The newest movie from director Hosoda Mamoru of The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and Digimon: Bokura no Wargame fame, Summer Wars, was released to Japanese theatres and critical acclaim in August of 2009.
Our story is set in the year, well, 2010. OZ is a giant social network/virtual world on which everything on the Internet runs. No, really, everything. Not just leisure activities like shopping or gaming, but actual critical systems like emergency services and traffic control all run on top of this thing. Everyone on the Internet has an avatar in this world and uses it to go about their business. Think Second Life except more important and cooler.
But what happens when someone is able to break the security behind such an important network? Well, as we learn in the movie, bad things happen, especially when so many critical services are dependent on this thing. And that is the main source of conflict in this little story.
Our story follows one Kenji Koiso, a 17 year-old high school student, who is evidently really into math.
Kenji likes this girl, Natsuki Shinohara, a.k.a. the prettiest girl in the school.
She tricks Kenji into visiting her entire family pretending to be her boyfriend with credentials he clearly doesn't have.
Why the deception? Because she promised to the very important matriarch of the family that she'd bring her boyfriend at her 90th birthday, which the family happened to be celebrating.
Shenanigans ensue and our two storylines intersect and intertwine.
Since it's a fairly high-profile movie, you can expect amazing production. The quality of art should be evident. Most of the art is the same style as in TokiKake, but the in-OZ parts of the movie are absolutely stunning. Since it's Hosoda, you can expect excellent writing and direction, much like his previous movies. You might have even noticed some heavy influences from Bokura no Wargame! The themes that are explored should be obvious. Here, we have a movie that is simultaneously about the possibilities of the Internet and the importance of family. Very good stuff.
This is a must-watch. If the mention of The Girl Who Leapt Through Time or Hosoda Mamoru doesn't convince you to jump on this movie as soon as you can, I'm pretty sure you haven't seen The Girl Who Leapt Through Time yet. In that case, you now have two movies that you need to watch and enjoy.
