Summer Wars

Synopsis

Timid eleventh-grader and math prodigy Kenji Koiso is invited by his older schoolmate Natsuki, whom he secretly admires, to accompany her to her family's home in Nagano for a summer job. He accepts without a second thought. Natsuki's family, the Jinnouchi clan, can trace their roots back to the Muromachi era (1336–1573), and they have all gathered to honor the 90th birthday of the energetic matriarch, Sakae. Kenji then learns that his supposed "summer job" is actually to pose as Natsuki's fiancé and dance with her at the birthday celebration. While trying to keep up with Natsuki's charade around her relatives, Kenji receives a puzzling math problem on his cell phone. Being a math genius, he cannot resist solving it. The solution to the cryptic equation triggers a hack into Oz, the program that manages nearly every aspect of modern life. Now it falls to Kenji and his newfound "family" to stop the hacker before it's too late.

Background

Director Hosoda Mamoru chose Ueda in Nagano Prefecture as the setting for Summer Wars because of its proximity to his birthplace. The film earned over 18 million USD in worldwide box offices and won the Japanese Academy Award for Animation of the Year in 2010. Hosoda became only the second Japanese director (after Miyazaki Hayao) to be nominated for an Annie Award for his work on Summer Wars. Summer Wars was the first Japanese animated movie to be nominated for the Golden Leopard Award at the Locarno International Film Festival in Switzerland in 2009. The movie also won the Anaheim International Film Festival's Audience Award for Best Animated Feature and the Animation Division Grand Prize at the 13th Japan Media Arts Festival.