With the 2006 film
The Girl Who Leapt Through Time Japanese animator
Mamoru Hosoda established himself as one of the most interesting directors currently working in animated films. That film met with the sort of acclaim usually reserved for the work of Studio Ghibli, winning a number of industry awards in its native Japan and finding its way onto a number of critics end of year lists when it eventually found release in the UK. A delightful and tender romance film with a science fiction twist, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time wasnt afraid to go to some complex (if confusing) places, both in terms of its concepts and characterisations, and Hosoda followed it up in similar style in 2009 with a film of equal invention and intrigue, in the form of
Summer Wars. Both films are now available on
Blu-ray and
DVD as part of an appealing and good value two-film box set. The more recent film, Summer Wars replaces time travel with the ultra-topical phenomenon of social media, yet it still tells a sweet, restrained and neatly observed tale of teenage romance, as our school-going protagonists battle a mischievous AI-controlled avatar which threatens a world now totally dependant on a Facebook-style online nexus all during a summer holiday. Beneath the cutesy relationship story, adorned with the usual array of, depending on your view, either grating or appealing anime archetypes (shy schoolboy, precocious schoolgirl), Hosoda takes a satirical approach to Summer Wars, warning us about a future world where a site called OZ controls everything from space satellites and traffic lights to bank accounts. This dystopian vision the future is both funny and also a credible threat, with the stakes incredibly high by the films nail-biting finale.
There are moments where this concept, and the way the world of OZ is realised, makes Summer Wars seem influenced by the mind-bending and wholly brilliant work of the late
Satoshi Kon (another staff director at the Madhouse studio), though really its something of a hybrid between that and the stuff of more commercially viable, not to mention self-consciously wacky, US television friendly anime. Underlining the latter similarity are the character designs, particularly those of the online avatars, which are reminiscent of those from second-rate, Pokemon-wannabe series Digimon. As are the battle scenes. Perhaps this shouldnt be surprising as Hosoda earned his directorial stripes making episodes of the show, before eventually going on to direct the feature film in 2000.
Though to say it has elements in common with cheaply produced TV animation is to overlook that Hosodas two more auteured features are beautifully animated and packed with rich detail. This happy balancing act ensures that there should be something in Summer Wars and The Girl Who Leapt Through Time for both casual and more obsessive fans of Japanese animation. They feel like Paprika-lite and, equally, like more cerebral episodes of a campy Saturday morning toon.
Extras
The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is disappointingly devoid of extras, though Summer Wars which never having been available in the UK before is very much the centre piece of this Blu-ray release fares a little better. The disc includes (brief) interviews with the director and members of the Japanese voice cast (all subtitled), as well as a number of trailers and TV spots. All told youre looking at just under an hour of content and its of decent quality, though not anywhere above that. Summer Wars/The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is available
on Blu-ray now.