Summer Wars [Online Image]. (2009). Retrieved 12 September, 2015 from https://adventuresofalostboy.wordpress.com/2011/09/05/anime-review-summer-wars/
The story revolved around a high-school student named
Kenji Koiso with a gift in mathematics and he was also working as a part-time
moderator for the virtual reality OZ simulation world. One day, he was invited
by his high-school senior, Natsuki Shinohara to join her grandmother’s 90th
birthday celebration. There, he met Natsuki’s relatives and also found out that
they were the descendants of Takeda samurai clan.
Everything
went peacefully until one night when Kenji received an e-mail containing
mathematical codes which he later solved it. Little did he know that the
mathematical codes were the crack codes to infiltrate the OZ simulation world.
An artificial intelligence, created by Natsuki’s uncle, Wabisuke used Kenji’s
account to hack the infrastructure which caused a huge chaos to the world.
Thankfully,
with the help of Natsuki’s grandmother, Sakae who contacted all her associates
in important position to quickly take actions for potential disasters, the
trouble was able to take in control for some time. However, Sakae later passed
away on her birthday, and the family was left with miserable. At the same time,
the Love Machine, which is the artificial intelligence, set many missiles on
several regions around the world. This has put a big alarm over the Shinohara
family.
In
the end, the Shinohara members all stick together to defeat the Love Machine
which in a matter of fact they succeeded.
At the end, everyone preparing for Sakae’s funeral ritual while
celebrating their triumph at the same time. Kenji also confessed to Natsuki
where they ended up being the couple eventually.
Over
the decades, people generally knew that Japanese animation was always revolving around in mythical and fantasy genres or with a mix of reality element. Thus,
in this movie Summer Wars, it was obvious that the time took place in present
and technology had striven to the next level. People in that world relied on
technology to work their daily activities. This in fact reflected to our
society nowadays where people relied on technology to keep in communication with the
world. Yet, in Summer Wars, we were able to see that the advanced technology
that human created has caused disaster towards the world, which implied on how
human would one day be destroyed by their own products. This also gave a
message on how dangerous technology can be one day, thus also reflected some
concerns that society today has toward the progression of technology.
In
terms of cultural hybridity, Summer Wars though was a Japanese animation film
had some elements of Western included. For instance, Natsuki’s interest on U.S
and the military base that one of Natsuki’s uncles worked with. Even at the end
of the battle with Love Machine, they needed the help from U.S. military to
help locate the missiles. Furthermore, the OZ simulation world was a virtual
society for people from around the world to live in, where we could see many
Western people and foreign language spoken during the movie. Yet, Japan’s film
was always clever enough to make Western things into their own products, like
the anime art style they drew for foreign people even though they may not look
exactly like that kind of proportions. Besides, OZ users’ comments would always
change to Japanese language which not only maintained their Japanese values in animation
film but also helped the Japanese audience to be able to understand.
According
to the theme of the movie, the setting was in future time, where the
impossible may be possible. For example, the world was functioned
by OZ simulation and users around the world used it to work their daily
activities. Although it may seen absurd for people to improve at that stage but
it may became true in the end, and no one would know. Thus, Japanese animation
usually was popular with their imagination of the virtual world where people
can have a draft vision of their future world. Sometimes, some audiences may be
too obsessed with the theme that they could not distinguish between reality and
virtual reality. The impact of Japanese animation in the mind of people was
stronger than you could imagined.
In the aspect of culture, although
the film was set in present time, there were still some elements of myth
inserted in the film. For instances, the outlook of the Love Machine in final
battle and also the transformation of Natsuki’s avatar in the final battle. The
outlook of the Love Machine in final battle was related to god’s outlook,
where there was aurora surround his head. Similar to Natsuki’s avatar, she
transformed into a spiritual-like appearance in the last battle. The wings that
she grew out from her avatar were a significant mythical symbol. Moreover, the
animation also remained their Japanese culture values such as their traditional game used in the last battle field, the “Koi Koi”. They maintained the intense
atmosphere in the mean time implemented their own traditional culture game
into so to introduce their cultures through
worldwide and also keep the audiences' interest to the story line.
All
in all, Summer Wars was an animation film appropriate for people to escape from
the reality and sat back and immersed you into a virtual reality world.
References
Summer Wars. (n.d.). Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved
September 12, 2015, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_Wars
