A girl leaves Earth to fight an alien war and can only send text messages home, each one arriving years later while she barely ages and he grows old waiting for proof she's still alive. The entire tragedy fits into thirty minutes because Makoto Shinkai doesn't waste time on anything but the distance between two people who love each other. By the end you understand that some connections survive everything except time itself.
Humanity faces extinction when a mysterious alien force attacks in 2046. Mikako is chosen as a pilot for a UN military expedition into space, leaving behind Noboru, the person she loves most. What begins as a separation measured in days becomes something far more devastating. As the expedition travels farther from Earth, time itself becomes their enemy. She barely ages while years pass on Earth. Their connection survives only through phone messages that take longer and longer to arrive, each one a faint signal across an impossible distance. Noboru waits on a planet that moves forward without her, watching the girl he knew slip further away with each reply. The war demands everything from Mikako. The distance demands everything from Noboru. Their love persists, but so does the widening gap of space and time that keeps pulling them apart. This is a story about two people trying to hold onto something real when the universe itself works against them.
