Summer Wars

Summer Wars Summary:kw50197Summer Wars was truly a wonderful surprise. It starts off with 17-year old Kenji following his senior Natsuki back to her hometown for what he believes is a part-time job helping with Natsuki's 90-year old grandmother's birthday celebration. To his surprise, he finds out that his real job is to pretend to be Natsuki's fiance. The fake background Natsuki has provided for him has unexpected repercussions when an unknown person steals his account to create havoc in Oz, the virtual reality world which is closely linked to the real world. The virtual terrorist nearly brings Japan to its knees, by taking over government systems and creating chaos.

But more importantly, the movie tells off the importance of family. The intruder is actually a program created by one of Natsuki's uncle, Wabisuke. Wabisuke had long been estranged from their family and returned after selling off his program to the U.S military. The U.S. military had chosen to test the efficacy of the Love Machine on Oz. When the rest of the family learns of this, they are understandably upset and angry at Wabisuke. When Natsuki's grandmother dies of a weak heart, the family is further divided with the men blaming Wabisuke's Love Machine determined to take revenge by destroying the program while the women are focused on planning out the funeral for their beloved matriarch. It takes a possible nuclear disaster to reconcile the entire family. Truly entertaining and touching fare.
Summer Wars Originally published in Shvoong: http://www.shvoong.com/entertainment/movies/1993164-summer-wars/