Summer Wars (2009), A Summer Animation.

Directed by: Mamoru Hosoda | Written by: Satoko Okudera

Produced by: Madhouse

Awards

• Best Animation Film; 33rd Japanese Academy Prize & Mainichi Film Awards
• Best Animated Feature Film;  Sitges - Catalonian International Film Festival
• Animation Of The Year; 9th Tokyo Anime Award
• Best Media; 2010 Seiun Award

...excellent anime... There's a lovely, unhurried quality to Mr. Hosoda's storytelling, which nicely matches the clean, classically composed images of his outer story.  -RACHEL SALTZ, New York Times

 Summer Wars (サマーウォーズ Samā Wōzu)  Is yet another great animated featured straight from the productive and creative core driven by Madhouse Studio's best defining the line between modern times and Sci-Fi fantasy trough keen and down-to-earth animation .

Anime Festival Asia 2009 : 22 Nov 2009 (Photo credit: chinnian)

 Could you Imagine if Facebook, the largest social Network known to man, was acknowledged worldwide as the greatest and only virtual social contact network by default used by nearly every human being with technological access (=everyone) making it a tool for great distribution and safe keeping for people and companies/government alike while being a heaven for virtual interaction and games (NO farmville!). Now remove the "Facebook " image and slap the word "Oz" on it; a virtual social giant protected by the words best encryption. You will be left wondering where the line between scripted information and virtual reality meet as the servers and use of avatars manifest themselves like 3D animations in this virtual city.

When Kenji, a mathematically skilled boy -and Oz server-maintainer- is asked to play the academical boy friend (unbeknown to him at the beginning ) of Natsuki Shinahara,a cute girl descending from Samurai's of the Tokugawa clan, a somewhat crowded family with a strong heritage and interesting personalities and individual which fill the screen with a joyful amount of interaction and family matter on the anniversary of the eldest member. Which went unnoticed until Kenji accidentally cracked Oz trough an unknown scripted message he solved mathematically allowing an individual access to all the accounts on Oz manifesting itself as a Virus, making Kenji a criminal for a short period and bringing both of the culprits in a tight spot. The Anime-like cliché has it however that the bonding process is unavoidable... I was surprised how acceptable it felt tough, for the shy boy to be acknowledged step by step which was essential being one of the only few who knew the dangerous of hacking  such a vast system.

The Oz- Crisis and underlying family matter are a successful blend that draws all the unsolved issues back to the family in question when the "hacking" goes from innocent to dangerous. Oz isn't just a social giant, but it is also a governmental used control panel INTERNATIONALLY.

The visuals are gentle and find their beauty in a simple yet detailed manner deeply contrasting more vivid and sharp works like Redline.

*Special thanks to this blog



Rating:
***** Summer-Buster!