Summer Wars

Directed by Mamoru Hosoda
Written by Satoko Okudera
Starring Ryūnosuke Kamiki, Nanami Sakuraba, Sumiko Fuji, Mitsuki Tanimura, Ayumu Saitō

Music by Akihiko Matsumoto
Editing by Shigeru Nishiyama
Studio Madhouse
Distributed by Warner Bros.
Release date(s) August 1, 2009 (JPN)
August 12, 2009 (KOR)
Running time 114 min.
Country Japan
Language Japanese
Gross revenue US$9,800,496 (JPN)
US$627,608 (KOR

Summer Wars (サマーウォーズ, Samā Wōzu?) is a 2009 animated science fiction film. The film focuses on a timid eleventh-grade math genius who has been falsely implicated in the hacking of a virtual world and, with the aid of a classmate's extensive family, must prevent the real and computer-simulated worlds from colliding. It was produced by the Japanese animation studio Madhouse and directed by Mamoru Hosoda.

The project was first announced without a title at the 2008 Tokyo International Anime Fair, and the first trailer of the film was released in April 2009. Audience interest was fueled primarily through word of mouth and Internet publicity.[3] Two manga adaptations of the film were published ahead of the film's release in Japan and South Korea. It was nominated for the 2009 Golden Leopard award at the Locarno International Film Festival.


This and the second "Evangelion" were the two films I was looking forward to this summer, but I was preoccupied with research and watched "Summer Wars" a week after it opened. Even so, the theater in Shinjuku was sold out when I tried Monday night, and again on Tuesday afternoon, a testament to the quality and wide appeal of this work. It is from Hosoda Mamoru, the director of "The Girl Who Leapt Through Time," which won many awards, including Japan Academy Prize for Animation of the Year 2006. As with that film and "Eva," Sadamoto Yoshiyuki did the character designs for "Summer Wars."

The story is about Kenji, a high school student who works part time maintaining a virtual online world called Oz. Basically the entire world is using Oz to function from e-mail and GPS to banking and weapons defense systems. Kenji is crushing on a girl, Natsuki, who invites him to work part time in the countryside over the summer. The job, Kenji finds, is to act like Natsuki's fiancé to please the family matriarch, who will be turning 90. Just as Kenji is starting to get into it, he solves a strange mathematical puzzle that arrives to his cell phone. This turns to be the security code for Oz, and once it is cracked a mega A.I. virus called Love Machine starts unleashing hell on Oz, enslaving other avatars and using the online infrastructure to throw the real world into utter chaos. Natsuki's grandmother dies, but the family comes together to reconcile and defeat the virus. Natsuki uses her avatar to gamble at hanafuda cards and win accounts back from the now monstrous Love Machine, which weakens him enough so that her cousin "King" Kazuma can lay the smack down. Kenji cracks the security code and redirects a missile headed for the house - with the help of Wabisuke, the black sheep of the family who went to America and programmed Love Machine to prove he wasn't a screw up. Admittedly, it is a bit of a stretch that all these talented folks are under the same roof, but you just have to suspend disbelief.

As mentioned, the film is visually very satisfying. It opens on a black screen with layered voices in Japanese and English explaining Oz, then a cell phone appears and the audience is granted access to the virtual land over the rainbow. It looks like a Murakami Takashi painting, specifically from early 2000s when he collaborated with Louis Vuitton and had an installation at Roppongi Hills. The world is white with colorful accents, and is dominated by a giant tower-like creature in the middle and inhabited by cutesy avatars. But what reminded me most of Murakami was the flatness, or slick, polished surfaces of this world. In great contrast is the physical setting, Ueda-shi, Nagano Prefecture. Hosoda's wife is from the area, and the director apparently was quite taken with the image of traditional Japan. It has a warm and lived in feel to it, aided by a scrupulous attention to detail. As Kenji and Natsuki make their way to the countryside (first a bullet train, then local train and local bus) there is a subtle transformation of their surroundings, captured in shocking realism. The views of Natsuki's family estate, a grand old Japanese home, are amazing. Then there is the scenery. Even now some of the images are fresh in my mind: white clouds moving across a blue sky, flowers blooming in the night, the sun rising.

Elfen Lied OST

1 - Lilium ~opening version

Hatsukoi Limited (TV)

Alternative title:
Hatsukoi Gentei (Japanese)
初恋限定。 (Japanese)
Genres: comedy, romance, slice of life
Themes: Ecchi, school
Plot Summary: A series of short stories depicting the complicated love lives of eight middle school and high school girls, their classmates and relatives. These stories later intertwine to form a main story involving most of the cast.
Running time: 24 minutes per episode
Number of episodes: 12
Episode titles: We have 12
Vintage: 2009-04-11
Releases: We have 6
"Gensou no Basho, Sorezore no Michi no Ue (幻想の場所、それぞれの道の上)" by marble (ep 6)
"Hatsukoi limited (初恋 limited)" by marble
"Sora ni Mau (空に舞う)" by marble (ep 9)


Discription:

We begin with a not-so-limited number of boys and girls in middle and high school, the oh-so-typical setting for multiple "first loves" to bloom. And bloom they did, as each episode focuses on one or two girls with their first experiences at this simple, yet confusing feeling called love. If you have any kind of fetish in your 2D girl fandom, they probably have it in this show. We have a cute girl who's dangerously strong despite the looks. The optimal cool beauty who's quite a newbie in the love department. The worst (best?) onii-chan complex in any anime ever. The big-bust swimming girl who actually doesn't like being well-endowed. The cool beauty #2 tennis superstar. The all-systems-completely-normal girl that had the best episode in the anime. And finally, my personal favorite, the ultimate rendition of tsundere. These seven girls are paired with no less than nine guys – the kind yankee, the normal guy, the semi-normal guy, the ero-kappa, the siscon, the anti-siscon, the tennis guy, the swimming guy, and the alpha painter guy. Along with side characters, this provides probably a very confusing relationship chart considering it's just a 12-episode anime. After a few episodes though, you would eventually get a hold of these characters, simply because they are… er… simple.



The attitudes of each character are so strongly-typed that they seem to give every single cliche in the harem book a run for its money. The girls, they are hot. The guys, most of them are losers in their own domains. How does Hatsukoi Limited succeed then, being the complete encyclopedia of what is right and wrong about harem anime? My answer may be as confusing as "first love" itself! The anime merely "clicked" on me. I read the manga beforehand and I really didn't think it were anything special. But then the anime came and had this awesome presentation, all elements laid in perfect symphony with each other. The animation, the music, the story pace, all very entertaining. Everytime I watch a single episode, it feels like an event. For many weeks, it had been my Sunday show, getting and watching the raws first before watching the same episode AGAIN with the subs. I would make worthless Twitter posts about how awesome the episode is even if I can't describe it well within the character limit. In this time when I treat most anime as an "I can always watch an episode later" afterthought, Hatsukoi Limited is the single anime which I just HAVE to watch as immediate as possible. This is indeed, love at first sight.

Hellsing anime

Hellsing anime

In the sinister nights in England, the undead walk on the street. Mankind created a chip to turn people into vampire's, under the name FREAK. An organization, followed by the queen of England is here to destroy the deadly Vampires and the FREAK-chips. An old vampire called Alucard serves his human master, Integral Hellsing to destroy these new vampires.

One night, a priest was turned into a FREAK-vampire and turned all civilians of the town into Ghouls. The Police Special Forces, D11 group arrived near the town. They all got attacked by the Ghouls and were turned into one of them. An young agent, Celes Victoria, who was called 'Kittin' by the men of her group, was running for her life, trying to escape from the FREAKs. She encounters Alucard, who tells her it's a perfect night to spoil blood. She shoots at him while he keeps grinning with a sinister kind of smile. Victoria turns around and runs again for her life.

She finds herself at a cementary with a church in the center. As she walks in to rest, she finds the Priest, who was the cause of this flood of Ghouls in the village. Under hypnosis, the priest drags her to himself for a small snack. But just before he wants to bite her, Alucard walks in. The whole D11 squad who turned into Ghouls appear from behind the benches, shooting at Alucard. As his body, full with holes, falls on the ground, Victoria screams for her life, snapping out of the hypnosis. But this isn't the end yet. REAL vampires can regenerate! As Alucard appeared again, he asked Victoria a question while aiming his gun at her chest. Does she want to die, or turn into a vampire like himself? She answers that she wants to be a vampire. Alucard pulled the trigger, shooting through Victoria's lungs to slay the evil priest. Granting her wish, Alucard made her a vampire.

Rating: 4
Studio: Geneon Entertainment & GONZO DIGIMATION

Total Episodes: 13

Episode 01: The Undead
Episode 02: Club M
Episode 03: Sword Dancer
Episode 04: Innocent as Human
Episode 05: Brotherhood
Episode 06: The Deadzone
Episode 07: Dual
Episode 08: Kill House
Episode 09: Red Rose Vertigo
Episode 10: Master of Monster
Episode 11: Transcend Force
Episode 12: Total Destruction
Episode 13: Hellfire

Anime Excel Saga

Yes, it's experimental.. I think. It's about a crazy girl who works for the top secret organisation Across. Last name Excel, given name Excel, In other words, she's Excel! A blond haired girl with soft-green eye's who has a very deep crush on her master Ilpalazzo, the leader of Across who tries to ignore her (I can imagine why). All episodes doesn't really make sense. In the first episodes when she just gets introduced, she dies. Few minutes later, she dies again. Actually, she dies alot in the first episode. 

She even killed the author Koshi Rikdo. "Rikdo, Rikdo, the manga kid. Always skipping out on the job." Nevermind that, he sings that while Excel prepares to kill him. In the 2nd episode, space aliens called Puchu invade Earth. They also have a new member for Across on board, Princess Hyatt. She can barely stand up for a while till she gets dizzy, falls on the floor and begins to bleed out of her mouth. She's the favorite of Ilpalazzo and he fantasizes about her while he plays the Love-Love Excel Sim-date game on a kind of Gameboy. Like the labour worker Pedro, who has a son named Sandora and a sexy wife back home. He get's alot of problems with that.. Just watch the series. He even turns in a kind of Super Saiyan at one point!

Half-way the series, they're in need of a new charcter. So they beg Rikdo to approve the use of the Ropponmatsu-characters. The adult version was built a thousend of times, just to see her blow up. One of the neighbours of Excel, Iwata, has a huge crush on Ropponmatsu, but has an emotional breakdown when she gets replaced with Ropponmatsu 2nd, the child version.. In the episode 'Find Love Again', Child Ropponmatsu violently rapes Excel (But the people of J.C. staff were nice enough to only show their psycho shadows on the wall, so child-friendly).
This is a must see for people who want to see an anime with an overdosis humor. I really laughed my ass off while watching this. Oh yeah, before I forget, in every episode there is the same guy. His name is Nabeshin. He's always on the run for people. He even learns Excel bowling in an episode, while he doesnt. On the toilet, with his pants down. Excel actually wins only with using his bowlingball and her belief that Nabeshin is dead. X_x Nabeshin is the coolest guy in the whole series (Atleast, thats my opinion). He grabs weapons out of his afro and even has a fighting style he teaches to Pedro. The 'Way of the Afro'. His strongest attack is the Nabehameha!
Er ye, anyways.. You'll actually have to see it for yourself to understand anything of it.

Rating: 5
Studio: J.C. Staff & Rikdo Koshi
Total Episodes: 26

Episode 01: The Plan To Murder Koshi Rikdo
Episode 02: The Woman Who Came From Mars
Episode 03: Sacrifice Of The Deadly Hell Of Escape
Episode 04: Weird Love
Episode 05: Amazing Giant Tower
Episode 06: Cold Is Winter: A Disaster Story
Episode 07: Underground Melody
Episode 08: Viewer Rating Escalation Week
Episode 09: Bowling Musume
Episode 10: Menchi's Great Adventure
Episode 11: Withdraw : Springtime Of Youth
Episode 12: Big City Part 2
Episode 13: New Years Hidden-Talent Contest
Episode 14: Tekoire
Episode 15: More Booster Shot Memorial
Episode 16: Find Love Again
Episode 17: Animation USA
Episode 18: Municipal Forces DAITENJIN
Episode 19: Menchi's Adventure Part 2
Episode 20: All About Pedro
Episode 21: Visual K
Episode 22: Dear, Mother
Episode 23: Millenium Soldier Legend
Episode 24: For Yours If It Can Die?
Episode 25: We Will Not be Held Responsible
Episode 26: Going too Far

Official Viz Media Excel Saga manga website