Summer Wars
| Summer Wars | |
 The online avatars of the main cast. | |
| Created by | Mamoru Hosoda |
|---|---|
| Owner(s) | Warner Bros. Pictures Japan |
| Print publications | |
| Comics | Summer Wars: Part 1 Summer Wars: Part 2 Summer Wars: Complete Edition |
| Films and television | |
| Film(s) | Summer Wars |
Summer Wars (JP: サマーウォーズ, Hepburn: Samā Wōzu) is a Japanese animated feature-length film released in August 2009, following a two-volume manga adaptation in July 2009. It was created by Mamoru Hosoda, with the movie produced by animation studio Madhouse, and published by Warner Bros. Pictures Japan.
Contents
Plot[edit]
The story follows eleventh-grader Kenji Koiso, who is a talented mathematics prodigy who took a summer job with his friend Takashi Sakuma to help moderate the virtual reality massive-multiplayer social network, OZ, used by people all around the world for activities such as e-mail, business, networking, and games. During the summer, twelfth-grader Natsuki Shinohara offers Kenji to join her in Ueda, located in the Nagano prefecture to celebrate her grandmother Sakae's 90th birthday. After formally accepting and going to Ueda, Natsuki uses Koiso, and introduces him as her fiancé so that her family does not look down on her.
Kenji is greeted by many relatives of the Shinohara family, including her 90-year-old grandmother, and her "half-granduncle" Wabisuke Jinnouchi. He learns of the family's past, as the Takeda samurai clan that fought the Tokogawa clan during the Edo period. During his stay, Koiso recieves a phishing e-mail late at night on his cell phone that contains a extensive mathematical problem which was actually OZ's "2056-digit security algorithm", that he inadvertently decrypted and unleashed a malicious computer virus called "Love Machine" after a handful of OZ users cracked the code. Love Machine hijacks Kenji's account that has moderation privileges and possesses his avatar. After waking up and finding out that he cannot log into his account, Kenji sees himself on the news, being framed for hacking into OZ over the night.
Koiso rushes to Kazuma Ikezawa, a 13-year-old boy who is a self-described hikikomori, and cousin of Natsuki's, and begs him to use his computer. It is revealed that every admin in OZ cannot log in to their account after Takashi relays the information to him over a phone call. Takashi gives Kenji a burner account that takes the form of an anthropomorphic yellow squirrel as its avatar. Kenji confronts the hacker that stole his account, and Love Machine turns the entire social platform into a player-versus-player zone and starts attacking his avatar. Ikezawa takes control of his computer once again as his main avatar, King Kazma, a tall anthropomorphic snow hare to confront the virus directly. Kazma loses the fight after Love Machine visibly consumes player accounts, causing him to transform into a stronger entity.
Over another phone call, this is when Takashi concludes his research on the hacking incident, and tells Koiso that the hacker is a malicious AI called Love Machine. Koiso is then arrested by police for having his account being tied to OZ getting hacked, and expresses his gratitude his staying with Natsuki's family before being taken away. Chaos ensues throughout Japan as Love Machine interrupts IoT services and electronic devices of many types such as GPS and satellite signals, emergency alarms, water supply, train lines, and traffic lights that causes a sixty-kilometer traffic jam, forcing the police officer and Kenji to return back to Natsuki's house.
Natsuki's grandmother calls every family member, motivating them to assist the elderly, and all emergency responders while Kenji cracks another code to regain access to the admin building in OZ. Takashi clear Kenji's name by giving him a list of people who cracked the Love Machine's code, and states that he got the decryption wrong by one letter; also noting that whether the answer was right or wrong, anyone who responded to the message had their account hijacked.
Later that night during dinner, it is found out the Wabisuke created Love Machine originally as a deep-learning program that the United States military was interested in purchasing. Sakae tries to kill Wabisuke, but he flees. After the incident, Sakae calls Kenji in for a game of Koi-Koi while apologizing for the mess. She also bets against him that if she wins the match of Koi-Koi, Kenji must promise to always care for Natsuki, even though she is aware that they are not really in a relationship. The result of the game was not shown.
The family goes to sleep, and over the course of the night, Love Machine purposefully shut off grandma Sakae's pacemaker, killing her. Unrest settles amongst the family members and Kenji, since he wishes to stop the virus from harming other people around the world during their funeral ceremony. One of the family members that Sakae motivated brings a supercomputer to the household to help put an end to the OZ crisis. Kazuma also agrees to fight Love Machine again and reveals that his avatar is a world-famous champion martial artist in OZ. He buffs up his account with the supercomputer, and the support of several accounts. The team manages to temporarily contain the virus shortly before it re-transforms into a giant black monster. A two-hour countdown appears on everyone's screen, as the result of the countdown would have a distant satellite hit a targeted nuclear facility and destroy the world. In anger, Kazuma makes one last attempt to destroy the virus, and his account is eaten by Love Machine.
Natsuki logs into her OZ account, an avatar with nekomimi properties, which has a master level at Koi-Koi, and she challenges Love Machine to a game that wagers every account of her clan, and later, ten million created accounts, for the exchange of OZ accounts that were hijacked. Natsuki continues to win games of Hanafuda against the AI, and the countdown is nearing its final minutes as the accounts are earned back. The monster disintegrates, but the time is still ticking. Kenji struggles to solve a deactivation code of the satellite's orbit while Kazma fights the virus back out of Koiso's account. Both are successful, but Kenji re-routes the satellite to nearby the house, causing an explosion, and destroying the house. The virus is removed. Wabisuke is found innocent, since the United States Department of Defense was responsible for planting the malicious software into Love Machine.
Manga[edit]
The manga in collaboration with Hosoda, and Iqura Sugimoto was first created in July of 2009, one month before the film's release in Japan. There are two volumes available, along with a "complete edition". The manga follows events similar to the movie.
Summer Wars and furry[edit]
With the film's tone of science fiction and fantasy, it presents a method of online interaction that can allow one to use an anthropomorphic avatar, such as their fursona to interact with users around the world. There are many accounts in the film who are depicted as anthropomorphic or kemonomimi. The movie gained a niche cult following within the furry fandom, with creation of fursuits of its characters, and doujinshi published in Japan.