Summer Wars / The Girl Who Leapt Through Time [Blu-ray]

I've had chance to actually sit down and enjoy the blu-ray release of 'Summer Wars', and 'enjoy' is definitely the right word.

The story is simple enough: high school maths-geek is persuaded by girl he secretly loves to do some 'work' for her, which he discovers far too late is actually pretending to be her boyfriend/fiancé in front of her entire extended family. Cue humorous confusion/embarrassment etc., before the truth is revealed and boy is arrested for 'breaking the internet'(!) He then has to save the world (and the girl) from the AI now controlling everything. So far so normal (for anime).

But while the core concept may lack originality, the film excels in both storytelling and in the way it is populated by solid, entertaining characters. Kenji is a likeable lad who suffers from neither guilt-ridden angst or misplaced arrogance, while Natsuki, a potentially two-dimensional character (how many 'popular' girls would pay someone to pretend to be a boyfriend?) manages to join him in coming across as likeable and plausible. The whole cast comes across as ordinary people in an extraordinary situation, rising to the un-winnable challenge. And this is what has been one of the things pulled over from this team's previous film The Girl Who Leapt Through Time [DVD], along with the animation style and overall attention to detail. I would encourage anyone who has seen TGWLTT to get 'Summer Wars' without delay.

The film does genuinely live up to its name, it is light, 'summery' and features a rather strange 'war'. The more obvious CG elements are appropriate and blend well with the film as a whole, while the storytelling is handled far more effectively than with TGWLTT. In the previous film, there were distinct lumps in the story, where everything seemed to stop and readjust, whereas 'Summer Wars' flows neatly, everything handled elegantly and effectively; with a simplicity rarely found in some of the more popular anime (Mononoke & Spirited Away come to mind).

The film is not without faults, I would challenge anyone to be able to NAME all of Natsuki's family on one viewing, let alone understand how they're related to each other, but minor issues like this do not detract from the overall enjoyment of what has to be one of the most mainstream-friendly animes of recent years. Think Whisper Of The Heart [DVD] by the TGWLTT team and you probably have the spirit of 'Summer Wars'.

Technical Review.
While the film was never likely to overstretch the format, it is clear that some care has been taken in mastering the Blu-Ray edition. The image is crisp, clean and pin-sharp: a flawless transfer that does justice to the animators. The audio is again very good, with the English dub being well-written and performed, comparing well to the Japanese original. The use of the American term 'math' instead of 'maths' is a minor quibble I could live with. The extras are predictable but interesting, with various teasers, trailers and some interviews.

Overall, an excellent presentation and a good overall package.

'The Girl Who Leapt Through Time' appears to have a similar package to its DVD release, just higher quality. I'll update this review when I have had chance to check out the whole disk

I bought this boxset of two anime blu-ray discs on a bit of a whim since I'd heard of neither but was impressed by the favourable reviews and the quantity of awards jointly garnered by the two films. I have to say I was not disappointed.

I decided to watch them in chronological order and so first sat down to 'The Girl Who Leapt Through Time'. This was a good high school time travel romp that was very enjoyable. It did get it's plot tied up in knots here and there but in a complex time travel story that's very hard to avoid. Well worth the time spent watching it though. Probably worth 4 stars.

Summer Wars was a different kettle of fish. A very stylish looking film with some great design work. The plot was engaging and the characters entertaining. It's a cliche to say "I laughed, I cried" etc. but in this case I genuinely did. The story is by turns touching, funny, sad, sweet and really exciting in places. The director, Mamoru Hosoda, does an excellent job of moving the story along, staging some superb set piece scenes and still keeping a large cast of characters defined and interesting. Highly recommended, 5 stars.

If it was an option I would've combined the scores and given the boxset 4.5 stars overall but the rating system doesn't allow that. Suffice to say it's excellent and well worth purchasing at this price.

Let's get the two movie reviews out of the way..... both are original and good, and not at all your average teen demolition anime, but something completely different. Both are different from one another as well.
Imbd will enlighten you some more, better than I can :)

As to the nitty gritty:

Summer wars:
English and japanese audio
English subtitles. For some unfathomable reason, those are plain yellow. Now I can see them just fine but if you're colour blind, you might be in for a world of pain.
Extras: 6 shortish interviews with the japanese cast and director, as well as trailers.

The video quality is nice and crisp; the colours are vibrant. It's well done and very nice quality.

The girl who leapt through time:
English and japanese audio
English subtitles. White with black outlines
Absolutely no extras.

This one is older and the blu-ray quality is ....not really blu-ray quality. This is a much cheaper transfer that frankly looks like a repackaged upscaled DVD (couple of blocks here and there, very little. Not so much bad quality as visibly lower resolution). If you already own the DVD, you might think twice about getting this one [unless you're OCD or possibly the DVD is VHS quality]