The story is an odd but beautiful blend, with "traditional" Robotech-style robot-vs-alien action that mostly serves as a backdrop for a very woeful tale of youthful romance and separation. Mikako is a young middle school student selected for special "mecha" training (the people of Earth are building a fleet to seek revenge for a mysterious alien attack on Mars.) She writes sorrowful text messages to her boyfriend back on Earth. The farther away she moves with the Earth fleet, the longer the messages take to get to Earth...first a few months, then a year, then finally eight years. Noboru, the boyfriend, has to cope with turning into adult while still anxiously awaiting messages from the teenager he loved. Mikako longs for many of the simple times they spent together which the film takes its time setting up at the beginning of the film.
It's kind of a cliché to say, but this Japanese art makes tremendous use of empty space...both visually--I was lucky enough to first see it using a video projector, so this one exploding cloud of debris far above the surface of the Mars training ground was tremendously evocative-- as well as philosophically, where the increasing physical distance between the two can serve as a metaphor for the emotional distance that can grow between two people despite their best intentions, whether it's one person maturing faster than the other, or some other condition of the heart.
I think there are some interesting questions left unanswered about the aliens...while it might just be that they were stereotypes meant to provide a backdrop for the main story, there are hints that they are somehow trying to communicate with us, and there's a message that we're too hurt (as a species) or just to violent to pay attention to. Also, the use of fairly normal "cellphones" for the communication is a reminder not too overthink the realism and just go with the flow.
Now, I'm not one of those people who are dead-set against "dubbing"...when done well, it can bring the work to an English speaking audience in a way that subtitles can't. In the case of "Voices", however, I'd have to say that the subtitles are a must. They being forth a lot of nuance and expression that the voicework totally misses, as well as translating some onscreen Japanese text-- the text of the messages being sent and other headlines that really round out some of the story. So switch to the subtitles, as well as the Japanese soundtrack (otherwise the difference between the two translations is just too distracting.)
Anyway, I would highly recommend this film to anyone, especially if you have an interest in Japanese animation. You can get it from Amazon or, my favorite choice, your local anime shop, if you have one in the area. (I got my copy from "Tokyo Kid" at Harvard Square in Boston.)
