Summer Wars

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Myself

Yeah!

Wonderful. So very Japanese too. Like The Girl Who Lept Through Time, Mamoru Hosoda uses some sci-fi concepts to tell a human relationship drama. This time it's an online world that is corrupted by A.I. and has read world consequences, and the human drama is about the coming together of a family and a first love.

The sequences in the first half are ecstatically manic, both in the chaos of the family life and the wondrously visual online community. After a big shift in the middle things slow down a bit and the film seems to loose the focus it had at the beginning. This is a problem I have with a lot of Japanese films but this one thankfully doesn't suffer too much and get's thing back on track by the climax.

It's a pretty eclectic mix of styles and genres, it has it's cake and eats it too. A must for anime fans and defiantly worth a look for everyone else.