A couple of days ago, Matafleur, dkellis, Icy_cs and myself went down to Orchard Cineleisure to catch Mamoru Hosoda’s Summer Wars. And if you don’t already know, that obviously isn’t a screenshot or official poster…
(Image source: Danbooru)
Summer Wars revolves around Kenji Koiso, a maths prodigy who spends his free time in the virtual world program, OZ. He secretly has feeling for his upperclassman, Natsuki Shinohara and it seems to be a dream come true when Natsuki offers him a summer job to help out at her great-grandmother’s 90th birthday celebration. After he finds out the true nature of his “job”, Kenji ends up having to play the part of Natsuki’s fiancé. While still trying to take it all in, he solves a mysterious mathematical code and ends up being accused of hacking into the OZ system. With the world in chaos due to the hacking, Kenji and the Shinohara family team up to fight against the real hacker, an AI called “Love Machine”. (Thus the title, “Summer Wars”…)
Local anime fans should have got a short preview of Summer Wars when director Mamoru Hosoda came to AFA09 last year to promote the film. The various themes mentioned during his talk, like the large and extended family, interconnectedness on the internet, virtual avatars were of course all present in the movie. The combination of these themes made for a rather family-friendly film, similar to most of Hosoda’s other works. Also mentioned in the AFA preview talk was the “Superflat” visuals, which were present in Hosoda’s previous works like Superflat Monogram and Tokikake. This was present in Summer Wars as the virtual world of OZ. This really emphasized the virtual world feel of the OZ and gave it a very unique look during the virtual world sequences, especially during the virtual battle scenes. The fight scenes between Love Machine and King Kazma was particularly good.
Yoshiyuki Sadamoto’s (Nadia, Evangelion, Tokikake) character designs once again shine through here. Unlike other designers who seemingly reuse their designs from different shows, Sadamoto manages to keep each character unique and with their own personality. Credit must also go to scriptwriter Satoko Okudera (Tokikake, Miyori no Mori) for managing to keep the script tight with a decent pacing, despite it being fairly predictable (by anime standards). Art director Youji Takeshige (Howl’s Moving Castle, Gedo Senki) gives the film a “Ghibli” feel (literally, considering his past work with the studio), transiting beautifully from urban areas to the countryside of the Jinnouchi mansion. The soundtrack by Akihiko Matsumoto (Black Jack, One Outs) features a nice mix of orchestral and electronic music which generally compliments each other and fits the various scenes well. While there are some particularly good tracks like “Overture Of The Summer Wars” and “Sakae no Katsuyaku”, the music wasn’t particularly impactful.
Seiyūus Nanami Sakuraba (Twin Spica) and Ryunosuke Kamiki (Howl’s Moving Castle, The Piano Forest) both do a good job portraying the female and male leads respectively, with Kamiki’s Kenji being slightly more believable. The best performances here seem to belong to Sumiko Fuji’s solid portrayal of the soft-spoken yet commanding Jinnouchi family matriarch, Sakae Jinnouchi and Mitsuki Tanimura’s reclusive Kazuma Ikezawa.
As Mamoru Hosoda mentioned at AFA09, this is a movie you have to watch with someone, be it friend or family. In a sense, watching it alone would kind of defeat the purpose of this movie. If you are able to look beyond the rather predictable storyline, the multitude of product placements and the occasional plot-hole, you will find a touching, feel-good movie that reminds its viewers what it truly means to be a family, especially in this digital age where online interaction takes precedence over the real world.