Summer Wars (2010)

Excellent, a Must See

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

This movie have an original point of Wreck It Ralp 2.

This is a fantasy of a shy boy who is a hidden genius of a summer. On July 30, 2010 there is a virtual world, OZ, which is on the Internet that people all over the world crowd. A shy high school student, Kenji, is invited for a summer job by the senior he longs for, Natsuki. It is her relative who wait them at her home. Moreover, Kenji is asked to pretend to be her betrothed by her, he manages to do that. During he stays her home, he breaks something like some code by using math which he is good at in the middle of the night. From next day, Japanese Society is thrown into confusion.I could enjoy this story very much. I think that the director reflects the real world in recent years to this film. In these days, the world is supported by network, so the Internet and smartphone are essential for our dairy life. I think this film shows the danger of the Internet Society by using animation which may be easy for the audience to understand. In addition, the voice actor of Kenji does good job. He can play Kenji naturally.

The good (As in, why I didn't give it only one star):The art and animation in this movie were excellent The extremely large cast of characters is very well managed, there are very few that fall completely to the sidelines, story or writing wise The plot is easily digestible for those who are younger or newer to the mediumThe bad: The plot was mediocre at best, with the way the MC was brought into the plot utterly unrealistic and stereotypical for anime being one of its many unoriginal aspects, however, I could've set aside my qualms about the plot if not for the digital side of the filmThe ugly (As in, here's where I make an itemized list so it's not too ragey):1. The world of OZ is portrayed as impossibly immersive considering the fact that it uses mouse and keyboard or hand-held controls2. OZ is given an insane amount of access to the world. Considering that even UPS uses an internal network for its in-hub computers, it is unbelievable that computers with control over public works, infrastructure, satellites, and nuclear power plants would be connected to this social network on steroids.3. The "hacking" is so utterly nonsensical that to point out every single issue would take up the rest of this relatively short review 4. Real life martial arts skills do not translate to video game skills 5. A combat control scheme that requires use of the entire keyboard is utter nonsense and would be considered trash by anyone with even a small amount of gaming experience, and therefore should not have been even remotely popular6. The number of different platforms OZ is accessible through is difficult to believe, mostly in terms of the DS. Plausible, but unlikely.7. The supercomputer should not have been able to have OZ installed on it out of the box, installing an OS on the thing should've taken most of the time they had8. There should have been no way for people to "give" the girl their avatars in the end9. In-game proximity should have had nothing to do with whether the hacking AI could steal one's accountThere's more, but just remembering this movie is starting to upset me, so I'll leave it at that.

Summer Wars is one of the most ambitious animes to exist, ambitious doesn't always equal greatness on film as a result of being over-ambitious but Summer Wars is one of those that gets it right. Some characters are better developed than others, the main family members are very compellingly real but some of the side characters are sketchily written. If the film had less characters than it did the character development would have been even better.The animation is just wonderful though and stylistically unlike any other I've seen, the colours are eye-popping and the backgrounds are so richly detailed and textured. None of it felt confusing to me. The cyber-battles are particularly strong in this regard, the action itself is thrilling and the visuals positively dazzle. Summer Wars has a music score that is both rousing and ethereal, and luckily mood-wise when matched with the animation and the tone of the storytelling it never jars. There is also a thoughtful script that handles its emotional themes very touchingly and remarkably maturely, while the story covers a lot but despite exploring several themes it doesn't feel too much. The family themes are ones that really resonate and charm, and while the message is not the most original it's a truthful message that doesn't patronise. The lead characters are engaging and the voice acting, both in Japanese and dubbing, is dynamic and expressive.All in all, a beautifully executed anime and shouldn't disappoint anybody who likes Wolf Children and The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. It's ambitious but apart from the writing of some of the characters it doesn't feel too much so. 9/10 Bethany Cox