Summing Up Summer Wars
Tokikake:
Summer Wars:
Sometimes I wish I was more of a graphic artist, so I can illustrate my points without words.
Let me open with an anecdote. I was talking to some guys (non-anime people) about this film I saw over the weekend. I am a person of few words, so I described Summer Wars’ plot as, to paraphrase:
“So you got this high school geek who somehow got tricked by this girl, who goes to her school, to help her out during summer vacation. He ended up going to her family’s reunion because there are a lot of old people and they need extra help. Stuff happens. Towards the end of the movie they ended up trying to save the world from a rogue AI who threatens to blow up some nuclear power plant or something.”
Isn’t that 24 in a nutshell?
I think that’s distorting what makes Summer Wars a good film. But as media consumers, what I’ve describes should flag as something, at the very least, intriguing. It’s one of those things that reminded me of anime from the 90s; it combined crazy hijinks with the outright ordinary. It’s catchy at least in concept, regardless of how the show may have truly been.
At the same time, my description above isn’t so far off the mark. I pulled some key elements of the show and threw them together–namely the basic setup and the driving force of the plot for the second half of the film. Maybe this is why Summer Wars is sort of a difficult thing to process. It’s got that stuff on top of your Tokikake-style family drama. And then the Google-Murakami world, the King T. Kazuma things. (T is for trap right?) Then there’s the action/tension vehicle. Then comes the meta references.
If we assume that a family film, a blockbuster formula, has to appeal to multiple sorts of audience, then this sort of mix and match is a good old try at it, yes?
But I think we all will agree that the mix in Summer Wars is a far cry from what we’ve seen in Pixar’s works. If anything, Summer Wars is a little too otaku-ish. It’s almost like a brilliant and almost-eloquent man, with good things to say, but waves his hands and glosses over the detail, presuming his listeners already have some idea what he was going to say in the first place. His constructs are like an intricate, 3D object made of paper, an origami that reminds of databases. It appeals on a visceral level but only very few can digest what it is in entirety, simply due to the background knowledge necessary to understand.
Thankfully that might very well be the right presumption; most do have some background knowledge necessary. But it’s the kind of presumption that I wish nobody had to make. It’s the kind of bets that good stories make and win, but the best stories don’t even bother with.
Well, unless you are that kid at the NYICFF showing that had to ask how do people play games over the internet.
The Promotion That Leapt through Time
I wasn’t going to write about this, but I felt compelled to at least get the word out. It’s in (a couple) theaters!
Bandai Entertainment is distributing the film The Girl Who Leapt through Time in the US. This film has won some international and Japanese domestic awards, despite its relatively lackluster domestic run. Starting this week, it is having a limited run across the US (and probably Canada) beginning in LA and NYC.
At any rate, you can find screening info and a trailer at the official site by Bandai Entertainment.
This film is actually licensed in the US by Kadokawa. Production is done by Bandai Entertainment with the Ocean Group. Well, it isn’t like there’s a real difference from our perspective.
At the 6pm showing last night, I counted less than 30 heads in the theater. It’s the one ANN pimped through its last-minute-like ad with free poster giveaways. Granted, 6pm is a crap time for movie and it was clearly advertised as a dub (people don’t dig dubbed indie films), plus the film has already made its round in NYC earlier last year… hey ImaginAsian NYC please don’t do that again? Schedule it at a time that’s reasonable?
Or better yet, move the poster promotion to Saturday night instead?
Enough criticizing. I mainly wanted to say the dub is really good. I am mostly a sub-only guy but I’m pretty open-minded about dubs. I have a knack to check out dubs of shows I like. Coincidentally the NY Tokikake showing fits the profile so it was no deterrent personally. What is interesting about the dub is how Ocean employed a 15/16yo to do the voice for Makoto, which came off much like the 17/18yo that the Japanese dub used. Both actresses also had hands in live action acting before reprising their roles in Tokikake. Maybe you’ve seen Emily Hirst in a movie?
Chiaki and Kousuke, however, were less exciting for me; but Tokikake is all about Makoto, so if they can get her down right (and they did), then it is definitely a passing-grade dub.
Anyways–this film is probably better than most anime you have stocked up on your computer or coming in from the mail. Quit wasting your time with crappy TV shows and go watch something actually not half bad for a change. Don’t fret the dub or the fact you haven’t read Tsutsui’s original book, because odds are you’ll have a good time at the movies.
The Girl Who Leapt through Time
You know, when Kanon 21 “hits” someone made a “Toki wo Tomare” joke–basically a Jojo character’s special attack that allows him to freeze time, complete with the lame color invert.
Makoto Konno, the teenage tomboy star in Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo (Tokikake for short), or The Girl Who Leapt through Time, pulled a couple off.
I think I was doing that with my blog all last week.
At any rate, this film is making a minor run across North America. It showed itself sometime last year in Canada IIRC, and then just earlier this week/last week in Boston. Tonight it was NYC. Thanks to the New York International Children’s Film Fest… (I think it’s playing again next week, and then to San Fran next.)
So unlike the Boston screening or Waterloo or many of other limited or film fest screenings I’ve been to, this one is filled with parents and grade school kids. The viewing is subbed (yea, kids can read subs!), so when the line “Why are you here so early? Did you skip jerking off?” came on the screen, we LOLOLOLed especially hard. I guess it was also a surprise. But LOLOLOL.
Tokikake itself is full of laughs. It’s by no mean a comedy, but when it’s funny it’s quite funny. It’s definitely a romantic coming-of-age sort of thing, but at the same time the sci-fi twist just makes it hurt your head a little? I came away from the film generally positive, but at the same time I’m a little confused and it rubbed me not in the right way.
Starting with the very delicious Yoshiyuki Sadamoto character designs–it’s great, but given how the film sometimes bends backwards to be cartoony, it almost clashes. The strange pacing was great but the double-pop at the climax (referring to tension-and-release) was rough. The director definitely knows his stuff, and it shows, but at the end the plot is simple enough that sometimes it seems things in the movie are in the movie for no reason.
Perhaps the worst part of the movie for me was the main actress. She got on my nerves. She did a good job, I think, but I felt as if I was inside her brain the whole film, hearing every little sound she made. And she made a lot of sounds. Often alone. The sound effects in the movie was pretty good, but at those times it could get excessive.
But once I got over that, the film was very smooth. It went down clean, and it is fairly cohesive and engaging. All the characters came together very well–from the myseterious “witch” aunt, the Enma Ai-evoking imouto, the two boys, the confession trio, to even the rather minor but fairly significant girl-friend–it felt relevant and not contrived.
Animation was clean, as it suits Sadamoto’s design style. The animation was fairly organic, smooth, but at times broken into chunkiness as either Makoto breaks into a crying fit or tumbling fall. The background is delicious, too, but given how this is a film about going back and forward in time, it gets a little overused (I’m thinking we need more shots of the Kanno house). You can tell they went an extra mile to try to mitigate that, though, by reanimating most of the flashback scenes.
The film is obviously not age-rated by any official thing, but the filmfest gave it 10+. YMMV, but definitely a good film to take your girlfriend to. Kids…if they’re teenagers I guess.
As to the plot? Time waits for no one. Here’s a much more comprehensive description of what goes on in the film dated last year, and read that if you want. The original story is based on the sci-fi book of the same title by Tsutsui (same guy who wrote Paprika). Official home page is Makoto jumping over into the blue sky.
Give it a watch. It’s worth your while just for the laughs. And maybe the simple, sweet romantic story will make up for the rest.
