Summer Wars
Starring: Maeghan Albach,
Chris Ayres,Greg Ayres
Tia Lynn Ballard,Anthony Bowling
Director:Mamoru Hosoda
Writer:Satoko Okudera
Studio:FUNimation Entertainment
Genre:Fantasy
Official Site:funimation.com/summer-wars
Rating:NR for not rated.
Runtime:1 hour 54 minutes
Release Date:December 24th, 2010
Summer Wars Synopsis:
Kenji Koiso, an eleventh grade math genius, agrees to take a summer job at the Nagano hometown of his crush, Natuski. When he arrives, he finds that her family have reunited to celebrate the 90th birthday of the family matriarch. His job is to pretend to be Natsuki's fiancé. Meanwhile, his attempt to solve a mathematical equation causes a parallel world's collision with earth.
Summer Wars Review:
If 'Redline' is punk rock anime, 'Summer Wars' is High School Musical in comparison -- pastels, schoolgirls, adorable children and delightfully nerdy teens. (But better music.) Oh, and possibly world destruction via computer, but involving very cute avatars! John Gholson called it "'WarGames' re-imagined as a Japanese ensemble family drama. And then animated." That just about says it all, but neglects to mention the lively characters and lovely visuals.
The focal point of 'Summer Wars' is an enormous ultimate social media application called OZ, the love child of Facebook and Second Life, in which everyone is represented by a cute avatar. Kenji, a teenage math genius, is planning to spend the summer working to monitor security holes in OZ. However, the lovely college student Natsuki persuades him to work for her at her family's country mansion, setting up the lavish arrangements for her grandmother's 90th birthday party. Oh, and she forgets to mention that he'll also be posing as her boyfriend. When Kenji inadvertently hacks OZ, an artificial intelligence called Love Machine proceeds to wreak havoc on the virtual world ... and threatens to do the same to the real world as well.
Summer Wars More Info »
The story of an ordinary family going to extraordinary lengths to avert the impending cyber apocalypse! Kenji is your typical teenage misfit. He's good at math, bad with girls, and spends most of his time hanging out in the all-powerful, online community known as OZ. His second life is the only life he has - until the girl of his dreams, Natsuki, hijacks him for a starring role as a fake fiance at her family reunion. Things only get stranger from there. A late-night email containing a cryptic mathematic riddle leads to the unleashing of a rogue AI intent on using the virtual word of OZ to destroy the real world, literarily. As Armageddon looms on the horizon, Kenji and his new "family" set aside their differences and band together to save the worlds they inhabit in this "near-perfect blend of social satire and science fiction".
