with everything but I still had to find time to like make. 19:07.21 Jala & Dave Time for myself and and try to be happy and amidst like just the daily grind because it was a lot I mean I was I was doing um retail management deOllieng with like a bunch of other college students ah trying to get all my school work done. Are the video store hours were long I wouldn't get home until like two o'clock in the morning and then my relaxation time was well I can forego some sleep because I have to be back up again at 7 to get to work or to class. Um, and that's my downtime that's when I was watching these so watching them at like three o'clock in the morning with like no sleep. Um I don't think that it like hit me super hard or anything I just was appreciating the very very well done. Um animation. Understanding that like 1 person did all this and this must have taken forever because the the technology on home computers was like not great at the time and ah just kind of having a moment to revel in this world that was yeah that was bittersweet. I mean I I liked that and it was something that's it's a charming thing even though it's sad right? A lot of times aniee is either like super gram dark or it's ridiculously happy and over the top and it's not often this kind of tone. 20:36.30 Jala & Dave Ah, which is what kind of is another thing that kind of stood out to me. It. It seems more um, reOlliestic to the emotion of going through the life that you have you know at least in my view. So. Other than having your heart wrenched out of your chest. Do you want to expand on that all and tell us a little bit more about ah how it felt and what you were thinking. 20:56.49 Ollie So I I have ah a complex relationship with with anime in so much as I don't like it or that's what I've told myself for thirty plus years of my life. Um, so as a kid I would have seen Nakira which are. 21:13.96 Ollie Um, I'm going to butcher some pronunciations here so please bear with me. Um, so Akira or Akira and taught it was amazing to was incredible but I was like 10 and then didn't see anything for a long time. So when this came out in 2002 I I think the only animes. That I had seen were things like crying Freeman and fist of the north star which are both hyper violent beautifully drawn, really interesting stories but hyper violent. That's what I had associated with anime and in my head that's what anime had been for a long long long long time. So. Watching this today and I'm trying to put myself back into like 2001 2002 Ollie. This genuinely would have blown my mind I it is so emotionally deep what's happening here like the animation style is really simple. It's almost stills a lot of the time and just the camera moving across them with the voiceover coming from the point of view to cat and yet everything in them every tiny that the movement just really resonates and and and has weight like has has like a ah ah, reason for why it happens and. As I was watching this today I I would genuinely talk like I this would have probably changed my life a little bit if I'd watched this back in 2001 because like even even somebody who is not a cat person and I'm not a cat person I'm a dog person. Um I I genuinely think I would have wanted to get a cat after this. 22:49.12 Ollie Like I know it sounds silly and I know it sounds maybe a little bit overly twey but it's showing the bond between her and the cat and then how much the cat loves her and how much the cat wants her to be happy and then at the end when the cat has come to terms with the fact that she's no longer. Even. Seemingly trying to make friends with other people. It's just a cat and her and the cat's like I think we like this life and yet it just it's Beautiful. It's just a beautiful piece of art. 23:17.30 Jala & Dave Right? right? and something that I think is very charming and the reason ok well, we're I'm going to talk a little bit of um salt on on Maulta Sheenka slightly ah in that. Okay, the cute. The cat is cute. The animation in she and her cat is cute. The figures and voices of a distant star are terrible. We'll get there. We'll get there but like the fact that the cat looks as super cartoonish in like over the time. It's not trying to look like a reOlliestic cat. It's also not trying to be like a super automate cat. It's kind of like ah, an abstracted blob of a cat. Um. 23:54.29 Jala & Dave Actually like that because it it sets it apart as like this this kind of ah fairy tale or like other otherworldly thing even though it's very grounded in like actually he took a lot of photos and videos of different areas of Tokyo and just like lifted that and put that in like you know use that as his references. For drawing all of these things so he was basing it specifically on actually stuff in around him in Tokyo when he was drawing everything. So it's very grounded in reOlliety but it's also not and I like the cat being as cute and nonsense looking as it is actually it makes it. Even a little bit more like a little sweeter than if it was a reOlliestic looking cat like I don't think it would come across the same way if that cat had been drawn. You know with the same attention to detail that he puts in the environments if that makes any sense. 24:50.44 Ollie Yeah, it makes it. It makes total sense like I just talking about movies from ah from the the same time period like when this came out or when this was was released um, did you say it was 1998 25:02.77 Jala & Dave Um, ah this was Ninety Ninety nine 25:06.16 Ollie So um, because the the next one was 2001 so like the the do movie came out in 1999 Scooby-doo Monsters ghost or witches ghosts came out like the South Park movie came out ty story two came out like that's the kind of animated movie that I was used to seeing back then so for this to exist and even would it been as simply drawing as it is if we're not talking disney style villagers. Ah, visuals here. It's not like Tarzan Deanimated movie and yet it still has such such feeling of movement despite the fact there's a lacking of movement though I'm not I'm not an animation expert and I know jally you you are an artist and in a way that I will never be and would never even claim to be but. Everything about this feels intentional. So every single line like there's a couple of scenes where I'm moving across and there's a kettle on the stove top. So we would call it the hub here in Ireland I'm not really sure what you guys would call it but there's a cat that's sitting on the hub and. And it'll just move showing that telling you letting you know that it's got heat underneath. It's actually been heated and it's going through the process of of making hot water for the tea and like stuff like that. Just just really feels grounded like it makes it feel like a real place and as you said he went and took pictures of. 26:30.30 Ollie Different areas of Tokyo to then put into his movie like ah yeah, generally it feels. It feels more real than any sort of animation that I would have seen at the time and it also has like like real feelings like we we don't even see the face of the adult lady. It and you just mostly see it from the cat's perspective which is you know her hair hanging down or her arms wrapped around them and the cat is drawn in this kind of as you said abstract way just like a blob looks like Simon's cat if you know if you know that reference and yet everything about her clothes is drawn in great detail. 27:09.46 Ollie And like that's sort of difference where we don't need to see what the girl is because what the girl is to the cat is like the person that he loves like all he he loves the fact that she's there Withham and I think I said it's just a beautiful movie. 27:20.71 Jala & Dave Yeah, yeah, well I mean it definitely makes sense that he could run around at automate conventions sell 5000 copies by hand to all these various people at these conventions and then become popular and subsequent to this. End up releasing all of the other stuff that he did because he made several different movies and so you know like the fact that he was able to do that is you know important like obviously there was something to this 5 minutes that he presented this thing you know and this is the first time that he's directed his own work and. I would I would tell you I just don't even know I I wouldn't even know looking at it that this was his first time doing directing of his own and the fact that this is 1 guy who does the whole thing you know and he was the one who did the voiceover in the original version. So you know. 28:14.43 Ollie Oh yeah, so I was just about to ask about the voiceover. Um, the 1 thing that I taught as I was watching this is so I think it's around about the two and a half minute mark where he starts talk about how beautiful the woman is and telling the other kitten that. He's I've got a mature woman back home and the kit's like no, you don't and he's like yeah I do and I think the voice actor puts just ever so slightly too much. Um. Um, I'm going to say almost sexuOlliezation into the way he says that because it is it to be It was very fuddy I was what's this cat playing out here. What's going on. But yeah, um, it was yeah it's really good so you saying he did the voice work for himself. Originally. 29:02.37 Jala & Dave Um, yeah I I think that they ended up and I know for voices of a distance star. They ended up getting professionals to do it. Um, do the voice acting over it on the subsequent release like the larger release that they did but the original version of voices of a distance star. There's 2 characters in that. A male and a female The male was him the female was his fiancee. So ah, the voice work was 100 % also homebrewed so you know 1. 29:30.63 Ollie And again, that's fantastic that just speaks. But um I might ask David about de but you you were just talking about going around to um, anime and or to conventions whatever and and there's a popular web series called red versus blue. 29:44.67 Ollie And I watched something there recently I think maybe it's because it something something involving rooster teat was coming into a close so one of the original directors and stars of red versus blue was doing like a reminiscing thing. They all lived close to you as well. Just whether close you to live in Austin. And he was talking about what it was like being in Austin in 1999 up until 2003 but he also then talked about their main source of income for the first two years of making red versus blue but which went on to be a huge massive property for them. But for those first two years every Dvd they sold was at. Ah convention they would just show up at the convention. They would have their booth and they were only selling the people walking by and it's crazy to think that that's how like aristote went on to have like productions and make movies like and this guy and makota shinke. He went on to make movies that. 30:39.98 Ollie I think he won an Oscar it was nominated for an Oscar for For Your Name. 30:46.17 Jala & Dave Ah I'm not sure if he was for that one I I don't know offhand but I do know that he has won several different awards for several of his different movies and that there is a Blu Ray compilation of like all of his stuff together available. So. 30:58.13 Ollie Yeah, which is just to think that he went from this and selling it himself by hand you can totally picture him running up to people and be like here. Do you want this for 5 books. Yeah I think it's it's amazing. 31:09.56 Jala & Dave Um, yeah, yeah, yeah, and that's the thing is that like ah the same kind of thing happened for a lot of people who are fan artists who then became really big. You know something like Sakimi Chan for example, Sakiemi Chan was really just. On the con circuit selling stuff at conventions and then ended up on like deviant art and everywhere else and then eventually got a Patreon and now like you know she's this really? well-known fan artist who also does sexy smutty stuff and you know but like she started out at conventions just selling fan art. So um, it's kind of wild how that does happen or it did happen but nowadays it's like you still have to make that kind of a circuit I feel in order to go like to have like a lasting sort of viral impression like. If you make it's not like a ah situation of you make the art and then they they will come. You have to be the one out there doing the legwork to get word out. You know. So so yeah, but yeah I I think that pretty much sums up everything about she and her cat unless anybody has anything else further to say. On that one. No okay, cool. So yeah, moving right? along though. Let's talk about voices of a distant star. So this one was another one that was written directed and produced by Michael Toshika and I already mentioned that he and his fiancee. 32:40.33 Jala & Dave Were the ones who did the voice acting originally but when they produced it for like a bigger release then they got professional voice actors to do it. It was released in Japan in 2002 saw Dvd release in the Usa in 2003 alongside she and her cat. And then subsequent media releases included a drama cd a novel and a manga. The manga was published in North America by Tokyo Pop In 2006 and the current manga and novel license holder is vertical I think it's still available through vertical. Um, but. other than that in March Twenty Twenty Two G Kids obtained the license for it and all of the other makolto shika works to put on a Blu Ray release of five centimeters per second so this is available on a Blu Rayy at this point. So the narrative of voices of a distant star is kind of interesting now like there are things about it that kind of broke it for me back in in 2002 2003 whenever I watched it originally um because there there are certain things that are going to do that for me like say for example. Ah, the main narrative focuses on these 2 characters. There is Noboru who is the boy and then ah, what's her name, Mikako I think Mikako who is the the girl and they're middle schoolers and they are really good friends slash. 34:12.91 Jala & Dave Kind of a love interest. But they're too young to really get into that yet. Um, and then you see that there's spaceships in this guy and then Mikako drops the bomb of I'm going to be on one of those spaceships because I was chosen to be 1 of the pilots and so she goes off to space to go fight the tarsians. And you know the people who are like invading from another solar system or something that have attacked a colony on Mars or something I think was the whole kind of point and either way like the whole what's going on actually has nothing to do with the actual thread of what's going on in the the narrative. 34:50.84 Jala & Dave And we'll explain that better in a minute so she has her cell phone with her this little Nokia thing and she goes to space and even though this could never happen. She is in space texting him and the little males. Get to him but like the further and further she gets from earth the longer and longer it takes for it to come you know for the signal to come back now. Her cell phone would never be able to send this message through space and that's what sent me into another dimension when I was watching it and broke it for me when I was in 2002 watching it which maybe it. Made it a little like a little bit less impactful for me because that's nonsense but at the same time. The makultahika made this cell phone transmission thing the point because he wanted to make sure that this. Was a familiar exchange that people of that era when this movie came out would relate to if it was some kind of like fancy star trek device or whatever then people wouldn't relate to it the same way that they would a cell phone that looks like literally the cellphone they have in their. You know pocket so he did that for a reason it still sent me. But but anyway the whole the whole thrust of it is she is in basically a gundom suit. She's often spaced fighting these things they're getting further and further away from earth. She's trying to send messages to this guy. 36:23.36 Jala & Dave You know this good friend of hers that she ends up confessing love to and she's farther and farther they end up going through like a warpole after 1 encounter and then it's like 8 years until the message reaches him. So by the time she confesses her love. It's like she's 15 and she says hi nobodu. You know 24 year old Noboru this is the 15 year old mikaco talking to you and he's waited this whole time and it's it's covering how she feels being isolated out in space. You never see her inside the little spaceship. You only ever see her in her gundom fighting and feeling alone and just looking very very isolated and so you don't you just get this impression that she doesn't you know have any connections with anybody else that is around her like you don't even think there's anybody out there because she's just. Always floating alone. You know the entire time and no bodu. He is on earth and at first he's like you know it's only takes six months for a message to get there and so he's like okay you know and then he's like oh I'm not going to wait any longer. But then. You know he starts feeling bad and then ends up waiting for her messages and waiting and waiting and going through the motions of you know, being a school kid and going you know through all the different grades and everything and then by the end of the story. She's fighting the tarsians she's in a really precarious situation where. 37:56.50 Jala & Dave Um, you know her ship is being you know taken over by tarsian enemy forces and she's trying to fight and defend that spaceship and noboto is on earth and he said I made my decision. I'm going to go into the fleet and I'm going to go. Basically he's going to go get into the military. Also so that he can find her except at the point that that happens she's off in space. The arm gets ripped off her suit and then. You know those the you know she just floating there by herself and the assumption is she is dying because you know there's there's no way out for her at that point there's nobody left to back her up and you know it ends with this thought of you know I'm here I'm here. You know the the link between them stay strong. She tells him about how she misses feeling the rain on her and listening to the train and waiting there and you know hiding out and and hanging out with him and things like that all these things about living on earth and. The thing that was most impactful for me about the presentation of the story other than the fact that it is a thousand percent about human connection and the most important thing to me is the fact that this is an environment artist. Okay, who is making this video that's about human connection. 39:24.11 Jala & Dave Via the environment. He's thinking about what would it feel like if you were from earth but you're in space and you have separation from the sensation of being on earth constantly forever and like you can't feel the wind on your face. You can't feel rain. You don't know what you know the sunshine and the sky and. Trains and all this other mess. You can't have all of those sensations anymore because you're in space you know and it it is using that as a vehicle to express the nostalgia the sentimentOlliety and the connection to other people by grounding it in. The stark contrast between being in space versus being on the earth and that's really an interesting way of approaching it that I feel like only an environment artist would think to do and not only that but you can see the craftsmanship the years of practice that moko tu shikai put into being able to draw all of the transistorsors on a radio and all of the wisps in a cloud and it's beautiful and then you reOllieze 2000 era mokulishinkai cannot draw people and it's probably good that there's only 2 human characters in there and the rest are kind of blobs or machines because the shifting perspective the profiles it's it's hard to look at the the 2 little characters they are It's like the cat where they these aren't intentionally abstracted but they became that way because I think that that's. 40:57.59 Jala & Dave Definitely not where his string lies right? right? and um, it that is definitely like a feature like he's definitely using different camera angles throughout to kind of offset like he knows. He's not very good at at drawing people. And so he's like I'm going to put it from this really weird camera angle. It'll look okay I can't draw feet so there's a lot of cans and rocks in front of people's shoes. Ah right? right? Um, and that's that's kind of. Mind blowing because his attention to detail on the environments are so great. You would think well he can also take a photo of a person and do that too. But really, it's a different kind of part of the brain to draw a background like a a setting a radio. You know a mountain versus drawing a person. It's it's a little bit different and people tend to have a strength one way or the other to draw either organic moving things or inorganic things or you know like stuff that is rather stationary for the most part and. You know, um, definitely that's that's not a strong suit. But um, yeah, the main exchanges that happen here are between Mikako who is a young girl who by the way the military would not send necessarily a middle school girl with no training. 42:22.75 Jala & Dave Off into space. But I mean that's fine. Ah yeah, we had evangeian you know, like whatever there was evangellian it's a genre staple. Um it just here it because it's so reOlliestic looking as far as like the emotional and other settings aside from the space bit of it. It's. It makes it weirder because then it's you're really thinking about it going? Ok actually this is kind of bad. All right right? But um, the thing about it though that I really really like aside from you know again, some of the the aspects of how it's presented is so the fact that. This is a subversion of your expectations in multiple ways you have instead of like because this is basically like the war torn lovers feeling. You know like there is a war going on somewhere far away and 1 of the 2 people has to go off to war. Usually. You know that would be the guy going off to war leaving the woman behind who you know in in actual war. Sometimes they would just be like well I haven't heard from my husband in a long time I'm just going to go get married to somebody else and start a new life and then the husband pops up and it's like I'm not dead yet and then you know like oops now now. Oops. There's there's ah, a divorce in the offing because he wasn't actually dead whoops. But here it's the girl going off to war leaving the guy waiting and the first time I watched this and even though I knew how the story played out when I rewatched it to do this episode. 43:52.80 Jala & Dave Was watching it and I'm like he going to go off and go find a new girl isn't he he just going to like move on is what he's going to do but he doesn't and that's that's a observed sub version of my expectation I'm expecting him to go off and go find a new wife or whatever but like he doesn't He's stuck on her. He loves her and he wants to go into the military to go after her which is super. You know important because he's accommodating his entire life. He's planning his entire life and what he's going to do with it around being able to see her Again. I We've been talking a lot Ollie What do you think. 44:32.28 Ollie Right? Um, so first of all I just sent you a picture on on your thing that is a Nokia 3650 which one of the greatest phones ever created and that's the phone that he's drawn in this movie and I t is a really good job of doing it. That's just a small minor thing. Um I'm massive. 44:34.60 Jala & Dave Okay I take a look. 44:50.12 Ollie Science fiction nerd because I'm I'm a massive science boy in real life and the idea of communicating true space and how that affects relationships is one of the major teams of the the I would say pre science so science fiction science fiction fantasy. Pre 1950 s five 56 a lot of the books focus on this How do you communicate with your loved ones if you're and say you're in the original novel of starship troopers. For example, you're trying to communicate with your family back home and you're 7 or 8 different light years away. By the time you come home everybody that you know and loved has passed on because you've gone through. Um, you've gone through faster than light travel. You've gone through moments of stasis. Whatever it happens to be and then in 19 I think it was in mid 60 s so errsa Kela Glen come up with this idea of a thing called an ansible. So anable which is like kind of a ah bastardization of the word answerable. Um, and so nancyable means superliminal methods of transferring data so that you can communicate with people in real time and then almost all science fiction fantasy books after that point. Just use some form of an ansible so you don't have this issue of a person leaving Earth in 2024 or whatever a year it happens to be and they're suddenly light years away so it takes a year or a lot more to travel through space. So this idea that they're sending messages over a text message. 46:24.94 Ollie And they're six months away because text messages travel at the speed of light which is what we were all told back in 4001 that was one of their things like text messages like if you're old enough to remember text messaging being invented or becoming a thing on mobile phones you were told about how quickly they were as a message of communication. Don't. Don't send the letter. Don't send an email send a text message. It'll get there instantly and this idea that that was traveling at the speed of light. So it just became a really easy shorthand for the mekoto. Um shinkai to say oh well, we're sending a text message. So if they're six months away from ert. At this speed of light. It'll take six months to get there so when they take their light year jump they're a year away so while I understand your frustration with a cha that they can't send text messages I think it's just his modern equivalent then again back in 2001 2000 and round about the time we were all being told how quick and how fast they were traveling. So I think that's just his way of getting it. Um I I read this story slightly differently I think and I saw this as right? So here's the question. Whose point of view is the movie from. 47:47.51 Jala & Dave The cat. 47:47.89 Ollie No no genuinely in the in the movie Voices of a Distant Star whose point of view is it from. 47:56.89 Jala & Dave That I that's difficult I think to say I would say it's probably from the boys even though we're given remote access to what she's doing. It's Both. You've got like it switches between the 2 of them. 48:16.60 Ollie Yeah, so that's what I was thinking when when I was watching so I watched this twice today just and from people listening I genuinely enjoyed this I thought this was brilliant. It really emotional really touching. Um, not what I was expecting at all. So. watching it the first time and I talked to myself oh this is a nice story I sort of to 2 point of views and then when I was watching it the second time I was struck that I genuinely think it's from the boy's point of view and he so in his world. The girl has left so. I was taking this as like a semi- brick up story so she left them and then he's left in this limbo where he's growing older but the only memories he has of that girl are from when she was 15 so he gets to 1819 and he's still in love with this girl little knew when he was 15 and he gets the 24 and he's got this idea that he's getting messages from the girl who was 15 and eventually we're going to get back together but she's still like in his head. There's been no change for her. She's just a 15 year old girl because again, it's only a memory. He has. He doesn't have he does he has no idea what actually happened to her when she was 16 17 18 1920 so he's only seeing this ideOlliezed version he had of her which is him saying to her you should take up make sure you go and and do your swordfighting lessons in in school and high school because he wants them to hang out together. 49:47.85 Ollie And then she goes off and joins the army or you know if we're taking this as an allegory. She left him and went to a different school whatever happens to be and he's still in love with that version. So That's why there's no movement or change in her character. That's why when she's in Space. She's still wearing her school uniform when she's in the middle of a battle. She's still wearing her skewed uniform when she's alone and she has no other of friends doesn't there doesn't seem to be anybody else on the entire un n ship. She's never taken instruction from anybody beside a computer voice and she's just this ideOlliezed 15 year old version of the girl that he left or left him. And yeah, so I find it like really affecting to think about like relationships or distance relationships where you've only got a small a small window of opportunity to get to know somebody and then they're done. They're a way and you have no way of knowing what they're like now if that makes sense. 50:42.30 Jala & Dave Yeah I can understand that point of view and that reading for sure the thing that makes me think that that's not true is that the girl so confronts her younger self the self that was her on earth at the end of the story. She. Sees a vision of herself as she was when she was last with Noboru and she's talking to that version of herself right? before the point where it looks like she's going to die. So that's the only thing that would make me go no that can't be from his point of view because she's. Having a kind of confrontation with the self that she was on earth and that's not something that would be happening like in his head you know his head canon about what's going on with her. So ah, the school uniform in the gundom is also kind of like a japanese anime trope thing like um. You know people being in school uniforms and being a superhero or whatever like that's that's some some nonsense for just like anime tropes so I don't even know that that is necessarily the thing because I don't even I don't even know if that's exactly the same uniform that she had when she was ah. The younger self I don't think it's exactly the same I could be wrong on that though, but she definitely does have this ah moment of looking back at herself and reflecting on who she was you know when she was younger and that that version that she's coming across and she's looking at and talking to is. 52:13.85 Jala & Dave Notably younger than you know, like the self that she is piloting her gundom and so something that the movie. It's not really digging into it. But ah, there's there's changes that she's aware of that nobody has has going on that she can't address because they're. You know 1 or 2 messages are yeah for for him years apart and for her she's we don't know it's it's not instantaneous, but she's getting the messages. She's not waiting for eight years like it gets to her at a different speed. Um or or she doesn't get them I'm not sure. Ah, but what? what it isn't really addressing is that while he's on earth and he's growing and changing. She also isn't the same person that left that high school I mean she's indiscriminately like battling and murdering untold amounts of these tarzans that you you like you. Even separate. She's directly doing it. It's not like there's some so I'm I'm I'm controlling a drone robot. No. She's in a bubble inside of a robot and like getting blood all over herself and having to like genocide this race that's attacking earth maybe attacking earth because we don't get. We don't get that we get like a weird that the aliens are trying to mimic humans and there's just other stuff going on that the movie doesn't really dig into but it's kind of shorthanding things. Um, but she's changing too. 53:48.46 Jala & Dave Just in a probably of a faster way and a shorter amount of time and she's trying to hold on to not only her her her old earth self but still acknowledge. Changing is happening. But then trying to use her relationship with noburu as a touchstone because that's all she has like she just has this one mode of communication to even get a hold of anybody well and again drawing it back to just thinking about people in wartime when there were. Men on the battlefields in world war ii you know like they would write back home and there is a lot of stuff going on. They are changing drastically as they're fighting this war but at the same time they're also desperate for those letters from home because they need those touchstones to like. Keep their sanity in the middle of this battle constantly. So you know like that is also sensitive to like what the sensation would be for someone being just constantly fighting constantly fighting and thinking very strongly about all the stuff that's. You know that they're fighting for if you will you know? but I also like the fact that the tarsians were're not really 100 % sure what they're doing and we don't even get the feeling that they're necessarily trying to kill everybody. There's that one point where the tarian is holding on to um you know Mioco in her gundom suit thing and. 55:15.68 Jala & Dave It's just stretching out and just kind of like looking at her. But it's not killing. It's not attacking her. We don't know what it's doing but then she attacks it to get it off of her. She panics it and attacks it. We don't actually know what it was trying to do. We don't know if it was actually going to attack her or not so like there's the the tarsians are fighting. But it also kind of feels like maybe they're fighting because they're being attacked by the humans like you know it doesn't necessarily feel like they they are bloodthirsty and out to kill everybody per se and another read I think um and then I will switched over to you Allie is that? Ah, the tarzans. 55:45.25 Ollie That oh sorry are no worse. 55:54.40 Jala & Dave Our adulthood to her so she's like vehemently kind of fighting against that because she's trying to hold on to her sense of self and that that sense of self is tied to her middle school years because that's the last thing that she had before this all changed. Um, and whether or not the tarzans are um hostile they're still I mean they are attacking but it could be like in self-defense we we don't know. Um, we're not really given that information. But there're there and other. And she's the only way she can engage with them. She can't talk to them. Um is through like violence. So I feel like they're also potentially like another sort of metaphor. Um versus just being like oh just a weird alien race yeah, and and um, just 1 more thing 1 more thing. 56:51.15 Jala & Dave Ah, when they're on that planet when when they they leap to the planet and she's like exploring the planet and everything then the tarsianss come out. The humans are the ones who start attacking the tarscianss before the tarsianss start attacking anybody else and then like the humans get wiped out because they went and started killing tarsians. On their own home turf or whatever. That's all I have to say about that Ollie yeah. 57:13.90 Ollie Yeah, so what I was just going to say is it's just in response to something Jala said but we don't know what that whether the Tarsians are are attacking or not so like that's another thing that's ah's a really common trope and in some very famous sci-fi storie. So for example and most people have heard of vendor's game. Um, Orson Scott Cards I was Goingnna say seminal work about child soldiers in space. But yeah, pretty much is and yet the aliens in that the people that end is sent to fight and ends up destroying their homework spoiler it out for enders's game and yet they were never hostile to ert humans. At any stage and it was a misunderstanding There's another famous story by a writer named Timothy Zan who wrote star wars books at one stage in the 80 s and they were like the official canon star wars continuation from the star wars trilogy. So but he wrote a set of novels called the conquerors series. And in that first contact between earth's humans and this this race of aliens goes wrong because we tried to send them a message using radio waves and radio waves are what they use as weapons. So it's just us trying to send a message to say hello basically and them. 58:28.67 Ollie Reading this as aggression and then because they have no, there's no way between the 2 races to to communicate it ends up being an intergalactic war because anything we use to communicate with them was seen as a tread or an aggressive action and I get the impression that that's what the tarzans are in this for like it was a misunderstanding The reason that I was taking it towards reading it as an allegory for him and it being from his point of view is that battle um that battle that she's in at the end. It doesn't start until he reads the newspaper talking about the human victory in that battle so he gets the text message from her. Saying that they're on the thing and then he sees this newspaper says oh the the lizbot um suffered great damage but earth wins a great victory in the battle eight years ago today or whatever it happens to be and then we cut back to her in you know, fighting for a life fight and for survival and she ends up making the the. Death blow on on one of the major alienships using the sword at the same m he had said to her before but practicing her Kenda. Whatever so again, that's why I was taking that as a reading of a lot of what's happening with her is his version of what he thinks is happening with her if that makes sense. Um, and. 59:41.27 Jala & Dave Oh yeah. 59:44.75 Ollie But yeah I think it's it's a really effective story no matter what way you look at it. It's a story about 2 people who made a connection when they were in their teenage years and then went through different phases of life and are still thinking about each other and trying to connect with each other and and whether or not to be able to get together. Like him deciding to leave at the end and we know that the chances are that they're never going to meet this really sad and it's another one of those things who are watching this going. Thanks Jaa one wanted to have the old heartbroken twice today at least this one took 25 minutes 01:00:21.64 Jala & Dave Ah, well, um, so another thing that I wanted to talk about because I had already mentioned it earlier. Um, but the way that she is longing very very specifically for the sensations of being on the earth. It reminds me of a short story that was covered on Lavar Burton reads it's called the destination star by Gregory Marlowe it is a story in which. These people are on a spaceship and they are trying to make a colony somewhere else out in the galaxy somewhere I don't know exactly where their destination is but it's very far away. They are coming from earth they are on this ship for so long that the people who came from earth had kids had kids had kids and. You know like they're still on their way. They're still trying to get there to this star and so like all the air is recycled all the bodies are you know, decomposed and then reused to fertilize the plants to the whatever like everything is being recycled and reused in. This environment because it's you know, sealed off from anything else. It's a spaceship going through. You know, untold lengths of of space. So um, one of the themes. The main main theme of that story is the fact that the people who are currently caring for this ship. They. 01:01:40.59 Jala & Dave Don't remember Earth They don't know what it's like to live on Earth and so some of the comforts that are in the ship like there's ah a specific area that has a fake moon up above it to make you know the people who came from Earth remember the moon but there are several generations into it now and the people who are Ollieve Now. Don't know what it's like to have a moon and be on the earth or anything like that and then they have to tend the ship knowing that they will live and die and that maybe their great greatg. Great Greatat Grandchildren will be on their destination planet possibly and you know like the feeling from that is pretty. Ah, striking and isolated and you know like ah homesick but also homesick and displaced because you know there's the homesickness of the people who first started this voyage but it's also the displacement of not having a place your place is on the ship which is an homage to. You know like it's a place in between it's it's not on the Earth. It's an homage to the earth and it's looking forward to a future that these kids are never going to see and you know that's really Impactful. So like this whole. 01:02:52.15 Jala & Dave Communication of her isolation and her loneliness through the fact that she's not on the Earth connected to other people on the Earth is you know, very striking because you know it's It's kind of like the same kind of feeling like it's taking into consideration something about. Space and space travel that onime doesn't usually do and most other fiction that's about space at least the stuff that I've read anyway doesn't really try. You know, talk about that. It might talk about it in brief but not like as a major point you know. 01:03:23.75 Ollie No you, you're right? You very rarely see it like the there very specific examples I can that come to mind I'm I'm assuming you've seen Aliens and at the beginning of Aliens Ripley gets picked up after the events of the first movie and it's been seventy five years and 01:03:43.20 Ollie And she gets picked up froding in space and the first thing she asks about is her daughter but it's been moments for Ripley because she's been asleep but her daughter has lived her entire life and passed away and like that's you know something like that from back in the eighty s. Directed by you know, an incredible director and there's great screenplay etc but stuck in at the front of an action movie where you then get to watch bugs getting squished for 2 hours plus like it's not the same as watching an entire movie about the isolation that somebody would feel if they were off from their home world and and traveling and fighting a race of aliens that they. They can't communicate I have no idea why they were attacked in the first place. Yeah, so it's very it's yeah, it's very arresting. 01:04:29.27 Jala & Dave Right? And it's it's interesting too because again like the more that I think about it in terms of something like world war 2 but also in treating stuff like evangeian or other things like that like other things that are in the um, you know like the the media of the time that this came out. You know like you had lots of gundoms going on. You had all this other stuff that was like you know, glorifying space travel glorifying how cool it is and this that and the other but it's like it's it's missing some of these points about like if you if you were from the planet earth and that you went off to go fight these things there are some down. Insides and here's here's like a story of human connection and like you know there's got to be There's a sacrifice there that has to happen in order to you know, get to that result it is going away to war it is you know, not having that communication. It's you know like this. Ah. More poignant kind of situation than is usually treated and you know again I brought these to the table for this media episode because the last episode was about emotional and emotional intelligence and empathy and these 2 pieces of media and probably the rest of Mokulto Shika's work. Ah, would kind of go over your head if you can't empathize with these characters and consider how they feel and what that would be like and this that and the other and just kind of relate that to experiences that you've had yourself in one way or another that you know they're not going to be the same situations obviously but. 01:06:05.21 Jala & Dave You know, ah will evoke those same feelings. 01:06:07.61 Ollie How do you guys? take so book both Jala and David how do you feel their relationship would go if she was able to come back to earth now. Let's just assume it takes our 3 years so that we're not talking about him catching a case here. But. Because she's 15 and in the movie. So let's just say she's 18 she's everything is above board in that right and he's 27. So even though he has lived his life. There. She has gone through so much in the short or period of time for her that she's been away. Like how do you think that the 2 of them would have reconnected if they had had the chance. 01:06:46.98 Jala & Dave So my first thought would be my concern again. Ah relating this to veterans and stuff. Ah, she's seen war for years and so when she's coming back. She would have to have some major help in like therapy and everything to kind of reintegrate into society after all the things that she's done and been through and seen and so you know like that's kind of the same question that you ask when it comes to you know like you know, despite the physical age thing right. Ah, you've got like the mental and emotional wear and tear the spiritual wear and tear that this girl has gone through just being in war and it's kind of the same question that you know people after world war ii would ask or after Vietnam war or after whatever wars you know you want to talk about that have been fought. You know? Ah, after someone goes away to war and they come back. it's hard you know it's it's not an easy call I mean like he would have to understand and be able to meet her where she's at she would have to have the support network to. Undo some of that trauma that she's faced in order to reintegrate successfully and the rate at which veterans can come back from those kinds of situations and successfully reintegrate. Really highly depend upon what their support network looks like. 01:08:10.90 Jala & Dave And I would say probably the best case scenario for them is if he did in fact, join the military go out into space and then they met somewhere halfway because then that gives him a chance to understand some of her point of view and. 01:08:20.41 Ollie Yes. 01:08:28.75 Jala & Dave Deal with the things that she's been going through because otherwise he's not going to be equipped. He's not going to and it's going to just that would just highly high the high chance of that just destroying their relationship is like I would say 99% you know, but um, his. Decision to do what he did if it had panned out or if it pans out because we don't know her ultimate fate um is the best thing that he could do I think right? and you have to also understand Ollie both Dave and i. Ah had relationships significant relationships in our lives my first marriage and ah, a long relationship of his go go down the hole because of ptsd from military so you have to also understand where people who um, have. Have some specific ah experience with that. Ah, in relationships in our lives and um also from the time that I was rocking a lot I was doing a lot of rocking events ah rocking events are you know you you put a heavyweight and in your bag and you are. Put through your paces you put miles down, you are doing pt and everything you are led by cadre who are all special forces military people who are giving civilians basically and veterans a lot of whom will go to these events a taste of what it's like to be part of the military for a number of hours. 01:09:56.29 Jala & Dave And so and depending upon what events you sign up for it will be an increasingly difficult ordeal to go through. Um you know, basically focusing on team building. But also you have to push past your own personal barriers and things. So I spent a lot of time around a lot of veterans who struggled with their relationships upon coming back from war and had you know I was not the one in the relationship actively I was the person listening to the person going through it. Ah, from their point of view and like in in my situation. You know like I was just physically not around you know to be able to support the person I was in a relationship with I was across the country and. You know he was isolated for nine months out of the year but then for the other three months was in another state. You know it's like hard to to actually be there and to be that support network that is needed from that distance. So um, you know like it. It turns into this whole thing where it's like yeah um. I don't know ah that that's the first thing I think about at the first thing I think about if she were to see him again. Like Dave said he he would have to have experienced at least a little bit of what she's gone through to really make that work and. 01:11:18.97 Jala & Dave You know that reintegration piece into society can be really hard I had a friend who ah in my younger years who he served in the military he went off to be in Afghanistan for several tours he came back. He got out of the military. He couldn't. Handle it. He committed suicide because he couldn't reintegrate. So ah yeah, like again. Ah you know it's something that some since the time that this movie came out both Dave and I have had ah some some personal personal histories experiences with with this kind of. Question that you've got. 01:11:57.12 Ollie Yeah, and it's another thing that that comes up a lot in um and classic sci-fi is the idea idea so a lot of this sci-fi will have been written in the sixty s and eighty s so tons of it would come across as allerorical in relation to the vietnam war that's about. Soldiers who've gone off to fight in distance wars but humans on earth are only finding out about the battles 11 years after the event because it takes so long for the communication to reach. So for people they read about it in the newspaper and go. Oh yeah, grant but they have no real feelings for the war. 01:12:32.98 Ollie And when the people come back. They are cold towards them because first of all, it takes 10 years to fly out there. You fight your war for 2 years You come back. It takes 10 years to get back. So 22 years have passed so all of your friends are 22 years older but you've been in stasis for twenty out of those 22 years so you appear younger to them so to them the war has been done for 10 years and you're coming back fresh with their memories and the trauma that's associated with it and it's very hard for people to get in so stuff like the forever the the forever war and the forever series by Joe Holden and or and Alan Dean Fosters the damn series do a great job of describing what you're talking about um in terms of like both of those men would have been soldiers in their past as well about what it's like to come back into society after you've you've gone through to trauma of having to kill other people or kill in. Case of this killing interest interstellar species like and yeah, so just thinking about the trials and the difficulties that their relationship would face makes the idea of him going out to try and meet her somewhere out of distance in the stars but like. Really hopeful ending but also almost makes it sadder if that makes sense like it would have felt better for him to have moved on and her to have forgotten about him. But yeah, we're left with the ending as it is. 01:13:57.40 Jala & Dave Well, the thing is is that the main thrust of this whole thing is the emotional state right? Emotions don't make sense emotions don't pick the best road you know the emotions do what they're going to do I mean the the big touchstone on this. 01:14:14.96 Jala & Dave Is that he it shows him exploring like dating and things. There's like a moment where he's like oh I I dated. Ah a lady? Um, but I've decided in my heart I like steeled my heart and said no I am I am. Going to commit to this relationship I'm the only thing that she has as ah as a touchstone like it's it's would be extra selfish of me if I just ignored that responsibility. Ah. Because for her again, it's like moments in time for these messages but he's like yeah yeah, I'm waiting a year in between six months in between. They just get longer and longer and time has passed for me but it has not for her. So if she's not getting at least those. Um. That reassurances ah that that it's going to make or break like what her her spirit like I have I have to I have like responsib to at least do this much and if I'm doing this much. Why not just devote my life to to this. You know this girl. 01:15:21.88 Ollie I Wish we had seen his messages because we only see the ones that he received from her and it would have been interesting to see because the first message he gets or maybe it's the second message he gets he is hanging out with not girl and he. 01:15:40.17 Ollie Goes down into the stairwell to read it and he's like oh it's a message from mikoto the girl that I knew back in middle school and and then she went off to she was drafted and I wasn't drafted and she was picked for the special forces like he's he's almost like relaying it to somebody else like this is who sent me the message. But we never get to see what he sent back to her because like and the tone of of what he's saying is why is she texting me like but why is this girl texting me um, whereas again I feel that we're not supposed to really take it that we're supposed to take it as as David just said that like. 01:16:19.22 Ollie He's going to wait for her. But if he's going to wait for her and he's waited until he's 24 at least he really we really need to see what he's been saying back to her I guess he's saying I love you is he saying I can't wait to see you again, but we don't know. 01:16:34.64 Jala & Dave Not only that but because they they're both aware that there's a a giant time lag like either way I'm hoping that their messages were really long because how are you doing I'm fine. How are you? but you're waiting like a year to get that. That's not gonna work right? 01:16:54.41 Ollie Yeah, the just the dreaded "k." 01:17:04.21 Jala & Dave You know the thing is is that there is the novel and there is the manga. So there is a possibility that macoto shika upon revisiting this and doing the novel in the manga. Ah co-authored or you know by himself or whatever went on with that. Um, you know. There's there's a chance that you would see more of what Nobodyru is saying in those works. It's just that for this show for the purposes of this show. We're literally just covering the anime. But um, you know, definitely that would be worth checking out if that is of interest that was again. Translated into english and released into english ah problem is is that it was stateside so I don't know Ollie if you can get it over there if I can get if you are interested and I can get it over here I can buy it and mail it to you. So yeah. 01:17:44.74 Ollie Mo. And I'll find a way So Sometimes you can just locate things on the internet. 01:17:58.10 Jala & Dave Yes, that's true. You absolutely can so but yeah, um, so the thing that I wanted to also add is the fact that you can look at this story and view it from different perspectives and come away with. Different reads off the same material is a sign that it is a standout work in and of itself because the fact that it gives you enough to you know, emotionally engage you and you know mentally and stimulate you enough that you are thinking through this and you are are. Taking away. Whatever you're taking away and and sitting with it like you know I watched this and it stayed with me for years and years and years like I've remembered it this entire time for reasons you know it's very memorable. It's very standout. It's an excellent work. You know like that. All of that. That's just hallmarks of a great film. So like. Actually going and getting that compilation of all of Mokolto Shiinka's works is probably in the future for me because I enjoy what I've seen of his work. 01:19:05.89 Ollie Absolutely. Um, and if you haven't watched it and you're listening to this watch both of the things we we talked about today and track down and and watch your name the 2016 movie. It's incredible. Um, I mean I went to see that in the cinema with a good friend and. Ah been It's not an exaggeration to say that there were like big ugly tears streaming down my face at the end of it. So yeah I highly recommend it. 01:19:31.54 Jala & Dave Yeah, yeah, so ah, big takeaways. Let's go ahead and and wrap this episode up Dave what are your big takeaways for she and her cat and voices of a distant star There are both emotionally resonant pieces of media. Ah, they're kind of bite size but ah in in spite of that you can see the amount of crafting and thought and singular vision. Um, that the creator had and that's something that you're not going to always get with a big studio with a lot of people that are there's too many cooks in the kitchen. Um I don't feel like Michael D guy like had to compromise his vision for any of this, you're getting ah unfiltered like he wanted this and that's what the time he took as long as it took. To to put out a thing that um I believe he's probably satisfied with and it won a bunch of awards and it let it pave the way for him to do um the career that he's done without compromising his own um values and vision. Absolutely. Ollie how about you. 01:20:42.16 Ollie I I would say track down and watch this. Um the both of those pieces of media just just blew my mind today before I went down to to see my son I was playing some video games and for some reason don't ask why I because I like to. Genuinely going have an answer I was playing advanced warfare. The have the what call a duty game so I got to the infamous press f to pay respects moment and the fact that I was doing that and then about an hour and a half later I watched voices of a distance star. And like the idea that twenty years later somebody taught that this would be an emotional moment in a video game when Makoto Shikkai was making me cry and just to to do ah a brief ironman. Um. Monologue here because I'm just looking at what Jaa wrote but this area I just think it's wonderful that you went and find this side Jala but way but ah makota shika I did this with a powerm mac g four you like we have an Adobe photoshop 5 point oh in a cave in 2001. 01:21:45.35 Jala & Dave I did not write in a cave. That's all these paraphrase. 01:21:51.89 Ollie But he was able to do this on his own and then like there's only his voice in the first one and then originally was him his vice and his his fiance's voice in the second one like. Just to to get that sort of emotional response out of somebody like me I I would genuinely like to describe myself as a jaded old man at this stage and was so close to tears watching both of these pieces of media this morning. They're just beautiful. Um I like to say I'm not an anime guy. But if if I sell more anime that look like this i. I guarantee you I'd be an anime guy. So. 01:22:28.30 Jala & Dave Well I'm I I kind of picked that I I kind of suggested this to you in part because I knew that you weren't anonymic guy and I was like these aren't what you're going to expect out of anonymy. So um, and they're very short. So just ah have a watch and you know we'll see. You know how it goes from there but ah definitely I like the way that this is is treating sci fi in a different way. it's it's sci fi but it's like that's just the set dressing. It could be any story and she could go off to go do almost anything and it would still be. You know, resonant and everything but at that time there were so many space anime series. You know like it was really going with what was popular. You know at the time with animation and with audiences in Japan. So like they would see the cover for voices of a distance star and go. 01:23:23.85 Jala & Dave Oh this is this something I want to watch because it looks like the genres that I like you know so he really knew what he was doing in selecting that as his set dressing for this story. And you know of course ah you know the whole thing about the internet being obsessed with cats of course like he's going to hit a home run if he's got a cat in his first thing so you know that's that's definitely a thing so he knows what he's doing. He is very good at directing. All of these things he has a sensitivity and you know like a real knack for letting the space do the talking and what I mean by that is the spaces between the times when people are talking the spaces when you're just looking at a slow pan of. Ah, setting and you're just watching the wind rustling through the trees or blowing the clouds around or whatever is going on like he's letting that do the talking and again, that's a sign that he is a really good environment artist. But it's also like a sign of absolute sensitivity to just. What it really is to be Ollieve like you feel vibrantly Ollieve you feel like the the world. The characters, the story the the meaning behind it. You know the allegory if you want to take it that way you know is is really well observed. He is so good at observing. 01:24:52.32 Jala & Dave What goes into each feeling that we have each connection that we have how we ground ourselves the quiet moments all of that. It's just outstanding. So now we're all going to cry again. Ok so let's go ahead. 01:25:12.32 Jala & Dave Wrap this up with where in the world can people find you on the internet if you are to be found anywhere. Ollie. 01:25:18.85 Ollie You can find me on Discord now. Um in 2023 I managed to join cop. Ah, but also yeah, you can find me listening to media evil and medieval pub culture podcast or judging book covers where we talk about books and I think the book we're talking about. Next month is murder and Maman by Mia P mandazala a cozy mystery set in a kitchen. 01:25:41.23 Jala & Dave O I like Kitchens I like mysteries sounds like a good time to me Dave where in the world can people find you if you were to be found anywhere on the internet. He never knows his handles y'all but I've got links. Don't worry. Yeah I'm on bluesky. 01:26:00.19 Jala & Dave Social as senplus I had to think sending you no senplus on bluesky. Ah I'm still on Twitter but not really looking at that ah same thing sending down underswere plus on Twitter and then you can always get a hold of me at monsterdear.monster 01:26:19.44 Jala & Dave And everybody's in my Discord server so there is that I'm nice and easy I'm jalachan in all the places that I may be found including jalachan.place where you found this episode and all of the others - and until next time take care of yourself. And remember to smile. [Show Outro] Jala Jala-chan's Place is brought to you by Fireheart Media. If you enjoyed the show, please share this and all of our episodes with friends and remember to rate and review us on your podcast platform of choice. Word of mouth is the only way we grow. If you like, you can also kick us a few bucks to help us keep the lights on at ko-fi.com/fireheartmedia. Check out our other show Monster Dear Monster: A Monster Exploration Podcast at monsterdear.monster. Music composed and produced by Jake Lionhart with additional guitars and mixed by Spencer Smith. Follow along with my adventures via jalachan.place or find me at jalachan in places on the net! [Outro Music]