I saw Summer Wars this past Friday. [Initially was gonna put it in movies, but figured since it's an anime movie, it'll go here.] Anyway, it's about some kid who accompanies his female upperclassman to her grandmother's birthday celebration under the impression that she needs his help for some sort of job. Ultimately, some giant-ass online system called Oz effs up and kid, the girl, and the girl's family pretty much have to fix the damn thing before their house explodes. I'm leaving out a lot, but that's the gist of what happens.
It has some nice designs and an interesting concept, but it felt lacking in the end. It spreads its focus on too many characters in my opinion--not bad for a series but not good for a film--and it misses the opportunity of letting more of the story take place in Oz (which was more interesting than the real world in my opinion). King Kazma and some of the other avatars seemed woefully underused, too. And it feels schizo that it goes from one type of story--a young boy and his first love--to this entirely different thing at the end where they have to save millions of people (even though to the makers' credit, they don't drop the love story at the end of the film).
