Summer Wars

A gem. You should have a smile on your face the entire time. Hosoda's second film lives up to the first.

A charming tale about family, the power of working together and kicking AI in the digital junk. The contrast between the rustic country home and the ever changing online world of OZ keeps the film fresh, but it might take a while before it starts drawing you in. Doesn't go too deep, but has a good sense of fun.

Excellent animation, but some of the story was a little silly, and forced. The virtual world scenes are interesting, though they didn't work for me on a technical level.

Take .hack//sign, add a lot of Pokemon fights and spice it up with a little bit of Ghibli and you've got yourself a Summer Wars. Not a kind of mix you'd wanna watch unless you're an elementary school kid.

A little bit slow and a little bit all over the place. The animation was great if not particularly amazing or memorable. The characters were all likeable and the ending was superb I though. The story as a whole was ok, but it felt like 2 different films mashed into 1 at the last minute. Not enough focus on the romantic side of the film, I'm a sucker for that kind of stuff, one of the reasons why I love the directors previous film, 'The girl who leapt through time'

Loads of interesting characters, inspired animation and an interesting subject matter that tied rather well with the family side of things. Enjoyed it quite a bit.

It's like "Digimon: The Movie" but not shitty.

A fantastic sci-fi film about the place where both the internet gaming community and family meet. Fantastic.

family story line works pretty good but the OZ stuff is just plain stupid.

Absurdly dumb to the point of poisoning every major non-technical aspect of itself (i.e. plot, character, world, theme, and even genre (due to its scattered plot focus, featuring characters with no rational sense of priority whatsoever)). Most people that have seen it like it, though, so you should ignore me unless you can't get past fundamental counter-intellectualism in a "serious enough" movie. If you thought Utawarerumono was dumb then you shouldn't watch this unless you want to laugh at it.

The family account is fine, fictional cyber universe is a failing one. The movie not knowing where to focus, loses too much time on trivialities ending up mildly entertaining.

Nothing short of a visual triumph. The animation inside of OZ is completely breathtaking. The family is varied, entertaining and likable. Comparisons to Miyazaki are too soon - lacking is the emphatic/emotional, nuanced, and -challenging- moral, social and emotional issues posed even by Miyazaki's earlier work. As an enjoyable ride - Summer Wars is a smashing success. The commentary is there (digital vs real lives), but I found it heavy-handed and secondary to fairly run-of-the-mill devices.

Likeable characters, an over-the-top story and great production values, combined in a movie that (thankfully) doesn't take itself too seriously. Why everybody sees the need to compare this to Ghibli is beyond me; it doesn't pretend to be anything but good, clean, whimsical fun, and in that regard, it's a success.

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The interweaving of multiple storylines is impressive as is the thought which is given to portraying a catastrophe that seems fantastical, but is much closer to reality than most realise. We remain oblivious to our entanglements with the digital as a pharmakon.

koi koi

Hosoda extrapolating his gift for character studies to a massive cast is good stuff. The digital gaming world stuff is like okay we get it, your career started with Digimon movies.

Wonderful art style, and intriguing idea. Has emotion and intelligence.

Why does no one bring up the fact this movie makes no sense? The characters are on the level of the great Mamoru Hosoda. The concept is not even close. By far his worst film. So disappointed by Summer Wars.

I appreciated and enjoyed the human side of the story, particularly the way in which humanity and family is honored above all, even if that doesn't mean technology is evil incarnate. On the other hand, while the virtual world looks interesting, I stopped caring about everyone and everything during those sequences, particularly as the film switched into action mode and began stringing showdowns together.

A highly enjoyable flick from anime master Mamoru Hosoda, featuring a large and colorful cast of characters in an imaginative universe and a compelling storyline that makes you not realize the movie you're watching is over two hours long. There are a couple of minor, but distracting logical holes in the story from time to time, but nothing too major as to completely overwhelm the overall grandeur of the production.

Other than the climax being a card game being kinda on the lame side (what is this, Yu-Gi-Oh?!), I had a really good time with it. It's like some weird combination of Only Yesterday and The Matrix, moving skillfully between surprisingly well-executed family/teen drama and high-stakes sci-fi action. The animation was also quite nice. I'm looking forward to checking out Hosoda's other movies now.

It's silly in a lot of ways, but it's not exactly simple, and seems to imply that the distraction of a life online has replaced the traditions of older social customs. Japan's fear of nuclear weaponry also surfaces towards the end. There's a lot to like here but ultimately it didn't jive with me. The world of "Oz" was too toyish and absurd for me to have any vested interest and the real world drama sorda bored me.

خیلی حوصله سر بر بود توصیه نمیکنم

As someone who grew up watching Digimon, it was a bit of a breath of fresh air to see this re-telling of one of the series' more famous storylines with a more...grown-up view. It feels like it was made for me.

CMU! - 12/12/12

Like the digimon movie but better

I was on-board. Anime that incorporates virtual reality? I'm there! The virtual reality sequences were pretty cool, but the rest didn't hold it up.

Somewhat naiv, but hey..

A brilliant anime. Entertaining and successfully expressing Japanese culture.

A little too weird for my taste and feels like it misses something. The animation was great though

Heil to you, Facebook!

For a while it's a bit disjointed the virtual reality world is cool, and the family charming though both are a bit cheesy. But the two worlds come together extremely well and you find yourself much more invested then you realized you were.

Charming charachters you grow to care about and with a great sense of humor. Peaked with great animation (look at the clods!) and action scenes.

Brilliant anime. With animation that is smooth and seamless, has a story that is captivating, and also a lot of cool moments that make you wish the land of OZ was real. Again, fun movie, worth it to pick it up if you see it at a store.

Madhouse never fails on its visuals, and this is no exception (the individuality of the avatars, especially later in the movie, is impressive). Oz is colorful and creative, even if the territoy it's exploring has already been done by WarGames (among other titles), but the real draw is easily Natsuki's family, watching them is half of the fun.

Perhaps it spreads itself a little thin conceptually, but the premise is still interesting and overall "Summer Wars" is very entertaining. The characters are really great, their relationships larger than life, but also grounded and the animation is absolutely supurb. Hosada is becoming an animator of real note. Recommended.

With 20 family members and an infinite online universe, the scope of this project is too ambitious and at times it's an incoherent mess. Even if the virtual world is visually creative, it hasn't much aesthetic value and flying around in 3D spaces isn't exactly original. Emotionally this film is still in kindergarten and that's the generation the overly cartoonish characters seem to be aimed at. Picks up towards the end but is also far too long. There have been far better cyber-thriller animes.

Had potential but was too all over the place.

Lots of fun! Has definite flaws, but provides multiple interesting protagonists and does the "importance of family" thing in a way that ties into the plot without feeling forced. Very Japanese, but in a way that's accessible to everyone. (And is it just me, or does the OZ side of it feel like a remake of Digimon Adventure: Our War Game? By the same director, even.)

Most anime try to depict a culture unlike their own, but this one is extremely true to Japanese culture (the importance of family and elders, reliance on mobile phones, obsession with high school baseball and much more) and is much more endearing because of it. It's a shame that the movie revolves so much around the ridiculous social network "Oz." The first half of the movie where that isn't much of an emphasis is fantastic, but once focus draws towards Oz the movie drops to far from believable

Visually beautiful, intelligent, emotional - good character development, important ingredients of story-telling mixed well to give a wonderful flavor. This is how films should be made. This is why people spend their time/money watching stuff. Entertaining and at the same time has an underlying socially relevant theme that makes us think. Simply great. Successfully portrays one of the baddest villains gleefully creating chaos (probably after Dark knight). The director surpasses his first film.

War Games 2009, via animu.

Neither transcends the realm of average (meaning pretty bland) animé nor appeals to a more adult age group, this couldn't hold my attention. Actually, it literally managed to put me asleep.

Nice animation, however, overall it felt way too childish. I'm going to need far more convincing that Hosoda is the new Miyazaki.