About films. Basically, I have to write a paper arguing that a certain film belongs to a certain genre, and I'm stuck between two really good choices. Option 1 is arguing Ponyo as a Romance. It's a pretty simple premise, and will probably be pretty easy to write about, but I'm not sure I can get 4 pages out of it. Option 2 is Summer Wars as a Sci-Fi Romance. Due to the multiple genres, I can definitely get a lot more information out of it, but it'll be a pain in the ass to do. Should mention that this is only the first draft. The teacher is gonna grade it and then give it back to revise for a final draft.
Having only seen Ponyo out of he two options (IT'S ON MY LIST DON'T KILL ME), I say go with Summer Wars. It's better to have more content and go back and cut if necessary than to not have enough content and add padding.
And I haven't seen Ponyo, but I don't feel like it would be that hard to make a case for Summer Wars. IRL side is your romance, net side is your sci-fi. And the two blend across from time to time.
Summer Wars was a romance? I know there were some romantic elements, but I wouldn't call that one of the main genres of the film. Now I'm interested in why you think that.
Mmmmmm... It's not so much that I do think it's a romance, but I guess I would be more apt to call it a 'Family' film? However, Family isn't really a genre in the sense that Horror or Comedy is a genre, and mostly when I look up 'Family Genre' I get something closer akin to 'Shit you would take your kids to see', not necessarily 'Focused on the ideals of Family'. Romance is something slightly more tangible with the budding relationship between Natsuki and Kenji, but honestly that bit is such a footnote in terms of the plot. I guess I could argue 'Family' as a genre, but I'm not sure how that would work, or if my teacher would accept that as an answer. If you have a better term to call that sort of movie, I'm open to suggestions.
It's pretty long and it meanders about a bit but it's pretty good for 4 hours of work I think. Spoiler An Examination of Genre in Summer Wars; Or, Why Family Will Always Be the Most Important Thing In Your Life In late 2010, a movie appeared in the United States titled Summer Wars, produced in Japan under Madhouse Studios and distributed stateside by Warner Brothers. (1) Despite its limited theatrical release and petition to get it nominated for several awards, it received otherwise very little fan fair, and would have fallen completely under the radar had it not been for the large amount of word of mouth praise and copious amounts of streaming on websites across the globe. While not as popular as, say, the films regularly put out by Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli, the film has become a favorite among fans of anime and Japanese filmmaking for its beautiful animation and clever use of modern technology (not to mention its awe-inspiring action sequences). Now, I suppose you’re wondering what all that has to do with genre, or why we’re examining what genre has to do with a simple little anime film produced over five years ago at the time of this writing. Summer Wars, while not a subversion of a particular genre, doesn’t necessarily fit into your typical genre either. It’s plot and themes bounce all over the place, thus making it difficult to fit nicely into one particular category of film. Thus, the thesis I propose is this; that Summer Wars is the epitome of hybrid genre, and defines its genre as both Sci-Fi, and Slice of Life. Now, before continuing onward, I feel as though I must give an explanation of what I mean by that statement. A hybrid genre film, as defined by Janet Staiger (2) is a film that does not belong to one singular genre, but rather, straddles the line between multiple categories. Romantic Comedies are a ready example of this, being defined as hybrids by their very title. Sci-Fi needs little introduction as a genre, as most English-speaking Americans would be familiar with it, due to it being ingrained in film culture as early as the 1930s. Slice of Life, however, needs more explanation, as its fan base is considerably smaller, due to the genre not generally being defined by western cinema. Slice of Life, as a genre, is generally confined to anime and other primarily Japanese media, and consists of exactly what the title implies; it’s a window into a typically everyday life, like one might see in your own backyard. While the genre is often crossed with Comedy, in this situation it stands on its own, even without the addition of Sci-Fi as a second genre. Summer Wars opens with an explanation of OZ, a computer system that runs the entirety of the in-world internet. Imagine if you had one account, able to run Facebook, Amazon, EBay, Google, your email account, your bank account, your stocks, GPS, and any other thing you could possibly want; give an account to anyone who has a cell phone, and you would have an approximation of OZ. Kenji, a shy math genius who helps run maintenance on OZ, is asked by his friend Natsuki to accompany her to her family’s ancestral home for the weekend, for her grandmother’s birthday. While there, he meets Natsuki’s extended family (which is nearly thirty people living in the house alone), who are all very close, and held together at its core by the family matriarch, Sakae. On the first night there, Kenji’s phone is sent a code from a mysterious number and asked to solve it, which he does in a single night. The code is then used by a hacker Artificial Intelligence Program called Love Machine to crack open OZ’s database, and begins to steal accounts from people all over the world, causing havoc. The remainder of the film is sent going back and forth between the real world, where Natuki’s family deals with the return of Sakae’s adopted son Wabisuke after ten years, Sakae’s death, and the subsequent mourning, and OZ, where the family tries its best to reclaim their accounts and fix the chaos caused by Love Machine (who’s code, incidentally, was written by Wabisuke). Summer Wars can, essentially, be broken into two halves; the half that takes place in the real world, encompassing the real world problems and the Slice of Life side of the film, and the half that takes place in OZ, providing neat action sequences and showing off the Sci-Fi side. It’s only at the end of the film do the two halves begin to merge, with the last half hour showing the family in the real world working together as a team to fight the threat in the virtual one. One might argue that this makes the movie’s status as a hybrid genre more obvious, with its genre’s broken into clear cut pieces that are easy to pick out from each other by the changing of tone and animation style. But, what is the concrete evidence that each section is that genre? According to Thomas Schatz, “Film genre must be examined in terms of its fundamental structural components: plot, characters, setting, thematics, style, and so on”. (3) While these terms could be considered rather broad, they provide enough of a structure for looking at a film critically, in order to determine its genre. The characters are, perhaps, the weakest part of Summer Wars, and as such, not exactly the best subject to look at when dealing with this film. Even the two main characters, Kenji and Natsuki, are only characterized by basic traits, such as Kenji’s talent at math and Natsuki’s love of Hanafuda (a Japanese card game). Love Machine is a looming presence throughout the film, with its ‘Evil Artificial Intelligence Program’ status reminiscent of earlier Sci-Fi films, but provides little in terms of character development, and indeed has no dialogue and little body language. The standout character of this film, though, is in the family. While its individual members again have only a few character traits to their names, as a whole entity the family becomes the essence of the warm, loving, and accepting family that many people can identify with. One might say that the family itself is the protagonist, as its presence in the movie is what gives this film the heart and normalcy that an average viewer might come to expect from the Slice of Life genre. As previously stated, half of the film takes place inside the world of OZ, the internet conglomerate that has taken over the daily lives of the majority of the world’s population. The virtual world of OZ provides a very clean, white look, with a post-modern flare in the structures that inhabit it. Here, members take the form of whatever sort of avatar one chooses to build, and the world is populated by anything from pink bunnies in cowboy hats to pixelated faces to animated boxes and anything in between. It’s here that the action sequences take place, with Love Machine continuously trying to take over the mainframe and thwarting anyone who tries to stop it at every turn. OZ is almost futuristic in its mise en scene, with technology pervading every corner of the realm, and seems, if not standard, than reminiscent of something you might see in other Sci-Fi films. The ‘real world’ half of the film takes place, in an exact opposite turn from OZ, in the rural setting of Ueda, Japan, in Natsuki’s ancestral mansion on top of a hill. The mansion is surrounded on all sides by greenery and fields, and has been in their possession for over five-hundred years. While the town can be seen in the valley below the mansion, the majority of Summer Wars takes place in a state of isolation within the grounds. Such a stark contrast to the futuristic setting of OZ is almost needed to further separate the two halves of the film from each other. The inside of the mansion is old fashioned, spaced with a combination of ancient samurai décor and the almost out of place modern technologies. Even the clothing is indicative of the scenery, with many of the adult women wearing traditional Japanese kimono. Again, the mise en scene almost projects the Slice of Life genre, down to the contemporary cell phones used by the majority of the characters. Finally, we come to the narrative structure of the film. Summer Wars contains a large amount of action sequences and large antics by the various characters, both in OZ and the real world, but for now let’s turn to OZ as the main instigator of these pieces. As OZ is where the villain resides, where the biggest problem takes place, and where the most amount of fantasy is able to take place, it makes sense that the virtual world is where the climax of the film would take place. The animation is fluent and beautiful, rendering each fighting scene with acute detail, making it easy to see the fantastical fighting moves that characters are able to pull off with nothing more than a keyboard or a cellphone. While some might take the sequences as a way to argue this film as an Action film (which I could certainly see, given enough evidence), the entirety of the fighting takes place virtually, rendering the Sci-Fi aspect much more apparent. The film, however, is not without its quiet moments. There are several moments throughout the movie that are filled with only silence or music, but it is never distracting or unnerving. Indeed, these instances are few and far between, but used to tremendous emotional effect to influence the audience to feel what the characters are feeling. Even the music by itself is well done, matching every twist and turn with gusto, and the sound effects are something one might hear in your own backyard on a hot summers day. One of the most profound scenes in the movie is not an action sequence, but is the scene right after Sakae’s death, showing the family sitting quietly in mourning, with no dialogue, and only a quiet, sad song playing over the fifteen second long shot. This is very similar to scenes from the climax of other Japanese Slice of Life anime, where death is an ever-present theme. Earlier, I mentioned the fact that the two halves of the film come together at the end two form one cohesive sequence that exemplifies both Sci-Fi and Slice of Life. This scene is considered the ‘true climax’ of the film, and shows off both a beautiful action sequence in OZ, and the family banding together to save the day in the real world. In this scene, Kenji, Natsuki, and Natsuki’s family stand together to make one final stand against Love Machine. Earlier in the film, it’s established that Love Machine likes to play games, and to toy with its victims. Kenji comes up with the idea to have Natsuki challenge the AI to a game of Hanafuda, and bet the entirety of the family’s OZ accounts on the outcome, in an attempt to win back all of the accounts (at this point numbering into the three-millions) that Love Machine has stolen. While she initially wins back about ten thousand, one wrong hand leads to her losing almost all of them, leaving her with only seventy four accounts, which is not enough to bet on another round. Suddenly, people from all over the world, watching the match to root for Natsuki, chip in their own accounts to help her, leaving her with over a million with which to bet. She is able to win one last match, win back all the accounts that were stolen, and defeat Love Machine. In this scene, while the description makes it seem that the entirety takes place in OZ, it also takes place in the real world, with plenty of shots of the entire family, and later people from all around the world, cheering Natsuki on and helping her to the best of their ability. The scene, overall, emphasizes the technological elements that allow Natsuki to defeat Love Machine, while also reiterating the importance of family that’s been stated throughout the film, thus, finally, firmly blending the lines between Sci-Fi and Slice of Life. While Natsuki is expected to win, thus being a protagonist for Sci-Fi, she wouldn’t have been able to do it without the people that believed in her, thus being a protagonist for Slice of Life. The thesis stated at the beginning is that Summer Wars is a hybrid genre film, being both a Sci-Fi and Slice of Life film at the same time, is nowhere more apparent than the climax of the film, despite being separated into two, easily distinguishable halves for the majority of the movie. While it doesn’t fit perfectly into one particular genre, it doesn’t exactly need to. Just like people, who rarely fit into only one category, hybrid genre films are a fact of our current society, and are likely more interesting than a film that only plays one note. Overall, Summer Wars is a fun, emotional rollercoaster that can fulfill all kinds of expectations from all kinds of people. Works Cited (1) "Summer Wars." Wikipedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Feb. 2016. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_Wars>. mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt"> (2) Staiger, Janet. "Hybrid or Inbred: The Purity Hypothesis and Hollywood Genre History." N.p., n.d. Print. (3) Schatz, Thomas. "Film Genre and the Genre Film." Film Genre. N.p.: n.p., n.d. 691-207. Print. Hosoda, Mamoru, dir. Summer Wars. Madhouse, 2009. Film.
