SUMMER
WARS: Welcome to the virtual world of Oz, if it’s for sale, you’ll find it here!
The
story follows Kenji, an eleventh grader who is unusually good at math. One day,
his friend Natsuki invites him in the birthday of her grandmother. While on the
occasion, he is wrongly accused in the hacking of the virtual world Oz by an
artificial intelligence called the Love Machine. Together with Natsuki’s
relatives, he has no choice but to start a cyber war with Love Machine, before
it could do major damage not only to the virtual world of Oz, but also to the
real world.
What
first captured my attention is the adorable art style of the virtual world Oz,
which I immediately see in the first sequence of the show. The vibrant colours,
contradicted by a plain white background, give off a cute impression.
Mamoru
Hosoda has a very distinctive art design. His characters are not very detailed,
juxtaposed with the dynamic backgrounds and environmental objects. I’ve seen
this style in his other major works, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and Wolf
Children Ame and Yuki, but I think Summer Wars easily takes the cake in direction.
There
are two interweaving stories in Summer Wars that the audience will subscribe to
-- the story of Natsuki’s family and the story of Kenji and his attempts to
conquer the Love Machine. How the stories are interwoven is not that smooth
however. The show has the tendency to dwell too much on the other. But in the
long run, this is actually not a problem. They blend well soon enough.
But
these stories have flaws of their own. The story of Natsuki’s family has some
convenient coincidences, and the story of Kenji really requires suspension of
disbelief before you could enjoy it fully. Other than these minor setbacks, the
stories are good. The story of Natsuki’s family is very emotional and successfully
portrays familial love. The story of Kenji triggers adrenaline rush with its
thrilling battles and concepts of unity and such.
Speaking
of the thrilling battles, I must admit that its utilization of a cute art style
has been effective. It gives a sweet atmosphere, and it is quite contradicting
to the intensity of the fights. These battles are animated really smoothly, and
in their background is also a musical soundtrack that is worth noting.
The
music is not groundbreaking, but I consider it as something of high quality. It
successfully triggers the emotion the show wants to portray. It also gives off
a cutesy impression when it needs to.
 |
| So intense yet so cute. |
As
for the characters, they are nothing complex. Kenji is your usual timid guy. There
couldn’t be any plainer girl than Natsuki. The other prominent characters,
Sakae and Wabisuke, are actually more interesting than them -- as a personal
opinion. But this weak characterization is actually understandable. Summer Wars
is not a story that requires deep characters. The characters herein are enough
to deliver what the story needs to deliver.
Overall,
Summer Wars is an anime worth checking out. The art is superb. This is Mamoru
Hosoda and Madhouse at the top of their game. This is supported by a story that
is both thrilling and touching, a musical score that delivers unusually well,
and a characterization that is good enough to convey the messages of the show.
Related
posts:
As usual, I agree with just about everything in your review! Summer Wars was a really fun movie. I need to post my review of it that I wrote a while back, but we share many opinions of it. The movie balanced a lot of the family and Oz elements of the story surprisingly well. And, even though the movie is not heavy on technology commentary, some of the ideas are surprisingly believable in terms of how much shutting down such a large network would have on everything. However, some aspects of it were definitely unrealistic, although I notice those type of things more since I am majoring in IT.
ReplyDeleteThe Girl Who Leapt Through Time is still my favorite Mamoru Hosoda film, but I am bias since the time-travel genre is one of my favorites. Also, Wolf Children Ame and Yuki is probably going to be the next anime movie that I will watch.
-James
*SPOILERS* I really find it weird that the kid (forgot his name) was actually a famous icon in Oz, and Wabisuke was the one who developed Love Machine. It's just weird that everything major is happening in their family alone, when there are so many people on, you know, Earth. I have to overlook that before I could actually enjoy Summer Wars.But yeah, overall, I find it enjoyable too.
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