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Anime: Summer Wars

"Always protect your network!"

The worst things in this world are being hungry and being alone.

Technology is only as good as the user.

Summer Wars is a 2009 anime Science Fiction and Slice of Life film. The film focuses on a timid eleventh-grade math genius named Kenji Koiso 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 was 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. 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. FUNimation acquired the distribution rights to the film, and has set it up with some of their biggest names in ADR dubbing. FUNimation also set up a theatrical release in select cites starting in December 2010, and a DVD and Blu-Ray release in February 2011. It was gunning for an Oscar nomination, which it failed to get.

The film is extremely similar to the same director's earlier work, the Digimon feature film Our War Game (2000), released in English as part of Digimon: The Movie. Both involve the chaos caused in the real and virtual worlds by a shape-changing artificial intelligence that views everything as a game running wild across the internet, but even beyond this basic similarity in plot, the major story beats are even the same, with a tale that culminates in a set-piece battle that sees millions of internet users across the world rally behind the hero to best the villain, but not before it launches a projectile at our heroes in the real world, leading to a race-against-time scene to stop the projectile underscored with a countdown clock. The artistic design of The Metaverse is shared between both films, depicting the virtual realm as a white void decorated with floating two-dimensional shapes in which all characters have red outlines, as well as with "Superflat Monogram"

, a Louis Vuitton promotional video also directed by Hosoda.

Has a manga spin-off: Summer Wars: King Kazma vs Queen Oz, a prequel which focuses on Kazuma.

Summer Wars contains examples of:

Adorkable: Kenji
A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Love Machine, a privately created AI who escapes from the army and starts a war with the real world. Subverted in that it was released intentionally, and was following its programming the entire time.
Alliterative Name: Kenji Koiso.
Affectionate Gesture to the Head: Kazuma gets this around 4 times during the Third Act, twice by Manauke, once by Kiyomi, and, at the end of the movie, once by his dad.
Back from the Brink: Love Machine manages to up the ante on everyone several times over the course of the film, including at least two instances where its cheating makes victory seem all but impossible.
Badass: The whole goddamn cast.
- Badass Adorable: Well, Kazuma is the one controlling King Kazma, so...
  - And Natsuki's cute dog-girl avatar playing the game of Hanafuda from hell.
- Badass Bookworm: Kenji, not only did he rally the Jinnouchi clan into fighting back against Love Machine but...well...just see his Crowning Moment of Awesome for further details.
- Badass Family: The Jinnouchi family is extremely close knit, warm, and hospitable... and will stop at nothing to keep a rogue AI from taking over The Metaverse and dropping a satellite on a Nuclear reactor.
- Badass Grandpa: Mansuke (Kazuma's grandfather, filling this requirement) taught Kazuma (and thus King Kazma) everything he knows about martial arts, attacked Love Machine (by this time an extremely strong martial arts master)by himself to buy Kazma time to recover, and he has a NINJA SQUID for an avatar. And he does it all on a Nintendo DS!
  - Meaningful Name: He has MAN as the first half of his name.
- Took a Level in Badass: Many, Kenji in particular.
- Apparently meant to parallel how ridiculously close averting the satellite crash is, Ryohei's baseball team wins the championship after 15 overtime innings.
Big Fancy House: Despite Kenji's first impression, it's all that remains of the family's wealth.
Big Good: Sakae at the beginning, with this role arguably going to Kenji after Sakae dies.
Birthday Episode: More like a birthday movie, as the family gathers for Sakae's birthday.
Birth/Death Juxtaposition: The scene of the family mourning Sakae's death begins with a shot of her body, followed by a shot of Aunt Yumi breastfeeding her baby.
Black Sheep: Wabisuke, who is the illegitimate child of Sakae's late husband, and who ran off with much of what family money they had left to try and make it big in America.
Bratty Half-Pint: The younger kids. Part of the reason Kazuma loses his first fight with Love Machine is because they're dicking around with the computer during the fight. And then (in the manga at least) have the nerve to say "Aw, you got hit!" Yeah, that tends to happen WHEN YOU'RE DISTRACTING HIM.
Breakout Character: See Ensemble Darkhorse on the YMMV tab.
Break Out The Museum Piece: When everyone's cell phone and internet access becomes unreliable, 90-year-old Sakae breaks out her trusty old dial phone and gets in touch with people through an address book and old-fashioned land lines.
Butt Monkey: Shota gets mocked and hit by the others constantly.
Card-Carrying Villain: Love Machine. Lampshaded: "Has bad guy written all over him." Probably a bit of self-awareness on his programmer's part. Something of Truth in Television - black-hat programmers have fun with malware designs.
The Cavalry: Towards the end of the movie Natsuki challenges Love Machine to a cyber card game in which the stakes are her avatar and her family's versus the over 400 million the virus has claimed. The game goes well for awhile, but Natsuki is momentarily distracted by the clock and loses a critical hand. She doesn't have enough accounts left to place the minimum bet, and all hope seems lost... until a horde of people from all over the world give her their accounts so that she can cover the bet. A very nice twist on this trope in that the Cavalry is saving the day by putting themselves entirely into the hero's hands — far from taking the glory away from the hero, these people are giving Natsuki what she needs to win one last hand with her own skills.
Chekhov's Gun: The asteroid explorer satellite in orbit.
- The Hanafuda card game.
Chekhov's Gunman: Kazuma, who we see fighting other avatars earlier in the movie. He repeatedly fights Love Machine cyber-physically and is responsible for giving it the Falcon Punch of a lifetime.
Chekhov's News: There is a news report in the beginning about a satellite hurtling towards the Earth, but will land safely. After everything has gone down, the satellite has been hacked and is now hurtling towards Big Fancy House everyone's living in.
Chekhov's Skill: Most notably, Natsuki's koi koi-playing skills and Kenji's mathematical genius. To a lesser extent, every member of the extended family's respective skills.
The Clan: The Jinnouchi, well, clan.
Colony Drop: Love Machine tries to drop a satellite on a nuclear reactor. After losing the match, it redirects it to crash on the house.
The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: An in-universe example. Love Machine will go by the rules until it's about to lose, then it fights dirty.
Convection Schmonvection: Averted. When installing a supercomputer (intended for a cooled server room) in the family's home during a heat wave, they pack it tight surrounded by ice and seal the room to keep heat from the outside from seeping in. Even that doesn't work, no thanks to Shouta. And even then, Shota himself had this trope in mind by moving the ice from the alcove to Sakae's bedroom to keep her corpse from decomposing in the heat.
Cool Old Guy: Mansuke, who taught his reclusive gaming grandson martial arts to protect him from bullies.
Cool Old Lady: You do not pull a fast one on Granny Sakae. The only reason she died is because Love Machine went after her while she was sleeping.
Cry Cute: Kazuma after King Kazma is defeated by Love Machine the second time around.
Curb-Stomp Battle: Kazuma's first attempt to stop Love Machine with King Kazma devolves into this due to it absorbing other avatars to increase its strength. In short, the computer is LITERALLY being a cheating bastard.
Cyberspace: In the far-flung future of 2010, the Internet seems to have been mostly supplanted by Oz, a somewhat whimsical cyberspace setting that nevertheless gets plenty of use from government agencies and businesses. It's mentioned that there are almost as many Oz users as there are cellphone owners.
- It draws a worrying parallel to everybody's current faith in the cloud...
Dark Is Evil: Love Machine's massive, multi-avatar body.
- And it still manages to invoke Light Is Not Good, with the angelic wings that form OZ's main building on its back, and the Deva Halo Rings re-appearing when it absorbs King Kazma
Dead Man Writing: Grandma Sakae leaves a note to the family with her wishes on how they should carry on after her death: welcome the prodigal son Wabisuke back into their home and stay strong together as a family.
Deep Immersion Gaming: And how.
Design Student's Orgasm: OZ all the way.
The Determinator: "You can't solve an equation by giving up."
The Dev Team Thinks of Everything: Seriously, what kind of social network has the infrastructure to let you bet user accounts in a game against a botnet, anyway?
Disney Owns This Trope: It flashes by insanely quickly during the opening credits, but apparently Kazuma has trademarked King Kazma.
Does This Remind You of Anything?:
- So a weapon set loose by America onto Japan threatens nuclear fallout, eh?
- Is it just a coincidence that a movie that's being distributed by Warner Brothers features two scenes of a badass rabbit kicking the ever loving crap out of an evil looking kid in mouse ears?
- Ryohei's baseball game parallels the conflict of Jinnouchis vs. Love Machine almost perfectly.
Dynamic Entry: King Kazama performs this little maneuver to stop Love Machine from devouring Kenji's squirrel avatar.
Everybody Laughs Ending: Even the dead Granny Sakae's memorial photo.
Everything Is Online: Oz has over billion users for which it functions like ones entire OS based on a single social network structure. Imagine if getting your Facebook account hacked was literally the same as getting your personal computer, cell phone, and workplace account hacked because they were all the same account in the first place. While this makes its chaos more justifiable it is a ridiculously improbable monopoly of service.
Everything's Nuttier With Squirrels: Kenji's guest avatar is a squirrel.
Everything's Squishier with Cephalopods: Grandpa Mansuke's avatar. Plus, its a ninja.
Evil-Detecting Dog: It can detect evil from orbit, apparently. It also alerted the family about Granny Sakae while everyone was sleeping.
- The first time we see Wabisuke, he's petting the dog and asking if he's forgotten him. It's a hint that in spite of his bastard demeanor and strained relationship with grandma, he's not so bad after all.
- It also whines when Shouta takes Kenji away, a hint that Kenji is not as bad as the family thinks.
Evil Laugh: Love Machine. Shi shi shi...
Expy: Kenji resembles a gender-flipped Makoto.
- Love Machine is obviously based on Diablomon, and quite possibly the computer from WarGames as well.
- The entire movie is this to the aforementioned Digimon movie, which had a similar plot but different setting, characters, and the focus of the films are different, with Summer Wars being about the real characters and the other film being more about the digital aspect.
Exact Time to Failure: The film's countdown to destruction stops with fifteen minutes to spare, subverting this. Only to become a double subversion, as Love Machine realises it didn't bet the probe guidance account, causing the countdown to continue and dramatically end with three seconds left.
Foreshadowing: The numerous mentions of the satellite.
Flower Motifs: Morning glories in particular hold special sentimental value to Sakae.
For the Evulz: The characters note with some disgust that Love Machine isn't even doing all this out of malice. It just thinks of everything as a game.
The Four Loves: Storge (familial love) at its fullest.
Freudian Excuse: Illegitimate son Wabisuke sells off his portion of grandpa Manzo's inheritance in order to fund his computer science education in America. His family believes he did it selfishly but it was actually so he could land a contract with the US military to bring wealth back to his family. Self-conscious about his bastard origins, he was just looking for a �Well Done Son� Guy moment from his adopted mother Sakae.
Genre Savvy: Sakae clearly sees right through the fake fiance ruse, and just as clearly realizes how that kind of thing usually ends.
Goggles Do Nothing: King Kazma's goggles are really just an avatar accessory. Kazma 2.0 replaces them with golden hair similar to Kazuma's.
Gondor Calls for Aid: When Love Machine gets the upper hand in the koi koi battle and Natuski has no accounts to bet with. The whole world, who was watching the battle, starts sending their accounts to help her out.
- Don't forget Grandma's earlier epic use of her address book and a rotary dial phone to essentially bring order to the entire nation of Japan after Love Machine starts sowing chaos.
Gone Horribly Right: One suspects that the US military did not expect Love Machine to be able to cause quite so much real-world damage in its attack on OZ.
Good Scars, Evil Scars: Good, in the case of King Kazma. He gains a scar from forehead to jaw over one eye after being thrown into the cloud barrier surrounding OZ by Love Machine.
Good With Numbers: Kenji, natch. In a Crowning Moment of Awesome, during the climax, Kenji solves a 2056-bit encryption IN HIS HEAD.
Hair-Raising Hare: After swallowing Kazuma's avatar, Love Machine grows bunny ears. It doesn't make it any less scary. At all.
Heroic Bastard: Through the "heroic" part is a bit of a stretch until the climax of the film, Wabisuke is the illegitimate son of Natsuki's great-grandfather, but was adopted by Sakae anyway.
Heroic BSOD: Kazuma, after Love Machine version 3 breaks out of his prison, transformed in to a massive monster made of avatars when Kenji and company had thought they had successfully trapped him. Kenji shakes him repeatedly, trying to snap him out of it, but he only does so after its too late to save King Kazma from getting hurled in to the cloud-wall surrounding OZ. Kenji himself has more than his share of near-BSOD moments throughout.
- Still later, it's actually subverted, as Kenji's faced with a third re-encryption from Love Machine after frantically solving the first two on paper. He stares blankly at the screen for a long moment — and then, as he starts to slowly type out the solution one key at a time, it becomes clear he's trying to solve it entirely in his head.
- Natsuki also enters one after Sakae's death.
Hikikomori: Kazuma, who is rarely seen out of his room for a portion of the film.
Holding Hands/Intertwined Fingers: There's a prominent scene where Kenji takes Natsuki's hand to comfort her after Sakae's death.
Hollywood Hacking: Better then one might expect, Love Machine functions much like a real hacker would:
- Love Machine begins by crowd sourcing an encryption to break a password to gain high level admin privileges making it effectively the legitimate owner of Oz. Stealing accounts which are evidently able to command computer resources allows Love Machine to act as bot-net. Additionally most of Love Machine's mischief comes from abusing other legitimate access from accounts it has stolen. All of this is very much real to life in concept, and possible given Oz's bizarrely powerful yet insecure structure, a 2056 character is not a long enough master password for controlling such a network OS that for some reason can't be manually shut down and restored by the owners.
- Cyber-physical combat as a distraction to lure a program/bot-net into some undescribed structural trap or betting accounts on a card game, purely this trope. And lots of Rule Of Cool. Also last part where Love Machine deprived of its bots and down to only two accounts keeps spamming 2056 character encryption passwords, where the heck is it getting the hardware support from?
Hot Uncle: Wabisuke. He's supposed to be 41, like his cousin Riichi, but he looks like he's in his early 30's at best. Maybe it's the beautiful head of wavy hair. No wonder Natsuki has/had a crush on him.
I Know Mortal Kombat: Inverted. Kazuma's grandfather taught him Shaolin as a means of protecting himself from school bullies; it's commented that his real-world martial arts skills are likely the source of his prowess as King Kazma.
I Was Quite a Looker: Not explicitly stated, but we do have a good look at a photo of the young Granny Sakae during her (first) Crowning Moment of Awesome.
Important Haircut: Kazuma gives his avatar, King Kazma, a blond version of his own haircut when he decides to get serious and challenge Love Machine to a rematch.
Jerk Ass: Wabisuke. But over the course of the film, it's revealed he wasn't so much of a jerk after all.
- Likewise, Shouta. Who was a dick, but a dick with some integrity to him.
- And of course Love Machine, the world's greatest internet troll. Willing to hit your house with a satellite out of spite for beating it at cards.
Kissing Cousins: Although it's pretty clear nothing actually happened, Natsuki is completely infatuated with her uncle Wabiske, basing Kenji's fake persona on him. Apparently in elementary school she wrote an essay about how they were going to get married one day. Also Shota is suspiciously protective of Natsuki.
Knight Templar Big Brother: Although he's only her second cousin, Shota is VERY opposed to Kenji's apparent relationship with Natsuki and loudly voices his disapproval right up to the end of the movie.
- Or it could have been more than just familial protection...
Lady of War: Granny Sakae is certainly handy with a naginata.
Law of Conservation of Detail : Those who don't know all of the rules of koi koi shouldn't expect any substantial exmplanation, since the game is really convoluted.
Light is Good: Natsuki's upgraded avatar.
Light Is Not Good: Love Machine's second avatar invokes this trope, with a Deva-like appearance and a golden halo (which he uses to store hijacked avatars) floating behind him. Seen in full horrific detail when he consumes King Kazma—the halo, now a repository for half a billion avatars, emits a light so blinding it negates the ambient lighting of OZ itself.
Loads and Loads of Characters: You'll have to rewatch that dinner scene (and have a chart handy) if you care to know the full extent of the (immediate) Jinnouichi family.
Look Behind You: Kenji does this to Love Machine to rescue Kazuma's avatar.
Meaningful Name: The "Natsu" in Natsuki means "summer." Kind of doubles as a Title Drop.
Megaton Punch: Kazuma gets to do this to Love Machine after he gets his avatar back, and after Love Machine's been sufficiently weakened.
- He also does it earlier in the movie to a random opponent, a giant armored crab that he destroys by punching one of its claws so hard that all of its armor is blown off.
Mental Math Nosebleed
Mission Control / Voice with an Internet Connection: Sakuma. He co-ordinates the Jinnouichi counterattack on Love Machine from his dorm room.
Modesty Towel: Natsuki emerges from the bathroom like this to chase down one of her little cousins running out of the bathroom, only to be seen by Kenji. She quickly darts back in the bathroom while Kenji averts his eyes, insisting that he didn't see anything.
- Kenji has one as well when going in for his own bath.
Mundane Made Awesome: The koi koi match for the fate of the world starts out pretty awesome already, but then John and Yoko grant Natsuki an angelic avatar and it gets crazier from there, culminating in a meteor strike-esque (with an explosion of Cherry Blossoms upon impact) slamming down of the last card.
- Also, scribbling on notepaper and rapidly tapping keyboards have never been so epic.
- Epic use of a rotary dial phone and an address book!
New Media Are Evil: Averted. See page quote. Even Love Machine isn't an example — he was expressly designed to be a weapon of war, which means that he fit firmly in the "technology used for evil means" category.
Never Mess with Granny: Grandma Sakae is a tough old broad.
Never Trust a Trailer: The trailers and posters for FUNimation highlight the scenes in OZ, when in fact these only take up 20% of the radically down-to-Earth rest of the story.
Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
- Twice family members inadvertently sabotage attempts to defeat Love Machine just as it was on the verge of defeat, first the kids piling in and distracting Kazuma, then Shota taking the ice blocks, causing the supercomputer to fry just as Love Machine had almost been contained.
- Kenji initially thinks it's his fault that Love Machine was released because he cracked the code. It's ultimately subverted: not only did several people around the world solve it before him, but he had made a mistake on the last word anyway.
- Wabisuke was the one who developed Love Machine and sold it to the military so his family would be wealthy once again. Then the military decides to test Love Machine out on OZ, and...
Nonstandard Character Design: Virtually no OZ avatar is similar to another, with some having Thick-Line Animation, overly stylized designs (both human and animal), or composed of pixels like Sakuma's.
Nosebleed: The mental-stress variety happens when Kenji gets a breakthrough and is able to do 2056-digit decryptions in his head, but the standard variety happens in the ending as a result of both said mental strain and a kiss from Natsuki.
Not So Stoic: Kazuma on two occasions; the first, when Shota causes Love Machine to get away again by frying the supercomputer they'd been using (resulting in Kazuma getting angry enough to punch Shota in the face), the second when his final effort to try and take Love Machine down is thwarted, causing him to break down crying.
Official Couple: Natsuki and Kenji, duh.
One-Winged Angel: Love Machine does this twice as he assimilates more avatars.
- Almost a literal example, as at one point he has actual wings. Admittedly he has two, but one is standing considerably higher than the other.
Oh Crap: Done by several characters throughout the movie, though most notably are Kenji's look when he sees that not only has Love Machine stolen his avatar, it's also hijacked a bunch of others. Then his temporary avatar gets punched in the face. Kazuma gets another (reflected by King Kazma) when Love Machine goes One-Winged Angel on it and grabs him before throwing him into a wall.
- It's also combined with a Heroic BSOD, as Kazuma is so shocked that no amount of shaking from Kenji can get him to react and move out of the way.
Overly Long Gag: Natsuki introducing her extended family, though this is Truth in Television for many Asians having dinner with extended family. At those times you are lucky if you get a rudimentary explanation AT ALL before everyone settles down and eats.
Parental Abandonment: Kenji's parents's jobs leave them with no time for him; they're never even seen during the movie's whole duration. Staying with the Jinnouichi was really the first time he experienced what family's really like.
Peacock Girl: Natsuki's avatar gains a peacock tail and angelic wings when John and Yoko, the virtual guardians of Oz, grant her an upgrade to give her enough strength to beat Love Machine at Koi Koi.
Peek-A-Bangs: Kazuma, and later King Kazma.
Petting Zoo People: King Kazma.
Please Wake Up: The family's initial reaction to finding Sakae dead, even the adults.
Plot Tailored to the Party: In a story that revolves around the theme of family, there's no surprise that the 'war' the titles refers to is waged by pooling all the various family member's resources and skills each member has. Who would have thought being good at card games, math problems, and fighting games would be so critical for survival?
- More believable than most examples. They are a fairly large family and one of the members invented the AI so they know how to beat it. They are obviously choosing to combat the AI on their own terms. For example, they could have challenged Love Machine to any game, but chose a specific card game the family was good at.
- Furthermore, the use of a fisherman's boat as a power source, a salesman's super-computers, and a trio of firefighters' skills come in handy at multiple points during the movie.
Police Are Useless: Shouta himself is a cop, but is often too impetuous to be of any great use.
Post Cyber Punk
Precocious Crush: Wabisuke was Natsuki's "first love."
Product Placement: Surprisingly the English version didn't wipe these out. You got Dr. Pepper, iPhones, and Dell Computers to name a few.
Psychic Nosebleed: Kenji suffers one after being forced to crack the third encryption in a row while trying to divert a runaway satellite from crashing into the Jinnouchi's house.
Rapid-Fire Typing: Used extensively - Kazuma is especially good at it.
Rousing Speech: Comes post-mortem from Sakae in the form of a letter that largely serves as the major turning point of the film due to the way it finally unites the family- Natsuki convinces the prodigal son to come home, the men put aside the war long enough to have a meal and mourn their loss with everyone else, and the women are finally convinced to help fight the war against the virus.
Rule Of Cool: There's no practical reason that Natsuki needs the upgrade from the OZ admins, since it just pretties up her avatar. BUT IT'S AWESOME.
Serious Business: Hanafuda, koi-koi version. Justified with the final match since people's lives are depending on it.
"Of course this family would bet everything on Hanafuda..."
Shipper on Deck: The whole family (sans Shota) after Kenji saves the day.
Shout Out:
- Oz's virtual guardians are two whales called John and Yoko.
- The first encrypted message begins with "The magic words are squeamish ossifrage", the text of a rather famous cryptography puzzle.
- The storyline is quite similar to the 1983 film WarGames: a young man takes up a challenge from a rogue AI, releases it upon a vast network of computers and almost brings about the destruction of the world. Furthermore, the original creator of the rogue AI finally has the chance to repent for his sins.
- The Nakama Punch from One Piece movie #6 shows up and it's as awesome now as it was then.
- King Kazma is a likely reference to Cave Story. King and Kazuma are two characters from the game. The anthromorphic rabbit design supports this.
- The satellite photos and coordinates of the nuclear power plants were real. For example they show the Qinshan Nuclear Power Plant (China), Cattenom Nuclear Power Plant (France), Susquehanna Steam Electric Station (USA), and Limerick Nuclear Power Plant (USA). Some of the coordinates have typos in them though.
- The list of people other than Kenji that managed to solve the code from Oz's security system have names slightly modified from the names of noted mathematicians. For example, Andrey John Wiles = Andrew John Wiles, famous for proving Fermat's Last Theorem.
- Love Machine's body language during its first fight with King Kazma is highly reminiscent of the Evangelions in Berserker mode.
- The face of Love Machine's second form very strongly resembles that of Mazinger Z.
- The visual style of OZ, especially the large centerpiece in the middle◊, is highly reminiscent of the works of Japanese artist Takashi Murakami◊.
Slasher Smile: Love Machine's only expression.
Smooch of Victory
Spanner in the Works: The "flood the castle" strategy might have worked had Shota not taken nearly all the ice blocks being used to cool the supercomputer.
- Kazuma might've been able to beat Love Machine shortly after he took over Oz and totally avoid all the chaos he unleashed. But just as he had the program in a headlock, his cousins began to climb over him, allowing Love Machine to absorb some other avatars.
Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Definitely on the side of idealism.
The Stoic: Kazuma. When everyone else is rejoicing he barely even smiles when they manage to get most of the accounts back from Love Machine. Shown to be Not So Stoic a few scenes before because he feels he failed to protect his mother and unborn sister.
Super Fun Happy Thing of Doom: Love Machine isn't nearly as pleasant a program as its name would lead you to believe. Justified in that it was named by a Japanese man with an odd sense of humor.
Surprisingly Good English: The English voice over during the opening and Sakuma's chatroom (there are some spelling mistakes, but let's just say they're typos: it is a chatroom).
Suspiciously Similar Song: 'Overture of the Summer Wars' is a heterogeneous piece of music that includes a just-barely-changed sample from Ralph Vaughan Williams's suite 'The Wasps'.
Time Bomb: Love Machine eventually sets a two-hour countdown on OZ's worldwide clock. When it hit zero, it was supposed to crash a Japanese satellite, which it had recently taken over, into a nuclear power plant. Once Love Machine is thwarted, and the timer stops, it starts up again, this time with the satellite aiming right at the house the main characters are sitting in.
Totally Radical: Someone on Sakuma's chatroom says "holycow".
Too Dumb to Live: To some extent, nearly the entire family until it's explained just how high the stakes are in their situation. One particular example is Shota taking the computer's cooling ice blocks to keep Grandma Sakae's body from overheating.
- Justified in that the family is in mourning over the loss of their matriarch. While some members of the family are focusing on getting revenge on the virus that caused her to die, most of them are simply dealing with the loss and focusing on all the work for the funeral. When that sort of thing happens to people, their instinct tends to be to turn their focus inward.
- And the U.S. military deciding to test out Love Machine by releasing it into Oz, which is used by most world governments.
Tron Lines: Love Machine, second avatar onward.
Twenty Minutes into the Future: Set in 2010. Wonder when that colossal virtual city full of corporate users is gonna get released?
Unlucky Everydude: Kenji.
The Virus: Justified — Love Machine is explicitly a botnet, a program designed to be this trope. His evolution even mirrors the progress of a worm — he starts off as an "evil" version of Kenji's avatar — the initial infection-but gradually gains more menacing forms as he assimilates more computing power.
Visual Novel Shot: Used in the scene where Natsuki explains to Kenji about his pretending to be her fiance. This is a rare case where it's used not only for one character, but for both perspectives.
�Well Done Son� Guy: Wabisuke through and through.
Woman in White: Natsuki.
The Worm that Walks: Love Machine's second One-Winged Angel form, consisting of millions of avatars. Used like that, they certainly become "creepy things".
Your Princess Is in Another Castle: Love Machine's plan to smash a satellite into a nuclear power plant is thwarted ...then it aims the satellite at the house instead.
You Will Be Assimilated: See above.