Summer Wars

Movie: Summer Wars

Genre: Japanaese Anime

Synopsis: Kenji is an 11^th grade math-genius/geek with a crush on the beautiful Natsuki.  He agrees to help Natsuki when she goes home to the family estate for a visit. What he does not know is that his real job is to pass himself off to Natsuki’s family as her fiancé during her great-grandmother’s 90^th birthday party.

Oz is an internet site that is used by virtually everyone in Japan – and a lot of the rest of the world – to do everything from pay bills to run telephones to managing satellites.  His first night at the estate, a challenge is issued to Kenji via his internet-connected phone.  He wins the challenge by solving a 2,056 byte encryption algorithm.  Somehow, this allows a misguided application to unlock and take over Oz accounts.  Things start going wrong all over the world as more and more Oz accounts are appropriated.  Finally, Natsuki’s family teams with Kenji to battle the entity that is taking over Oz.

My two cents: This is my first Anime movie.  It was actually kind of interesting.  It took a while to get used to the type of animation and the script style.  The hardest part for me was to stop muttering to myself “well, that is totally ridiculous”.  If you go with the flow, it is kind of enjoyable . . . but definitely not everyone’s cup of tea.

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