Director: Mamoru Hosoda
Writer: Satoko Okudera (Screenplay) Mamoru Hosoda (Story)
Starring: (Voice Talents) Ryunosuke Kamiki, Nanami Sakuraba, Mitsuki Tanimura, Takahiro Yokokawa, Meiko Nobusawa
Plot: A student tries to fix a problem he accidentally caused in OZ, a digital world, while pretending to be the fiancé of his friend at her grandmother’s 90th birthday.
There may be spoilers the rest of the review
Verdict: Great Fantasy Social Commentary
Story: Summer Wars starts in a world with an operating system known as OZ, a place where you can be anybody, talk to anybody, work, play and arrange your life, Kenji is one of the many small time engineers keeping it all operational, he gets asked to join Natsuki on a trip to her Grandmother’s 90th birthday only to be a fake fiancé.
When somebody or something takes over the OZ system Kenji is the prime suspect but the bigger problem is that everybody’s accounts to everything runs through OZ causing endless amounts of false accidents reports disrupting Grandmother’s birthday. Kenji must work with the family to get into the system to bring down the problem and save the world from a war they would be prepared for, a cyber war.
Thoughts on Summer Wars
Characters – Kenji is a student that must go through visiting a family he has no knowledge off, this gives us a good sense of his isolation while meeting them a family so big while he has a family so small. He is also a genius working on the computer system the whole world relies on. Natsuki is one of the family members, the one that brings Kenji back to meet her family, she is loyal to her family and a mean card player. The rest of the family are all big characters to what is happening as they show the unity they have as well as the dysfunction a normal family would have to.
Story – The story is very interesting because it focuses on the world where an internet community has become something taken for granted but if it was infected by a virus parts of the world could start to fall apart. It also shows how different generations have dealt with the change but the core idea of family and togetherness is very important. Overall thee storyline shows how family can come together to defeat the biggest threat to the world as long as they work together. It also shows us how the world controlled by an internet community could take away social interaction.
Action/Comedy/Family/Sci-Fi – The action inside OZ is great anime action sequences with the comedy coming from how the family is always panicking. The family side of the story comes seeing how the family all come together for a celebration. The sci-fi side comes from the world needing the technology heavy world to do everything on the internet.
Settings – The settings are good because we get to see the family home where we see everyone together, this helps put our characters together for the story to unfolding.
Animation – All the animation is done brilliantly as you would expect from any anime film.
Final Thoughts – The social commentary going on through this film is great, the story also is fantastic to show how being together with family is still important and this is one I do think everyone could enjoy.
Overall: Strong addition to the anime genre.
Rating
