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Summer Wars
Japanese Theatrical Poster
Directed by	Mamoru Hosoda
Written by	Satoko Okudera
Starring	Ryunosuke Kamiki Nanami Sakuraba Sumiko Fuji Mitsuki Tanimura Ayumu Saitô
Music by	Akihiko Matsumoto
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release date	August 1, 2009
Running time	114 minutes
Country	Japan
Language	Japanese

Summer Wars (サマーウォーズ, Samā wōzu) is a 2009 Japanese animated film. The film focuses on a timid eleventh-grade math genius who, with the aid of a classmate's extensive family, must prevent the real world and computer-simulated worlds from colliding. It was produced by the animation studio Madhouse and directed by Mamoru Hosoda.

Plot

It is summer in Japan, a time of warm weather and free time, but Kenji Koiso (Ryunosuke Kamiki), a shy high school student with a talent for math, spends his day not outside but immersed in Oz, a massive computer-simulated game reality. A genius with numbers but ill-adept socially, Kenji secretly has a crush on his attractive senpai (upperclassman) Natsuki Shinohara (Nanami Sakuraba), but can't work up the nerve to tell her. But when Natsuki offers him a summer 'job' at her grandmother's estate in Ueda, Nagano Prefecture, he jumps at the chance. There's just one thing he wasn't aware of: Natsuki wants him to masquerade at her grandmother's 90th birthday party as her fiance.

As Kenji tries to act the part, meet Natsuki's dozens of relatives, and deal with the advances of computer expert Wabisuke Jinnouchi (Ayumu Saitô), Natsuki's cousin and "first love," he receives a mysterious email with a math problem to solve. Being the prodigy he is, he can't resist solving it and sending the answer back, but the next day, Kenji finds himself the center of a developing news story. Overnight, Oz has been hacked and turned into a digital deadzone, and he is the prime suspect. The real hacker has hijacked Kenji's account, and using a demonic avatar in Oz starts spreading the online havoc into the real world. With car navigation systems disabled and computers malfunctioning, Japan grinds to a halt. But the worst comes when the hacker gains control of a weather satellite, and threatens to send it crashing to earth. The only chance of stopping him are the combined forces of Kenji, Wabisuke, and Natsuki's massive family. With the fate of the world at stake, the great online summer war begins.

Cast and characters

• Ryunosuke Kamiki as Kenji Koiso (小磯 健二, Koiso Kenji), the seventeen-year old protagonist of the film. A math whizz and enthusiastic user of the interactive computer world Oz, he is less skilled in dealing with people, especially his crush Natsuki. But spending his summer with her family and defending the world from online threats promises to transform this shy boy into a man.

• Nanami Sakuraba as Natsuki Shinohara (篠原 夏希, Shinohara Natsuki), the eighteen-year old object of Kenji's affection. A spirited young woman, she invites Kenji to meet her large extended family, but has hidden reasons of her own. Her "first love" is Wabisuke.

• Sumiko Fuji as Sakae Jinnouchi (陣内 栄, Jinnouchi Sakae), the ninety-year old grandmother of Natsuki and indomitable head of the family. Despite her advanced age, she holds the family together.

• Mitsuki Tanimura as Kazuma Ikezawa (池沢佳主馬, Ikezawa Kazuma), the thirteen-year old Oz user and world-renowned netgame warrior champion who joins Kenji in the fight against the hacking attacks. Despite (or perhaps because of) his great gaming skills, he is an otaku who seldom leaves his room.

• Ayumu Saitô as Wabisuke Jinnouchi (陣内侘助, Jinnouchi Wabisuke), the forty-one-year old computer expert and "first love" of Natsuki. Sardonic and handsome, he is secretly the illegitimate son of Natsuki's grandfather (Sakae's husband).

Production

Summer Wars was director Mamoru Hosoda's second film for Madhouse, after his 2006 critical hit The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. The studio confirmed they would be producing Hosoda's next film at the 2008 Tokyo International Anime Fair, and announced the title and staff in the January 2009 issue of Newtype.

The Summer Wars project reunited many of the staff members from the earlier feature, including screenwriter Satoko Okudera, character designer Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, animation director Hiroyuki Aoyama, and voice actress Mitsuki Tanimura. Additionally, many respected animators who had worked on The Girl Who Leapt Through Time returned for this film, including Ayako Hata, Hideki Takahashi, Katsuyoshi Nakatsuru, Keisuke Masunaga, Kenji Hachizaki, Kumiko Kawana, Michio Fukuda, Tadashi Matsuzaki, Tadashi Sakazaki, Takashi Mukouda, Yasuhiro Nakura, and Yasunori Miyazawa. Tatsuzou Nishida, who had served as an animator on The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, assumed the role of action animation director for Summer Wars. New staff members included art director Youji Takeshige, known for his work with Studio Ghibli, and composer Akihiko Matsumoto.

The production of the film took three years. Answering questions regarding the film at Otakon 2009, Madhouse studio head Masao Maruyama noted that the longer-than-average production time was due to the large number of characters in Natsuki's family, which Hosoda insisted on including. Maruyama then quipped that he asked Hosoda to promise that his next film would have only two main characters and take only two years to complete. Summer Wars fits into Madhouse's larger theatrical film release strategy, which is to release one new film a season for the next year. The cycle began in the summer of 2009 with Summer Wars, continues with Mai Mai Miracle in the fall, Yona Yona Penguin in the winter, and Redline in the spring of 2010.

Promotion

A high level of anticipation surrounded Summer Wars previous to its release due to the critical and popular success of The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. To help increase publicity, production partner Kadokawa Shoten, which had released The Girl Who Leapt Through Time through its Kadokawa Herald Pictures studio, promoted the film heavily. Iqura Sugimoto's manga version of Summer Wars was featured in the July 2009 debut issue of Kadokawa's manga magazine Young Ace. An additional manga story, Summer Wars Gaiden, was featured in the July 2009 issue of the publisher's Comp Ace magazine. Kadokawa also promoted the film online through their YouTube channel, aiming at international as well as domestic fans. A one-minute high definition (HD) trailer was released in April, followed by a longer trailer in June. In late July, the Japanese version Yahoo! Movies streamed the first five minutes of the film, but as only Japanese viewers could watch it, Kadokawa offered the footage on their YouTube channel within several days to allow for international viewing. Additionally, Kadokawa offered two of the film's fifteen-second television ads online.

Reception

Prior to the film's release, Madhouse studio head Masao Maruyama said publicly that "The film should be pretty popular, since the pre-sales for the tickets are very high."

In his review for The Japan Times, reviewer Mark Schilling awarded the film 5 out of 5 stars and titled his article "The future king of Japanese animation may be with us - Hosoda steps out of Miyazaki's shadow with dazzling new film." Schilling called the film "an ambitious step forward for Hosoda" and "totally of the current, postmillennium moment." He also highlighted the artistic team, refering to Sadamoto, Aoyama, and Nishida by name, saying they had "produced scenes of animated spectacle that, in their dazzling fluency of motion and untethered brilliance of invention, makes the usual SF/fantasy anime look childish and dull."

External links

• Official Site (in Japanese)
• Summer Wars at IMDb
• Summer Wars ({{{type}}}) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia