Ah, Summer Wars. I had no expectations whatsoever for it, but it pleasantly surprised me. Its characters had personality and heart, even if they were nothing but the most inconsequential part of the Jinnouchi clan. I have to admit, I wasn't expecting it so be such an ensemble kind of a movie when I read the summary. I mean, how often do you see an ensemble movie? In that regard, it surprised me in a good way. Everything in the movie worked, even if it wasn't exactly what I was expecting. I had only seen one other movie from Director Mamoru Hosoda, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, and I could definitely see similarities in style, which wasn't a bad thing by any means, but it's definitely not a standout of his at all.

I think I had really similar complaints with The Girl Who Leapt Through Time in regards to art style and such. That would be that I don't really like the fairly muted color palette that both used. There are so few bright colors that it feel as if nothing really pops out to you visually. Now, all that is a criticism for the real world color palette, but all of the Oz scenes? Those were beautiful. They really used color to another level in those sequences, which I guess was the point, but it still doesn't make me like the muted colors any more.
The soundtrack was there, I suppose. It felt like really generic movie music, if I can be perfectly honest. The ending song is actually pretty solid, it felt like an Japanese, old-school country song. It's a cool little change up.

Can I even have a favorite character for Summer Wars? I felt like the whole family was my favorite character, so whatever lets do it.
Favorite Character: The Jinnouchi clan

I'm not even joking, the whole family was great. Their interactions were so awesome and realistic. Summer Wars probably resonated with me so much because it reminds me of my own big family, in which, I can say that this is an accurate representation of a large family gathering. The banter, the arguing, the competition, all of it. Even to the point where, despite all the fighting, everyone loves each other at the end of the day. Summer War's representation of family is why I loved the movie to the extent that I did. As an aside, shout out to the Baseball Jinnouchi. He was the real soldier, making it to nationals through all of that struggle and without knowing any of the crazy stuff that was happening while he was doing it. Here's to you Baseball Jinnouchi.

I did have a few issues with Summer Wars, though, and most of them can be traced back to the overarching story and Oz. The whole movie would have been 100% better without the silly Oz drama or any of the Oz sequences. Sure, I mentioned earlier that all of the Oz scenes were beautiful, and they were, but the context behind those scenes was ridiculous. The whole story revolving around Oz is laughable, honestly, and really, I could have done without any of it. I loved the family aspect of Summer Wars enough that I could have watched a whole movie about it, without any of the insanity happening online. I understand that a lot of motivating factors would have been lost, but hey, that's why imagination exists.

For those issues, I do have to drop Summer Wars into the 80s, but it was still worth watching for the family interaction alone. I feel like Summer Wars really missed out on a lot of potential, but despite that, still managed to pull something pretty good together. If you like ensemble casts or family interaction than Summer Wars is a movie for you, but if you're in it for the story, you're probably not going to love Summer Wars.