Stripped of its context, this statement is going to make me sound like I am either some kind of know-it-all trying to sound smarter than you by dismissing something that you like, or like a crazy TV Tropes contributor who can’t help but compare everything they come across to that one show/book/movie/video game that they like way too much: Summer Wars is basically the exact same movie as Digimon: Bokura no War Game. See what I did there? I even called it “Bokura no War Game” rather than “the second Digimon movie” or “Children’s War Game”.
i totally could've slipped in a screenshot from digimon and nobody would have known the difference
Now, to actually unpack that statement. They really are basically the same movie: a rogue AI breaks into a superflat-styled, Snow Crash-esque virtual world and starts to take it over. It’s up to our plucky adolescent heroes (with the rest of the virtual world cheering them on!) to save the world Japan before the timer hits zero and the thing that the AI is controlling lands on something and blows up everything. I’m not abstracting anything with that plot description to make them match up. They are both that exact plot.
Mamoru Hosoda is basically remaking the same movie (and yes, he has directed Digimon stuff before making The Girl That Leapt Through Time)—but improving it in just about every way along the way. For starters, the fact that it’s not Digimon frankly helps make the movie more enjoyable. It allows the same movie to be okay for “everyone” in the same way that say, a Ghibli or Pixar movie is rather than being pigeonholed in a way to little kids. Similarly, this also lets the movie go run for two hours, rather than one hour. The extra hour of runtime greatly helps the movie by allowing it to have a large, but still somewhat well-fleshed out cast. True, many of them are quite clearly types, but Hosoda has a deft enough touch to provide a sense of warmth to them nonetheless.
That said, if you were paying attention you’ll remember that I said that it’s an improvement in “just about every way”. This indicates that there was at least one way that Children’s War Game was better. Sure, Summer Wars had better animation, better plotting, better characters, more exciting action, and better humor, but you know what it didn’t have? Butter-Fly. ONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN MYYYYYYYYYYYYYY LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE!
(Also, I do have to admit that I don’t know the rules to Hanafuda and therefore was bummed that I didn’t get what was going on when Natsuki challenged Love Machine.)
Now that’s something I never heard about Summer Wars, the Digimon tie-in. I was wondering where all the silly but enjoyable after-school Neuromancer stuff came from – all over my family epic!
But I think the family epic was best. I’d choose their family (and their family home) over any cutie-pie SuperFlat virtual world – even one presided over by John and Yoko.
@ojisan
One thing that I thought was pretty interesting about the movie that was wholly unintentional (as this movie is made for Japanese by Japanese) but I thought since I’m an American is how this movie plays out like one of those My Big Fat Greek Wedding-esque wacky-ethnic-in-laws movies. Now, obviously both Kenji and the Jinnouchis are Japanese, but it still follows that whole fish-out-of-water framework where the sort of square non-ethnic lead goes to meet his/her in-laws who are this large, eccentric family who are wacky because of the fact that they are Italian/Irish/Jewish/Latino/etc. and don’t need to adhere to (WASPy) propriety. While they’re not “ethnic”, they still have that kind of like separate “weird” culture thing going on for them due to the longevity of the clan.
@rei
It’s like when people watch poker movies/shows and just want to yell “I’M ALL IN!” randomly!
I totally thought of Digimon too and later I knew the director was the same! I loved this movie and enjoyed the digimon one a few years back. This movie worths it, the animation is good and the drama is just enough.
It’s totally like Digimon but you ignore that fact a lot later in and then revisted at last boss, lol. But totally worth it, the animation and omg the sad scenes. BAWL. It’s really epic. FAMILY. And of course, even if you don’t understand the game, you want to shout out “KOI KOI!!”
Well, I loved it for the sense of family ties and moreover social ties that bind society – the kind demonstrtated by Grandmother calling her various former pupils. Also my dad who is fishery engineer had a big LOL from the lightes-as-christmas-tree squid catching cutter – yes in RL they are lighted like that to lure the squids at night.
I totally laughed at that without getting the joke AT ALL.
I’ve seen Digimon 1 and 2, but only parts of the movie. All I remember of that was that I thought the animation was incredibly ugly compared to the series.
I did greatly enjoy Summer Wars though. Especially the granny! She was awesome :B As for the card game… well I guess it served its purpose. I don’t really play any type of society games so
I lol’d at the scene where Kenji is desperately trying to follow the game of Hanafuda Natsuki was playing with her uncle by trying to read the tiny, tiny set of instructions that shipped with the cards. Reminds me of what happens everytime I hit a bloody Hanafuda mini-game in a Japanese video game. You’d think I’d understand how to play the bloody game at this point…
I finally sat myself down and forced myself to play Flash hanafuda for I don’t even know how many hours until I finally learned the rules, and then realized that it’s basically a kind of rummy.
Big fan of Mamoru Hosoda for reasons unknown; I just really like how he depicts the slice-of-life genre. I somehow feel so at peace when I watch his movies… the atmosphere is awesome. While watching it, I knew Summer Wars resembled Bokura no War Game and when I saw that he had done both, I was doubly surprised and ecstatic. Haha… I even the characters made me think of Tai and the gang from back in the day.
Regarding the extra length, “Dr. Strangelove” was a strong influence for Hosoda for “Summer Wars”. If you set the two movies side-by-side, you’ll see a lot of plot parallels and thematic oppositions. The extra time seems to be necessary for the analogue to the final act of “Dr Strangelove”, which happens after the majority of the planes have been recalled.
Though “Summer Wars” is 10 minutes longer – I guess that’s just because Hosoda’s pacing is more leisurely than Kubrick’s.
@jpmeyer
The “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” feeling is entirely intentional. Hosoda was at MIT a few months ago to talk about the movie, and said that he got the idea for “Summer Wars” shortly after he finished “The Girl Who Leapt Through Time”. At that time he had just gotten married and was introduced to my wife’s family, and he found this to be quite overwhelming. “All of a sudden my family doubled in size. I wanted to make a film about that experience, and that became ‘Summer Wars.’”
@jpmeyer
Hosoda also wanted to draw a contrast between globalized and local culture. The virtual world of “Oz” reflects a globalized culture, whereas the real world of Natsuki’s family is very Japanese. Throw that in with the his in-law experience and you’ve got a Japanese version of “My Big Fat Greek Wedding”.
“This indicates that there was at least one way that Children’s War Game was better”
Yeah it had WarGreymon the most GAR Digimon evar. What show doesn’t benefit from a hyper evolving fire breathing T-Rex?
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