Monday 16 December 2013

Summer Wars



Summer Wars is an anime film from Madhouse studios, who do a pretty good job when it comes to this sort of thing.

A part of me wants to leave it there.

This was about as much information as I had going in. That and the above image.

There was something that I was expecting, and it isn't really what happened, and I think that that might be a part of the experience. I'm not saying that it might not be so good if you have more information, but part of the enjoyment that I got out of it was all the blind corners this film takes. It's colourful and a lot of stuff happens.

That is as much as I would like you to have going in. In an ideal world you would now go and get a hold of the film before continuing. Do that if you can. If that isn't you, and you need more, keep reading.

This film is pretty solid fare as far as the standard tropes go. There is this certain genre of anime that basically revolves around boy likes girl, improbable situation presents itself for boy and girl to go through the whole romantic comedy thing, but they get detoured along the way and end up saving the world.

You dig in deep and you are bound to find this shit all over the place. It's total teenage wish fulfilment fantasy. In that regard it is a lot like Twilight, except I actually get deeply engaged in this sort of stuff. It relies heavily on not bothering to justify the unlikely, and instead saves all its energy for the melodrama. It's fun stuff.

This one is a little bit different, because it revolves around a super advanced and far more pervasive version of Facebook called Oz. It is also different from a lot of other similar outings in that it may contain traces of daytime soap levels of family drama, in the same way that a Snickers Bar may contain traces of nuts. It's in there.

I don't actually know what it was about this film that I liked. I can't articulate that, but I was riveted. I kind of do, but I can't really go into it without ruining it. What I will say is that they did a good job of getting me to invest in all the activities that happened along the way.

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