Summer Wars
I’d caught wind of a new Anime export to the West called Summer Wars sometime late last year. Based on the trailer and favourable fan reviews, I just went ahead and ordered the Blu-ray online. For someone like me who loves a great story regardless of style or genre, it was one of the best impulse buys I’ve ever made. Being an Anime fan is by no means a prerequisite for enjoying this film. From the same director who brought us the The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, it’s got universal appeal.
I often wonder, at what point did the internet become a necessity to us? My best guess would be that the point of no return came sometime around the turn of the millennium, the milestone beyond which our dependence on the internet had become so absolute that we really couldn’t live without it. Because if the web suddenly disappeared today, national economies would be thrown into chaos and mass hysteria would grip those of us who had suddenly lost that instant connection with friends we could never have met, due to geography, any other way.
Summer Wars is a story about this absolute online dependency and the fallout that could result if our business/social lifeline were suddenly cut. At the same time, it contrasts the high-tech virtual lifestyle with a low-tech, old-world sensibility that still values face-to-face human contact above all else. Set in Japan, but referencing the globe, what we’d think of as Twitter, Second Life, Amazon and online banking are consolidated into a single cyberspace workplace/playground called Oz – a virtual world layered over the real one, in which people lead double lives as idealized incarnations of themselves. This virtual world inevitably comes under threat, and the social-economic chaos that ensues from its capture calls for ingenuity, courage, and the banding together of friends, family and strangers to restore order once more. It’s an entertaining and touching story that celebrates the human spirit in the age of pixels. Definitely worth a watch.
Pasiphilo
April 16, 2011