Ani-Me #1! Getting Rapturously Roped into SUMMER WARS (2009) (Patreon)

Welcome to Ani-Me! The Series Where You Make Me Watch Anime!

To be clear, you aren’t making me do anything. I’m excited for this! Especially as it’s all part of my journey to discover what everyone younger than me is into. Why? Because I don’t become the dying cowboy AKA the guy talking about how the west was once great. I want to keep absorbing so much of what is new! So far my journey into Anime I’ve dipped into anime and anime-adjacent stuff like Pokemon, NGE, Persona 5, Avatar / Korra. And with that, it’s time for…

Today’s entry: SUMMER WARS (2009)

What’s funny is that I keep accidentally falling into this director’s work. I watched Wolf Children as a recommendation for research on another project and was blown away. I still think about it’s powerful extended metaphor of wanting children to grow in certain ways / saying goodbye. Then my friend also randomly brought me to see Mirai and I was touched by one of the most introspective depictions of child psychology / the discovery of empathy that I’ve ever seen. Afterwards, that same friend mentioned that it was the director of Wolf Children and I was like, “Oh, I saw that!” And now, I put Summer Wars in the Patreon poll and out of pure ignorance, I had no idea these films were linked by the same director. 

Turns out I’m a big Mamoru Hosoda fan!

Because Summer Wars delivers very much in the same capacity. I imagine back in 2009 this would have struck one as either finger on the pulse or downright prophetic? Now with hindsight, it’s painting a portrait of the internet that, while broad and fantastical, has also largely come true (what with the easy possibility hacking the president’s twitter account from his outdated, unprotected android phone and whatnot). I’m sure people get hung up on stuff within this movie, partially because it’s the millionth movie to try and make hacking cinematic by just showing people “type real fast.” But the truth is I’m not really interested in some sort of essay-like screed on our dystopian technological reality. And luckily for us, neither is Summer Wars.

What is it interested in? Well let’s run through the core eight ideas…

1. Moments of Interiority

If there’s anything I’ve generally come to like love about what I’ve seen from anime, it’s the attention to interiority. You’ve likely seen me using that word in columns and it basically means “paying direct attention to how a character is feeling and communicating that to the audience.” It’s astounding how many western films try to do that through on-the-nose dialogue alone (if at all). And it’s always like the characters are just trying to EXPLAIN how they feel instead of just showing us. Which only helps create this artificial depictions of humanity and make them feel distant. Because the ways we are often best empathize with a character is by being brought into their headspace. It’s when we see something happen and the small look of pain on their face, or the yearning look, or the ways they put up a front when we really, really know what’s going on inside. These are the things that actually endear and involve us.

And from the anime I’ve seen so far? Interiority is everything! Heck, Summer Wars is littered with moments like this. Every step of the way we are thrust into Kenji’s head space and it’s a critical move that guides us through the relative craziness of the story itself. It’s our tether to the emotional reality of the film. The thing that makes us not just feel like we are “watching” something unfold, but are a part of that journey ourselves. 

But as I watch these kids getting thrust into moments of mortal embarrassment, I realize how much the dynamic of dramatization seems completely inverted from western narrative. The main characters seem to have immense trouble putting things into words, constantly deny their feelings, and get stuck in the absolute pain of the moment itself (and sometimes in a problematic way that denies the obviously-meant-to-be-titillating depiction of what is on screen) . Which brings me to another idea the film plays with…

2. Repression

Okay, I think I need a little help on this one. Thus far in my experience with anime I’ve noticed the paralyzed horniness of young characters, particularly males is… off the freaking charts? Like there’s a mix of things to talk about here, mostly because I still haven’t seen a lot of anime across the board. So: Is it this merely specific to the things I have watched so far? Is it something that’s common across the board? Are there examples of the complete opposite? Is this something that gets hand-waved away as just being a cultural difference? Given that, is there not enough cultural dialogue about that? Is there already a TON of dialogue around that? I ask these questions because I don’t want to make any assumptions.

All I know is that with Neon Genesis Evangelion, I talked the show’s depiction of repression a great deal along with its deep-dive criticisms of heteronormative archetypes. It also seemed deeply aware of / had an endlessly complicated treatment of its own problematic nature (NGE is almost ABOUT that, really). But I’m curious how much this subject fans out into the greater art form. 

There were bits of Summer Wars where I was worried for a second, particularly how much of it centers around “are you man enough!?” bravado, but it also often shows awareness of how lunkheaded that thinking is. In the end, it seems like these provocations mostly amount to that common way that older family members can embarrass two kids, almost shoving them together to kiss and admit feelings (which can be problematic, too). But there’s a kind of kid-like innocence to this portrayal, also the honoring of the sheer terror that comes with these kinds of familial manipulations. Like before, it honors the interiority above all else.

3. Hosoda Structure

“Wait, is THIS the movie?” 

I feel like I kept asking this throughout the first half of the film. It starts with getting introduced to what feels like an intensely sci-fi prologue setting up the world of Oz as some kind of Ready Player One type Oasis (I hate that that’s my reference point). But then we then instantly shift to the small stakes story of a boy named Kenji getting brought on a trip out to the country by Natsuki (a girl he has a crush on) for a mysterious “job.” Turns out, the job is that she wants him to do is pretend to be his boyfriend / fiancé for a few days before her 90 year old great grandma soon dies. Thus, we begin playing out the hiding / pretending dynamics and I’m like “oh, okay, this is the movie!” 

But then things go to hell really quickly. 

That’s because Kenji inadvertently helps a hacker break into Oz and then becomes a suspected terrorist? But rather than dwell on the dramatic irony, the family instantly finds out / freaks out and thinks they have an imposter in their midst! But that’s of course how all the truth comes out. Natsuki and Kenji apologize, he in a deeply sincere way. But right when he’s about get sent away to deal with his fallout, the hacker starts creating global catastrophes, which lock them all in together! Sub plots fly fast and furious! The estranged adopted son seemingly betrayed them! It’s the baseball phenom’s big game! The best Oz fighter in the world has to go against Love Machine! We must test the collective meddle of the family! 

A few people mentioned that this movie is insane and goes off the rails, but I really don’t think that’s the case. I mean, the fact that this film is pretty much all a housebound-story, full of family dynamics with a heavy emphasis on cooperation points toward something much different. The family story works like an anchor. And no matter how many plots get thrown into the overall storyline, it’s not like it’s all going off on tangents. Instead, it’s like Hosoda is lassoing these characters and plots and roping them INTO the family story at hand. 

Everything gets pulled into orbit through this sheer, charismatic gravity of the family mission, absorbing it all into one giant smiling entity. It’s something similar to the structure of what Hosoda did with Mirai, where no matter how many new future and past character kept popping into Kun’s life, it was all about pointing him in the direction “big boy pants” maturity. And I think it’s one of those important lessons to learn about plotting and why Hosoda films still work despite being counter-intuitive!

4. Being Funny

There were so many moments where I wasn’t expecting a joke and yet, we got a joke. Some of it is small stakes and normal, like the basic error of where Kenji thinks her mother is the 90 year old grandma. But then it’s things like the ingenious beat where it turns out Kenji WASN’T the one who solved the code cause he got the last digit wrong, and like, fifty other people did it (though why was he the one that caught then? I forget the bit of story logic there). But really there’s so many lines that play so funny in the moment:

-“Those 30 years of playing video games came in handy!”

-“How come it’s all squid?”

-“I mean, it’s been over 50 years since I punched you.”

-“I’ve not change the order to funeral buns!”

-“Not exactly, i just lifted it from Seven Samurai”

-Nothing reflects coding better than “please just let this work!”

-[Rocket approaches] “is this a good time to eat?”

“I have no idea what that means, but thank you!”

-And my personal favorite: “How dare she not run this by her second cousin first!?”

Which is all to say, I laughed a lot.

5. Being Beautiful

There are many ways to be an effective filmmaker, but what makes a director special to us is usually their “voice.” It’s a strange word to use, but it makes sense. Sometimes it’s the kind of subject matter they like exploring, or a certain tone they can control. Whatever it is, some directors can shoot things in this perfectly functional, almost workman like way. But then there are a handful of directors who find this way to come at things form left field. While many of them get accused of “being weird for weird’s sake,” I’ve rarely found that accusation to be true (and more indicative of someone not being able to engage in the basics of symbolism). 

And I’m not just talking about obvious examples like Bergman or Varda or Lynch. I think first about the later work of Paul Thomas Anderson, or the way Celine Sciamma can create so much visceral emotion in empty spaces of the frame. And of course there’s immaculate left-field brain of Bong Joon Ho, who always seems to find that mysterious way to come at a scene in a way you would have never imagine. And so far I’m struck by how much Hosoda’s work falls in line with these “off kilter” visioneers.

It would be easy to look at the otherworldly depictions of Oz as evidence, but it’s not really about that. It’s the way the mother watches her son play baseball in her chair alone. It’s the way one of the character has a lost a big fight and rather than show him cry, we see this silent shot on the ground… then these tears hit it. In another instance, a girl is struck with grief, but the shots linger over hands slowly creeping toward each other, fingers intwining. Another character learns the news of death and becomes frozen in time, with his memories watching HIM from a distance across the street. You see these gorgeous frames of the entire family in huddled postured over their phones. And my god, I can’t remember another film that has ended with a cathartic nosebleed!?!?! It’s this attention to the all nooks and crannies of life that make them contrast to the stark, cunning imagery of the settings around them. 

We call it “voice,” but for a filmmaker, it’s so much about the way we see. 

And the things we find beautiful…

6. Furries!

As I was walking into Mirai my friend said of Hosoda that he seems “an unashamed furry, though he plays coy.” I think it’s important to realize that when an artist plays coy about a subject, they’re doing the important directorial think where they let the movies speak for themselves. But the coyness is just the way of accepting the conditions and making the wry, winking handshake with the audience. People debate this tactic and I understand why. But whatever the truth, I think the furry-friendly depictions of Hosoda’s work are great. 

Because one of the things about writing on the internet is it brings you into contact with the entire humanity of the world. And when you grow up in mostly white, heteronormative spaces (especially pre-internet), you get this insanely insular ways of seeing the world. It doesn’t even matter if it’s not your instinct to crack wise, you still instantly realize how myopic most of your understanding is about “what’s different” and what you see as “weird.” Which is all to say I came into the internet with all these jerky assumptions about Furries that I’m deeply mortified about now. I really can’t explain how much my understanding of that culture shifted thanks to people on the internet reaching out in those first months, whether they upset and critical or educating me, it really was this eye-opening thing that changed how I engaged in any topic whatsoever. I even started following so many wonderful people because of it. And now it’s been joyful watching people’s acceptance within culture and collective understanding make strides, what with the success of Sonic Fox and so many others. There is nothing to fear.

As dire as things feel in the world (and good god is dire), I feel like there’s so much more we understand about language between communities. When I was growing up, I feel like people’s personal identities and choices all had to be justified with this folksy conventional wisdom of like “well, it ain’t hurtin' anyone!” A sentiment which is obviously true, but I feel like we have moved on to such an understanding of why we use and evolve language, how we understand where a person is coming from and what we can do to keep growing. And because of that, there so little like now that I meet with skepticism. All I can do is embrace. Which is all to say I that whatever element of this can be found in Hosoda’s work? Then it is something I embrace, too.

7. Famiwee!

A lot of films are “about family,” but it’s often handled in a trite, literal sense. They believe that the mere depiction of people within a family is the same thing as crafting meaningful relationships. Likewise, there’s people who talk about “creating family” as a shorthand to inclusion and loyalty and kinship. I mean, for a simple example, sometimes the Fast and Furious movies do it well. And sometimes it’s mere lip service. The difference is in how we feel.

On the whole, I’ve always been a sucker for found family narratives, but there’s been a reason for that. Not to get too autobiographical, but I sort of had a complicated relationship with my family. I also come from a place where blood and family bonds are treated like these duty-bound life sentences (the kind where it’s a bunch of Irish and Italian people in suburbs are acting like it’s still 1960s Boston) The short version is my home built a lot of personal demons. So when I went out into the world I looked for found family. I built them eagerly, so hungry for acceptance. But these drives are something that I now understand a lot better thanks to therapy, and as many of them crashed and burned (thanks to my own lack of dealing with my home life), it’s turned into thsi weird sense of homecoming. I’ve been able to get honest with them about a lot of stuff in the past and present, creating a real sea change of understanding. Please understand, I mention all this because these circumstances because it really effects how I see family narratives in the here and now. Particularly with Summer Wars.

On one level, there’s a complicated feeling when it comes to the film’s depiction. Because I’ve personally seen the “never turn your back on family” mantra used for propagating toxicity. It’s a tenet that constantly allows for crippling behavior. And sometimes, lines need to be drawn. Sometimes you need boundaries to function and have sanity and grow (and often to make them grow in turn). And sometimes you just need to get out. But to be fair, I think the mantra is used in this film in very different circumstance. Because it’s depicting a loving, functional family and their treatment of the one person who didn’t quite fit. So really, what the “never turn your back on family” mantra is really trying to say is “don’t create the conditions of toxicity,” which something else entirely.  

Better yet, there’s something about the depiction of family in Summer Wars that hit me much more squarely. Because this movie captures the hyper-specific feeling of what it was like to wander into these giant families. Mine was small and fractured. But there all these other families around me (some had twelve to thirteen kids) and extended families that lived close. They all had these giant get togethers and pecking orders and personal dynamics. These were like entire worlds of chaotic behavior that felt so foreign to me (likewise, I’m sure my comparative quiet latchkey life would have seemed strange to them). What’s remarkable about Summer Wars is that it captures that feeling so succinctly. I really can’t think of another film off the top of my head that did it so well, what with that feeling of wandering into this whole world and feeling shy and overwhelmed. 

And ultimately it’s about becoming a part of it. Kenji’s journey into the family IS the story of Summer Wars. For all it’s lassoing in of other plots and Oz-laden battles, there’s this understanding that it’s the exact way we build meaning relationships and foundations. Every person who allies with Kenji gets this little agreement / moment of synthesis / challenge. So little of it feels forced in part because it’s a part of the chaotic sweep of emotion. Everything about this story comes together in over-the-top fashion (I mean, a supercomputer?!). And as such, I can imagine some of you have questions. Like why tell this story being told in the context of giant battle for the fate of the world? Couldn’t this be small stakes drama? 

Well, that’s the whole thing isn’t it…

8. The New Myth

We don’t tell mythic stories because in our every day life because we’re going to inherit magic swords or have to defeat the lich king. We tell them because they are metaphors. Courage is largely about having difficult conversations with people. It’s about sticking up for ourselves and finding synthesis with those who seem to be our antagonists. In life, the people who populate or orbit can often seem like folks of mythic stature, whether matriarchs, or demons, or soul mates, or guides. These “avatars” are the surface of how see them. And often mythic storytelling is about disarming those surface and healing the wounds underneath them, often to create the much more human view in the center. 

This what we have to do in life. 

And Summer Wars, like so many of my favorite films that tread in this arena, is after the “new myth” synthesis of bringing the two kinds of depictions together. It’s direct commentary on genre, because it imbues the genre right into the small stakes world of discovering family. And most of all, it reverts the pomp and circumstance of “being a hero” to the joy of simply being included. To wit, there’s a powerful moment from the film that’s still burned into my brain. It’s when Grandma’s letter is read and she speaks of the moment when she told Uncle Wabisuke that he will have a home here, specifically the line that follows: “he didn’t say a single word, but his hand wrapped all the tighter around my finger.” This imagine and wording strike me so deeply at my core.

Because the notion of wanting to be included is one of the most human instincts we have, for it is downright synonymous with the notion of safety. But the problem is that it is one that often requires the generosity and understanding of others. Along with the understanding that we cannot demand our inclusion. In fact, we can often do wrong that breaks those bonds (like Wabisuke did). And by turning these ideas into the grand gestures of battle and the preservation against extinction itself, by blowing the story up into the scale of the world, Hosoda captures just how epic it all feels within our hearts. Everything we care about in the world, is the world.

There are no small stakes.

<3HULK