This virtual reality thriller-cum-family drama from 2009 was an early solo success for Mamoru Hosoda, who along with Your Name’s Makoto Shinkai is one of the leading new-school anime auteurs. Made after he withdrew from directing Howl’s Moving Castle for Studio Ghibli, it flits between a fraught, soap-operaish saga about a family reunion near the city of Ueda and the metaverse of Oz. It isn’t as sophisticated perhaps in its understanding of the online/real-world interface as his 2021 film Belle, but the multilayered storytelling still shows plenty of panache, especially on the visual front.
Maths boffin Kenji (voiced by Michael Sinterniklaas in the English-language dub) is browbeaten by schoolmate Natsuki (Brina Palencia) into attending her great-grandmother Sanae’s (Pam Dougherty) 90th birthday on her family estate; she needs a willing victim to pose as her boyfriend to impress the matriarch. Fending off his new in-laws, the teenager – also a part-time moderator for Oz – solves an encrypted math problem that opens a backdoor for a malevolent AI called Love Machine to corrupt the network. With much of the world dependent on the services hosted by Oz, much more than the birthday party is at stake.
Hosoda shows a novelistic attention to detail that puts Summer Wars a cut above genre anime: from the sense of history underpinning the sprawling Jinnouchi family, always harping on about being descending from famously uncowable samurai, to the baseball game that is a meta-commentary on the unfolding online catastrophe. The deep texturing also extends to the images: not only the translucent and, from a 2025 perspective, somewhat utopian-looking online realm, but also piercing touches of IRL beauty. Sanae’s flowers blooming by night as Kenji solves his maths puzzle is a particularly delicate touch.
Insisting, via Sanae, on family solidarity and civic spirit in the face of existential challenges, Hosoda also shows something of a moralistic streak. But in the case of Summer Wars, this conviction dissipates somewhat in a gabbled finale that leans into the film’s frantic tempo and assigns every Jinnouchi a supposedly key role in defeating Love Machine. Battling an apparently motiveless AI – whose link to bad boy prodigal son Wabisuke (J Michael Tatum) is underexploited – it feels increasingly consequenceless, as virtual action often does. But the narrative complexity and bravura imagery still impress.
• Summer Wars is in UK cinemas from 3 August.
