Summer Wars is a science fiction story, but at its core it is also a
slice of life story. The two stories coincide beautifully and come together for
an uplifting ending.
The story starts out with the main character Kenji being asked by
Natsuki to attend her family’s big birthday celebration for her 90 year old
grandmother. Kenji agrees. When he arrives Kenji is surprised when Natsuki
introduces him as her fiancé with an impressive college resume. Kenji is still
a high school student.
We are then introduced to the science fiction part of the story when
Kenji receives an encryption in an e-mail late at night. Kenji uses his strong
math prowess to crack the code. Not knowing he was cracking the encryption for
the on line virtual world of OZ. This virtual world is used by everyone from
children who play games to government officials that run Japan’s
infrastructure.
The true hacker of OZ is an AI program called Love Machine, which was
created for the soul purpose of infiltrating networks. We discover later on
Love Machine was written by Wabisuke, the family’s black sheep. He sold Love
Machine to the U.S. who turned it loose on OZ for a trial run.
With control of OZ Love Machine is able to create chaos across Japan.
Emergency Service Teams chase around on bogus calls. Traffic is brought to a
standstill across the country. The biggest danger comes when Love Machine takes
over the nuclear weapons and a satellite. The nukes are set to launch, while
the satellite is set to drop on Natsuki and her family.
While all of this goes on Natsuki’s grandma, Sakae, has a blow out with
Wabisuke. Then during a friendly game of Hanafuda Sakae asks Kenji to take care
of Natsuki. The rest of the large family goes about making plans for Sakae’s
birthday celebration, watching one of the sons play in a high school baseball
national championship, talk about their ancestors’ conquests, and eat together.
In the finale Natsuki’s young cousin, Kazuma, wages a fight with Love
Machine in an all out battle for control of OZ and ultimately to regain control
of the nuclear weapons and the satellite. The entire family rallies around
Kazuma with any help they can provide including a supercomputer, ice to cool
it, and a fishing boat for energy. Sounds a little crazy, right? Well, that’s
the sign of a good anime. Don’t worry it’ll all make sense when you watch it.
It is a fun show to watch and it has plenty of feels in it as well. I
highly recommend Summer Wars.
No comments:
Post a Comment