Toeing the Edge of Hilarity and Sadism

After about two weeks of dead space I'm back!!! I'm currently out working at a summer camp in Waterford, Maine so my internet access is rather limited. Right now however, I'm in Portland, the state's capital, in a Starbucks and ready to get back on my blogging grind. My internet access is limited so my blog posts will go from everyday to every 1-2 weeks until I return home. Also, I can't guarantee that any of these posts will be as long or as thorough as my other ones.

Now with that out of the way...

Not having any internet has given me a lot of time to think about topics for blog posts. Yeah the Bruins are up 2-1 in the Stanley Cup finals and the NBA Finals just had an EPIC Game 6 last night but as usual, I just love talking about tv shows, movies and what not. I've gotten to thinking the past few days about what makes a good villain. I'll share a few of my favorite villains with you...WARNING HEAVY SPOILERS AHEAD

Quick little list of what makes a good villain
1.) Chemistry with the protagonist
2.) Unpredictability
3.) An uncanny ability to plan ahead
4.) Manipulation
5.) Quotability

Jim Moriarty, Sherlock

To be honest, I started watching Sherlock because I heard about how great Benedict Cumberbatch's portrayal of the legendary detective was. I finished the show more impressed with Andrew Scott's performance as the the detective's arch-nemesis. In every scene Moriarty toes the line between hilarity and pure sadism. One moment he'll be chatting affably with Sherlock and the next he'll explode into a sadistic rage just to remind you that he's the bad guy. He's Sherlock's equal in every way, he just decides to use his talents to cause chaos, treating each scenario as a game. (Sure people may die but like Moriarty says "That's what people do") Affable villains are probably my favorite because their brand of evil just feels so much more twisted and sadistic. (You can't beat a villain whose rington is Stayin Alive). Moriarty is one of those villains whose dark brand of comedy makes him lovable and yet all to evil all at the same time. It's that veil of creepiness that makes him probably my favorite villain.

Shinobu Sensui, Yu Yu Hakusho

Cold, manipulative, powerful, and fallen angel, Shinobu Sensui is the the best of what is an excellent crop of villains in Yu Yu Hakusho. A former agent of good (was Spirit Detective before Yusuke, the protagonist was) Sensui takes it upon himself to "judge" humanity for it's crimes against demons. He possessed a black and white morality when he was Spirit Detective, which was later smashed when he saw the evils that humans were capable of. Not to mention the fact that he split himself into 7 different personalities in order to keep his original one innocent. Like Moriarty, Sensui is able to toe the line between affable and absolutely psychotic in every scene. Like Moriarty, he provides a foil towards the main character. Sensui's head games all during the arc were brilliant, forcing the protagonists to make many morally ambiguous decisions and even cause them to doubt their motivations at some points. A master of manipulation and strategy he organizes an increible gambit and actually does manage to defeat the main character (one could even argue that he won the entire arc) Any villain that is able to accomplish his goals and plan as far ahead as Sensui did should be on this list.

The Joker, The Dark Knight

The Joker's inclusion on this list is almost a mere formality at this point. He really needs no introduction. Like the two preceding this, the Joker treats his evil plans like a game (sensing a trend here?). He's capable of taunting and conversing with the protagonist in a joking manner and then threaten to blow up a hospital. Just like Moriarty, every scene he's in just toes the line between creepy and comedy swooping through both sides without a care in the world. Just like the first two villains, he's a complete foil of his protagonist, a man unrestrained by Batman's noble rules, precisely what makes him so dangerous. Despite saying he has no plan, the Joker is actually quite intricate in his plans and always unpredictable (corrupting Harvey Dent was brilliant). His goal isn't to beat Batman, it's simply to burn Gotham to it's most choatic state, beat the system. It's such a larger goal than simply beating the protagonist.

So basically the trend here is simple, affable villains are the best kind of villains. Villains that have that creepy, unpredictable vibe around them. You never know what they're going to next, how far ahead they've planned, or how much they've manipulated the world around them. These are only three of my favorite villains, theres definitely more that I can include but based on my limited time these are the best three. I'd love to hear about your favorite villains or what you think of these three!!

Until next time...

Hacking to the Gate - Steins;Gate

Most definitely NOT a harem

There are several types of anime out there. A lot of it is standard run of the mill shows that do enough to be entertaining but aren't exactly memorable. Then there are harem and romance animes and I won't even get started on how much I hate those shows. Every once in awhile though theres a show that takes the anime community by storm and causes sites like MAL to blow up with "this show is unrelenting awesome sauce". I try and stick to animes that get this title rather than get sucked in to the unimaginative and overrated mire that is the big three (Bleach, One Piece, and Naruto). In the process, my list of anime over the years is rather impressive, (Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, Code Geass, Soul Eater, Hellsing). These are all animes that have cemented that "unrelenting awesomesauce" title and caused a massive stir in the sniem community, making them shows that everyone absolutely had to check out. Which brings us to the newest addition to the "unrelenting awesomesauce" family, Steins;Gate.

Steins;Gate originally was a visual novel for Xbox 360 and PS3 that was only released in Japan. For those who don't know what visual novels are; basically they're interactive graphic novels usually aimed at those previously mentioned otaku's who dream of being lusted after by their own harem. (Check one of my earlier posts). Steins;Gate however, was critically acclaimed for it's excellent plot and characters. So like any novel thats successful in Japan, it had to be adapted into an anime. The anime was released in 2011 and threw the entire anime community into a "OMG BEST SHOW EVER" state for it's entire run. Essentially, the plot revolves around "mad scientist" Okabe Rintaro or better known by his mad scientist name HOUOUIN KYOMA (and yes all caps are required here) and his group of friends as they somehow convert his microwave into a machine capable of sending text messages into the past. What begins as some seemingly harmless experimentation, it later turns out that these text messages alter the course of history and lead it down a dark path that nobody could have predicted. So it's up to Okabe to reverse the damage he's caused to the time line by literally leaping through time in a sort of Groundhog Day fashion. This leads to the best time travel plot I've ever seen in an anime. I have to give credit to the writers here because they clearly did a heavy amount of research in order to make their theories believable. Of course, in any work that involves time travel theres bound to be some made up bullshit. But Steins;Gate references real life events such as the CERN black hole fiasco and infamous internet blogger John Titor. It does a great job of making it's time travel theories feel realistic and never seems to bend it's rules just to accomodate the plot. Similarly, the plot covers it's bases and leaves no stone unturned. If you want an answer for something, it's there and relatively easy to find. This is a really nice change from animes such as Neon Genesis Evangelion or Revolutionary Girl Utena which basically say "figure this out for yourselves"leading to wild guessing and theorizing on the viewer's part. (seriously if you want to start an flame war anywhere, just post a theory about how Evangelion ended) It's nice to see a show actually make an attempt to make itself accessible to everyone. The plot also goes into great detail the costs and benefits of messing with time, the good it can cause and (especially) the bad. This series hits on a number of emotional levels and it's a refreshing change of pace from animes like Black Lagoon which jams mindless action down your throat at the expense of making it's characters interesting (that action was pretty sick though...not gonna lie). Almost every episode ends on a cliffhanger or a wham line making this series the most compelling one I've watched since the second season of Code Geass.

(left to right) Moeka, Mayuri, Kurisu, Rukako, Suzuha, Feyris, Daru, and Okabe

The real strength of Steins:Gate however, are the characters. On the surface it appears that they all just fall under worn out anime cliches. Okabe is a Large Ham, whose over the top antics are fitting of any anime (appropriately voiced by Michael J Tatum as well and even more of a ham in the Japanese version). There's teen genius and closet otaku Makise Kurisu who spends most of the series acting like a stereotypical tsundere (for those who aren't anime junkies, definition here). There's Okabe's childhood friend Mayuri who starts almost every sentence like this and seems like a typical anime ditz. Then theres loud, perky and gregarious Suzuha, the "every anime needs one" cat girl Feyris Nyan-nyan (I shit you not), the quiet Moeka who might as well be a long haired Rei Ayanami, and the extremely adorable and soft spoken girl Rukako, yea...she's a dude...Of course no actual explanation is given as to why Rukako is a boy or why he's so effeminate. The cast is then rounded out by stereotypical otaku Daru, who at one point is giving dating advice from a hentai game strategy guide. Despite all these stereotypes the cast actually ends up being so much more and actually the show's biggest strength. They all seem to have great chemistry with each other and despite the show's gripping time travel plot the focus is really on the relationships between the characters. Most episodes center around Okabe and his relation to one of the other characters in the cast and it's really awesome seeing these characters get fleshed out, even as chaos is unfolding around them. Mayuri is particular is one character that really surprised me. Usually characters like her end up being annoying and overall useless but Mayuri turned out to be a lot smarter and in tune with what was going on. Often times she'd provide a clear moral viewpoint at moments when the characters are forced into making immoral choices. Her presence really highlighted the morality of time travel. Kurisu to me was the standout character of the bunch, despite her tsundere attitude, her scenes and interactions with Okabe are the show's highlight. Even Feyris, who originally only seems to be there to please desperate otaku's, has hidden depths. Despite the series' serious tone, it also leaves plenty of room for fun as well, frequently making you laugh while at the same time keeping focused on the plot. It's rare when an anime can actually balance what is a pulse pounding plot with light-hearted humor. The show's humor is definitely geared towards the geek crowd, as many of it's pop culture references are to otaku culture or popular shows in the western geek community (the second episode references Doctor Who). All of this serves to give the series a fun feel and yet it doesn't feel like a disjointed mess when it shifts to a serious tone. I give credit to the strong chemistry between the characters and excellent writing. Finally, I have to establish that despite the ratio of girls to guys (5.5/2.5, Rukako counts as half to both sides) THIS IS DEFINITELY NOT A HAREM ANIME.

IT'S A TRAP!!!!

Like I said before, the series goes to great lengths to establish it's science of time travel so that the viewer can actually follow along and understand what's going on. Okabe's "phone-wave" machine is able to send text messages back into the past, giving one's past self knowledge of what going to happen in the future, thus changing their actions. Time travel in Steins;Gate operates on a number of different timelines called World Lines. "Time travel" is merely traveling from one World Line to another. World Lines shift when something changes in the current line. The idea of timelines as parallel universes isn't exactly a new concept in anime. Dragonball Z toyed with a similar idea though it never exactly explored the science of such time travel in the way Steins;Gate does. Steins;Gate also heavily explores the idea of the Butterfly Effect, a small change in one world line can result in a massive shift in another. For example, using time travel to prevent the death of one of the character's relatives end up changing the entire landscape of the city that series takes place. It's really interesting seeing how Okabe's seemingly harmless expermentation shifts the timeline in such a massive way. Thus one of the key plot points of the series is the effects of meddling with time. What starts out as seemingly harmless meddling with the timeline in the name of science becomes a literal race against time to prevent the dystopian future they've accidentally created.

There is a point to this...just keep watching...

One of the complaints that many people have with the series is it's slow start. The first twelve or so episodes revolve mostly around establishing the rules of time travel and how the machine works in the first place. It feels like a Slice of Life show with a time travel twist at first before the plot really picks up. At times it feels slow and as if nothing is really going on other than Okabe and buddies transforming bananas into green goo. Personally, I think that these episodes are a good thing and necessary for understanding of plot points that are brought up later. The series sort of drops you in episode 1 without any real clue of whats going on. These episodes allow you to slowly piece together what happens and it's really rewarding when everything eventually comes together. I like that the series actually took time to show it's hand, rather than throw everything at you at once. These episode establish characters, establish the rules and limits of time travel, and provide some really great moments. Those who stick with the series through these episodes will find the shows climax incredibly rewarding.  The real highlight of the show is the later half of the series which is fast-paced and incredibly heart wrenching at some points. This is probably the only anime that's ever forced me to take a break because it's actually emotionally taxing. However, this does lead to yet another complaint about some of the later episodes, which some believe slow down the series when it's reaching it's most climatic point. It's not as if theres not a point to this, the writers use this time to wrap up the characters arcs of many of the shows supporting characters and finishes their character development. It's really refreshing seeing a series take such care with it's characters. The finale feels a little tacked on at the end but it's a fitting ending to series and theres even an epilogue thrown in that clears up any loose ends that may have come up. I think thats another one of the series' strengths is that nothing in the show feels pointless or unneeded, everything has some kind of purpose. Character arcs are opened and appropriately resolved. It really speaks to the skill of the writers that they can craft a story about time travel, spanning several world lines, and still manage to wrap up all their loose ends.

Animation wise, the series is pretty standard though at times it could the animators got a little creative. The animation really got a bump whenever Okabe travels through time. All of the characters are well designed and are excellently animated. I recommend watching in Blu-Ray or at least on an HDTV. The voice acting in the english dub is well done as well. Each character's voice actor is perfectly able to capture their character's personality. I wouldn't expect any less from a great group like Funimation. Michael J Tatum is obviously the standout as Okabe, a performance not unlike his role as Issac from Baccano! who is equally hammy and awesome in that series as well. Trina Nishimura also deserves special mention for her role as Kurisu I really can't think of any other VA that could have pulled off the character. The soundtrack was also perfect, the opening theme Hacking to the Gate is quite good and the ending credits theme really fits the mood of the show as well. The soundtrack perfectly frames every scene which is what a good soundtrack should do. Overall, Steins;Gate looks great and sounds great.

Makise Kurisu is one of the best developed and most likable characters I've seen in any anime

Steins;Gate is the best anime I've watched in awhile, there really is something here for everyone. It's worth checking out just for it's take on time travel and well developed characters. Theres something to be said about an anime that covers it's bases and doesn't just make up reasons on the spot for why things are happening. Steins;Gate is incredibly well done and manages to avoid that trap that most animes fall under, the disappointing climax. From it's slow start to it's pulse pounding finish Steins;Gate is a brilliant work and it definitely worth checking out.

My Verdict: 5/5

Blood, Sweat, and Good Old Boston Grit

Go ahead Crosby, pick a fight with the biggest guy on the ice, lemme know how that works out

Is anyone else as excited as I am for Game 2 of the NHL's Eastern Conference Finals tonight? My hometown Bruins vs those hot shot Pittsburgh Penguins, should be an absolutely fantastic game. Why am I so excited you ask? Because this series is such a testament to how far Boston sports have come over the past decade.

Let's take a trip down memory lane to the early 2000's. Boston sports teams were a bit of a laughingstock. The Red Sox were still stricken by the Curse of the Bambino, destined to break your heart whenever you thought they were about to break through. We placed our hopes and dreams on the shoulders of Casey Fossum, Carlos Baerga, Troy O'Leary, and Brian Daubach. We foolishly believed that such dirt dogs would undo eighty-plus years of suffering. The Celtics were in a similar position, good enough make the playoffs but nowhere near good enough to go far enough. Same with the Bruins, a promising young team that we were told would break through, only to disappoint again and again. Being a Boston sports fan promised you that you were scheduled for a seemingly endless cycle of heartbreak every season. All this anger was pent up and it was the Red Sox who saw it pour out on the field. We took our anger out on New York, loathing them with a passion. They were like our more successful older brother and we let our hatred for them pour out. Every Red Sox/Yankees game felt like a full pot of boiling water, teetering on the edge of boiling over. Even though we were down on our luck, the Boston teams always had fight, we had venom. But then things changed...

Red Sox/Yankees used to be this...

The turning point was when the New England Patriots won the Super Bowl in 2001 and the whole Boston sports scene turned on it's head. The Patriots won again in 2003 and 2004. The Red Sox broke the curse emphatically in 2004 and amazingly won the World Series again in 2007. The Celtics acquire Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett enroute to the 2008 NBA Championship. Finally, the Bruins won in 2011 and Boston's hard luck reputation was finally broken. For the first time in years, Boston was the envy of every other city. For years we had watched as every other city celebrated winning while we sat at home watching saying "when's our turn?" Finally, our time had come, Boston was back on top.

An amazing time to be a Boston fan

But winning did something to us Boston fans, it made us soft, it made us...complacent. The 2012 Bruins put up a lame title defense, spiraling out in the first round of the playoffs. The Patriots were pathetic in the 2008 and 2012 Super Bowl's. The Red Sox were the worst of all, falling flat on their faces with the worst collapse in MLB history in 2011. We forgot all that it had taken to get this point. Before Boston tasted victory during the past decade their teams always fought with this "nobody believes in us spirit". The only team that seemed to hold up that belief was the Celtics, who continued to fight against age and injury. Red Sox/Yankees games had become boring affairs in which the teams might as well have sat down and had tea on the field. We're Boston, we're supposed to be cocky smartasses, the thorn in everyone's sides. Since when had the teams that I loved become so boring? We'd forgotten what the taste of defeat felt like, the taste that had we'd become so accustomed to during those cold years in the 2000's.

But once again, my view was shaken when Patrice Bergeron and Evgeni Malkin went at it this past Saturday at center ice. I saw grit, I saw fire, this Bruins team is returning to the "nobody believes in us" way. The Bruins are like that angry little brother to the Penguins. All this week we've heard about how the Penguins front line is so talented, that the Bruins don't have enough in the locker. What I saw on Saturday was more than enough to convince me that this Bruins team has the fight. These are players willing to bleed for the city and thats a passion that over the past year and a half or so has been missing from Boston sports. This is the same venom that the Red Sox attacked the Yankees with all those years ago.  No matter how many titles we win, no matter how much success comes to us, we must always remember those times in the 2000's when our hearts were broken again and again. But the chippiness of Saturday's game is symbolic of another thing, how Boston really has put that hard luck identity behind us and changed it into a new identity. We're now the big brother to those teams out there. Teams get so frustrated trying to beat us at the game that they throw fits and actually fight us when they can't. Boston sports teams have a new identity now, we're big brother but we still have that venom from the hard luck days. It took winning, getting complacent, and coming all the way back to form this new identity and the Bruins are the standard bearers.

So thats what I'm looking forward to, seeing the Bruins fight through this chippy series, ruffle a few feathers, get in the Penguins heads. They've embraced this identity as the bad guys, the team everyone is out to beat, all while retaining that "we're little bro" spirit, willing to fight back when other teams try and push us around like the old days. I can't wait to watch the Bruins play tonight, I can't wait to see the Red Sox continue to prove people wrong this season, and I can't wait for the Celtics to show once again next season that they've still got it. We're big bro now, but we'll never forget where we came from and we'll always carry a little of that resentment with us. We're Boston Strong.

The Frustrating Views on Anime - Why Cowboy Bebop is Awesome

I'm not going to pretend that I don't know why anime gets such a bad reputation from some people in the United States. I'm not going to pretend that I don't notice the perverted fan boys who spam the boards with unadulterated glee on MAL (MyAnimeList.com) whenever their favorite female character bends over. Anime seems to fall under the "you watch that?" category when brought up to people. I also can't pretend to act like I can't relate to those people because when I see things like the incestual vampire twins from Black Lagoon I simply say "yea...thats why people don't like anime." Of course, those twins are just one of many reasons why anime sometimes gets such a bad rep in the states. I understand that anime can be nonsensical, with over the top storylines and characters with unrealistic amounts of hair. I just believe that there are some misconceptions about anime and it's fandom.

Let the debauchery commence...

So what kind of misconceptions am I talking about here? I suppose the best place to start is with harem anime. Ok...so if you couldn't tell by the picture a harem anime is this...basically we've got one guy...and a cavalcade of females who all want him. This leads to catfights and fanservice galore. Meanwhile the male lead remains either aloof to all that is going on around him or is portrayed as a lecherous sex fiend. All in all it lends itself to the misconception that most anime revolves around fanservice featuring big eyed girls dressed in ridiculously revealing clothing. Meanwhile, this leads people to think that anime fans are nerds who sit in their mother's basement lusting over said animated girls. It just seems like people think that because you're an anime fan (or otaku, whichever you prefer)...you're like...this guy...

Or this guy...

It's a bit of a stretch to say that everyone thinks this about every anime fan, but the fact that when I flip through the blogs on MAL even on animes that aren't even harems I seem to find the same kind of stuff. It seems rare that contrary evidence that not every otaku is like this is found. Even a serious anime such as Code Geass, which features a well done plot and excellent character development, can fall into this fanservice trap. Naturally, I go to MAL boards to go discuss themes and what I like about each episode, connecting plot points and at least trying to have an intelligent conversation. The anime I'm currently watching, Steins Gate, doesn't help either since the main cast features two male main characters who are surrounded by 4-5 beautiful female main characters. So when I go to the MAL boards to discuss the how good the plot and series are, all I get are the typical MAL freaks going "that was sooooo cuuuute when Makise and Kyouma almost kissed on the bridge...THIS EPISODE NEEDS MORE MOEKA, that outfit makes her soooo cyyuuuutte" (keep in mind these are males saying this...) Which is really a shame because both Code Geass and Steins Gate are animes that feature female characters who are all more than something just to look at (with a few exceptions...) and it feels almost insulting to their well written characters to ogle them in such a way. It's fans like this that give the fans who are watching for other reasons than to get themselves off a bad name. Not only that but like I said before these otaku's give off the impression that anime is little Japanese schoolgirls with unrealistically huge breasts having competitions as to who can be the biggest ditz. There are some really great works out there that extremely well done and it seems like this misconception is doing them a disservice. Seriously, go check out Steins Gate if you want an epic and gripping story involving some pretty cool theories on time travel. Check out Neon Genesis Evangelion if you want a story that makes you really think introspectively. Those are just two of the many animes out there that have loads and loads of substance. 

Sure, it looks like a harem but theres so much more here...

But it's not just these lecherous otakus that help cement these misconceptions. There seems to be this belief in the United States that anime is meant for kids. That being said, it's not as if theres no precedent for such a belief to have taken hold. In the early 2000's my generation was treated to Pokemon, Digimon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Sailor Moon, Cardcaptors, among other animes. As Americans we associate anime as being childish because we watched anime as children and thus believe it to be childish. However, in Japan these shows are hardly childish. For example, the Yu-Gi-Oh! that aired in Japan was actually super dark. The anime was filled with several references to the occult, people actually died on screen, and many of the characters were downright scary. 4Kids Entertainment owned the rights to the english dubs of Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh! and as a result all "inappropriate" material was filtered out. This led to such campy things like guards pointing invisible guns at people, verbal acrobatics to avoid saying words that imply death, and in Yu-Gi-Oh!''s case the invention of the term "Shadow Realm" as a replacement for hell. Many of these shows, which in Japan were aimed at mature audiences were "kiddie-fied" when they debuted in the states, with the possible exception of Pokemon (worst Pokemon ever had was guns and an episode that hospitalized over 100 Japanese children because it gave them seizures) The third season of Digimon featured a 12 year old girl get mind raped (Fridge Horror when you find out that in Japan her character was 10 years old...like 12 is really that much better) All of these shows featured mature content that was way over the heads of the audience that folks in the west were targeting. The key themes of the shows (good triumphing over evil, the values of friendship) could be kept intact while the mature themes could be filtered out. Didn't stop Digimon Tamers from being any less scary (see below).

Yeah...totally was not scarred for life after this...

So whats the overarching point that I'm trying to get across here? There seems to be this misconception that anime is meant for kids and lecherous nymphomaniacs who live in their mother's basements. Both of these claims are justified on many levels but it also must be said that anime can be enjoyed by anyone really. The best proof is Cowboy Bebop, an anime that debuted in the late 1990's and is considered the first anime that was made with a western audience in mind. The show was about a group of bounty hunters and their adventures in space. To appeal to a western audience it alluded to several genres of western cinema such as cowboy westerns, pulp detective stories, and film noir. The show always had a sense of lawlessness about it and it's main character, Spike Spiegel glided through it with a sense of cool that was unmatched. 

Bebop has always struck me as the one anime that I could show anyone and they'd fall in love with it. Theres no harems to speak of, the fanservice, while present, is not a focus, and the series was clearly meant for an older audience. Bebop even flipped the script when it came to storytelling. Each episode's plot is self contained, each story and episode crafted beautifully. Think of it as 26 animated shorts, each telling it's own story and yet all still managing to flow together almost seamlessly. Despite taking place in the future, the show had a realistic feel as did the characters. Take a look...

Seriously, this scene stacks up to pretty much any other live-action film I've ever seen. It just feels so real; you could close your eyes and it would sound like real people are talking. Cowboy Bebop had an english dub that was so good that almost 15 years after it's release it still remains the gold standard. It featured stars like Steve Blum and Wendee Lee, who are now two of the most recognizable names in voice acting today. But most importantly it has an appeal that reaches far beyond kids or otaku's. These are characters that feel real, they don't fall into the typical anime stereotypes that a lot of anime nowadays has. If anything, Cowboy Bebop set a standard that every anime today has tried to reach. All in all, Cowboy Bebop is an anime that anyone can enjoy. It's not the only one either, it's merely one example of an how an anime can accessible to anyone really as long as they have an open mind. 

So thats it, I'm not sure how much I really altered anyone's perception of anime or it's following today. I just hope I could clear up some misconceptions anyone had about us otaku's as a following. Sure, theres a large contingent among us that strikes many as strange but isn't that just like any following? I'm not going to come out and make grand claim that anime is for everyone, all I'm saying is that anyone can enjoy anime as long as they go into it with an open mind. It's such a big world to explore and I'd hate to see people who have the potential to enjoy it just get scared off by any misconception. We otakus (the majority of us anyway) are just like any cinephile or a connoisseur of TV shows. We enjoy good plots and interesting characters, we just want to see something that will stimulate us upstairs. Ignore the guys that watch to get stimulated downstairs and theres a lot to enjoy here.

The Dangers of Technology - Summer Wars

This being an anime...this is as normal as this movie gets

Back in the early 2000's, Digimon was a huge franchise. I remember getting up every saturday morning to catch the newest episode. Being a Digimon fanatic, I watched the first 4 seasons before it's formula eventually became stale. While Digimon was a clear ripoff of the Pokemon formula, there was no question that the TV show was superior (with the exception of Pokemon's legendary theme song). So back in 2000 I was pretty damn excited for Digimon: The Movie. The film consisted of three seperate Digimon short films that had already been released in Japan. For US audiences, the three films were smushed into a disjointed overarching plot that didn't really connect together. The three films on their own though are decent in their own rights. The best of the three was titled, Our War Game in which a rogue Digimon causes havoc on the internet and nearly brings down the entire real world in the process. The studio which produced Our War Game loved the idea so much that it decided to take the exact same plot, put it in a different universe, and make another movie out of it. The result is the 2009 film Summer Wars.

Both being Studio Madhouse productions the animation styles are quite similar

Summer Wars

In the universe of Summer Wars, all of the real world is connected to social networking program called OZ. The entire country of Japan runs on this program as it is the main facilitator of the basic infrastructure of the country. This clip explains things better than I ever could... 

Basically the movie starts out with shy math genius, Kenji, who works maintenance on OZ, getting dragged into a family reunion by his friend (more like sudden acquaintence) Natsuki. She tells him that he's coming with her on a job but it turns out that she needs him to pose as her fiancee for the weekend. This is the kind of ridiculous plot that you can always expect to find in Japanese animes. She needs him  because her grandmother is in poor health and Natsuki wants her to know that she found a man to marry before she passes away. Kenji goes a meets her enormous family who all get introduced way too fast for you to remember any of their names. Thus this leads to confusions as to who is which person's child and what their exact relation to Natsuki is. Their names are pretty unimportant in the grand scheme of things. Natusuki's uncle Wabiske however is voiced by the one and only Michael J. Tatum, which is why he's the only family member whose name I can recall. You just start identifying them with Buffy Speak-esque names like "dude with red tank top that goes on and on about the family's history" or "fat baseball obsessed woman who dons a Daisuke Matsuzaka jersey at one point". The sub-plot of Kenji posing as Natsuki's fiancee is quickly swept aside by the the main plot of the movie. A rogue AI has hacked into OZ and begins stealing people's accounts. Since a person's avatar on OZ has the same privileges as their real life owners do one can only imagine the power that such a being has. (ie. the President has an account which could give the AI the power to launch nuclear missles...this point is only mentioned in passing however)

Natsuki and her family...you won't remember any of them

 The rogue AI, named Love Machine (ironic right?), turns out to be using Kenji's admin account in order to access all the areas of OZ. This leads to Kenji being implicated in the crime...a point gets brought up like it's big deal but is quickly swept under the rug. I got excited for a second, I thought that the plot would involve Kenji and Natsuki going on the run as they figure out a way to stop the AI...this never happens (probably because the AI has the law enforcement's accounts so they're powerless in the real world). Kenji teams up with Natsuki's cousin Kazuma whose avatar is OZ's internet martial arts champion, named King Kazma. King Kazma is awesome, he's like a badass version of the Trix rabbit.

Sure he looks cuddly...but he kicks cyber ass...

From then on the movie begins to balance the plots of whats going on in the internet and whats going on at the house in the real world. The sphere of the internet is so the movie can provide anime action (and it doesn't disappoint) and the real world is where the more realistic drama happens (sort of...). This is just like the twin plots in Our War Game except that theres definitely more of a focus on whats going on in the real world. We learn that Natsuki's family is very disjointed, most of it caused by Wabiske (SPOILER - he designed Love Machine). However, as the plot moves along things get personal and it unites the entire family against Love Machine. It's very uplifting to see the way the family develops and eventually comes to work as one. With Kenji's absurdly good math skills, Kazuma's martial arts, and Natsuki's skill at the Japanese card game Hanafuda (this movie makes a rather boring card game into a Dragonball Z like throwdown), they bring down Love Machine, Natsuki and Kenji fall in love, and the family is closer than ever. That's basically as simple as I can make the plot.

I don't know what koi-koi means or what the rules of Hanafuda are...all I know it's the most epic card game ever (suck it Yu-Gi-Oh!)

So with that out of the way; what did I like best about Summer Wars? The animation is absolutely fantastic. I watched the film in 1080p on my TV and it looked super crisp and fluid, especially the scenes that took place on the internet. During the scenes that take place in cyberspace, the animation switches to a slick almost cel-shaded look thats absolutely stunning on almost any screen. The white background allows the bright colors to really pop off the screen. You can really tell that the studio just told it's animators to go wild and it really shows. I really liked the animation style when I first saw it in Our War Game and it looks even better here. Everything from Summer Wars is lifted straight out of Our War Game minus the Digimon. Not a bad thing, it lets you see that in 9 years animation has come a really long way and the Digimon movies were very well done for their time. Part of me wonders if Summer Wars is what Madhouse wanted Our War Game to be but didn't have the proper technology or budget at the time. 

The white background really allows the bright colors to pop on screen

My main issues with Summer Wars mostly come from the plot. One of my biggest pet peeves is when plot points are created and then brushed aside, making them irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. Yes, Kenji posing as Natsuki's fiancee makes sense because the movie needs a reason for him to be there. At first it seems like this is going to be a comedy sub-plot in which Kenji tries to keep up the charade while saving the world, but within the first 20 minutes it's gone. Same with the sub-plot of Kenji being implicated in the crime. One moment he's being arrested and after about 2 minutes he's a free man again. These sub-plots getting discarded is hardly a bad thing but I thought the movie could have done some fun things with them. Second, OZ seems incredibly impractical. The movie states that theres loads of sensitive information on OZ and if there ever was a hack, the real world would be in a serious mess. The movie opens by saying that OZ's security system is the most secure in the world which in movie speak is code for "this security system will get hacked and everyone will panic as to how it happens". It turns out that a pretty short computer code is all that protects the real world from digital armageddon...not very safe. But as a friend told me, one must imagine yourself in the shoes of those who live in the universe and the plot makes sense. It just seemed to me that a very large amount of idiotic things had to happen in order for this catastrophe to happen (not to mention several of the other antics that happen later in the film). However, once all the dust settles and the actual plot becomes clear thats when the movie kicks into high gear. The plot definitely picks up in the final third and the climax is absolutely brilliant.

This little guy brings Japan (and almost the world) to it's knees

The characters, while entertaining, aren't anything new really, mostly just a bunch of tried and true anime cliches, even the main characters. Kenji is the typical nervous nerd and Natsuki is the typical flirty school friend. Like I said before, the family is introduced so quickly that it's hard to really remember who's who. Luckily, the movie is good about making sure you know which ones are important so you know where to direct your attention. The character development seems to happen to the family as a whole, not as individual characters (excluding the main two characters). Despite their shortcomings, I found Natsuki's family to be entertaining and a key part of the film. Especially memorable is Natsuki's grandmother who essentially mobilizes the entire nation of Japan in order to fix some of the damage Love Machine caused in the real world. The voice work is well done also, the english dub was done by Funimation and as usual they deliver.

Another thing that I really liked about the movie was the theme of family and the dangers of technology. It's a really appropriate movie for this day and age where technology seems to be taking over more and more of our lives. It's not as if this hasn't been explored before in films. War Games and The Matrix Trilogy both explored similar themes of the dangers of letting technology and AI get out of control. Sure, this is certainly an extreme case but I think it serves it's purpose. Secondly, as someone who has a huge extended family myself I could certainly relate to Natsuki's family. They do have a certain charm and it was seeing them come together at the end was really uplifting. It's an important reminder that as awesome as technology is theres still nothing better than the close relationships that you can have face to face with people.

The Verdict:

I really did enjoy Summer Wars, despite my grievances with the plot. It succeeds on several levels especially towards the end. If you can put up with the slow start to the movie you'll be rewarded with an epic climax and some really beautiful animation. You can really tell that a lot of effort went into the making of this movie. I recommend it to anyone whose just looking for something entertaining to watch...you'll actually find a lot more here.

My Score: 4/5