Today marks the 10th anniversary of the release of the critically-acclaimed anime film Summer warsThe 2009 feature won several awards and further fixed the reputation of director Mamoru Hosoda as an up-and-coming anime creator who previously directed The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and Would go on to direct films such as Wolf children, The boy and the beast, And the Oscar-nominated MiraiTo this day, Summer wars Represents a milestone in his illustrious career as a visually-stunning and emotional story about a family whose heart-wrenching drama is at the center of an internet crisis that threatens the world.
In the film, Oz functions as an entertainment hub but also allowed people to conduct business on the level of the film is a glamourous and fantastical world of Oz, a VR platform integrated into the very infrastructure of modern society. The plot even focused on how an evolving virus wreaking havoc on OZ had disastrous effects on the real world! For its time, it was certainly a far more advanced reality than anything we might have seen in real life.
Now in 2019, our lives have become far more virtual. Much of our daily routings are really on the internet or are otherwise made far more efficient by using the right app. It's no stretch to say our society operates in the same way as the OZ-reliant world of Summer wars. Does Oz still more advanced than our society, or have we taken steps in our computer-consolidated world thats hadn't thought of? Let's see how our up-to-the-stacks .
In order to properly examine how advanced our world has become compared to Summer warsAt its core, it gathered a user ’s entire life—from business to entertainment—Using highly-customizable avatars, users could explore a vast online world for both leisure and professional work. Users can take advantage of this kind of computer network, it can be accessed from computers, television, flip phones, and even portable games. from movies to fashion to food to real estate on OZ in its wide selection of online stores.
As a global network, OZ users could communicate in chat rooms with anyone in the world using real-time translations, removing language as a barrier for socializing. People could also participate in online sporting events from soccer to martial arts
Even local governments have around a world in open s, opening up service services for visits to Missions. Visit Survivingly, large corporations also have branches on OZ, where workers would “cyber-commute” to virtual cubicles and conduct business there. emergency services could be accessed through OZ, and you could even use it to pay your taxes. Your entire life was collected on a singular network, and then expanded exp. Optionally. It was as functional as a part of the whole world. whole entity, it was certainly much more innovative than anything in our reality at the time.
Speaking of which, let's take a look at where technology was during Summer Wars' The iPhone 3GS was the latest model with the iPhone at the time, with the Samsung Galaxy making its debut on. June 29 of that year, mere days before Summer wars'Theatrical release on August 1.
CNN reported that the iTunes applications have been shared in the spotlight. over 2 billion downloads across various appsSome of the most popular apps downloaded that year Google document which included app viewers, GPS navigation, games, messengers, radio stations, and more. Other smart devices would start catching up with the trend as well, with Android and Blackberry products launching their own apps stores. in 2008, only began supporting priced apps in 2009.
Social networking saw a similar growth in popularity. Facebook would go from its humble beginnings as a site for college students to reach users Across all countries and demographics. By the end of 2009, the social networking site gained over 350 million users with the average user spending an hour a day online. People from all over the world contributed to the “micro-blogging” trend with tweets and concise updates on developing news stories almost exactly as they happened. Online messing was also a developing craze. Apps like AIM and Skype allowed people to connect with each other with video calls and messages, but Facebook chat was slowly becoming more popular as a means of communication.
Already, we can draw some interesting parallels in the comparison between Summer wars and real life. By and large, the cast of Summer wars are often using flip phones, reflecting Japan ’s overall reliance on said devices that persist well into recent yearsWhile something that can certainly be said about the processing capabilities of the flip phones being able to run as something as advanced as OZ, instances of smartphone usage of the cases of smartphones that are only between a few and far between. , smartphones were already the new standard of devices essential to your daily life.
As for news as entertainment, users could receive vast amounts of televised news updates on the dot. As soon as a news broadcast as a news or be wanted you check out a movie, it could be fed right into your OZ interface.
Millions of OZ's chatrooms allowed users to converse with several people different from different languages. Real time translations almost instantly converted a user's speech and text to other peoples Barring any region-specific message apps or language preferences on your computer, nothing in 2009 could come close to matching the translation efficiency that Oz defeated, OZ users could also jump right onto other people's chatrooms seamlessly to talk with other people.
For instance, real-time translations on mobile devices was first developed and utilized in Japan in 1999 and featured direct speech translation. Between 2004 and 2006Though even then, it would just support conversations between two people in two different languages., it was released and implemented for SMS, emails, and instant messaging.
You certainly can't have live conversations with a native Japanese speaker, a native Hindi speaker, a native French speaker, a native Tagalog speaker, and a native English speaker as fluent as you could on OZ. Technically, Oe. At the time, nothing could connect people on the internet quite easily. Was the lifeline of Summer wars’Society. Even world leaders conducted their business on the networking platform. For better or worse, society was large reliably on OZ to function.
Now, let's fast-forward 10 years, where we begin to see just how much of our online lives reflect that OZTFlip phones are practically extinct as a part of the world, as they have a chance to live in the palm of your hand. Our connectivity is more than just some of the daily responsibilities into a few of our daily responsibilities. And yes, even our governments and businesses are unabashedly reliant on their smart devices and internet in order to function.
But of course, we need to bring it back to Summer wars. Have we exceeded Hosoda's expectations for society? Is OZ still more advanced than our world? Let's break it down.
News from fashion to running to nuclear power, nuclear power, there wasn't much you couldn't do on Oz. Many of the apps and sites we use include various functions that do indeed match up with Summer Wars' infamous social network.
Aside from keeping in touch with friends, the main page alone allows you to create and visit fundraisers, buy and sell anything from phones to houses in houses You can't keep track of news updates, emergencies, and ongoing crises around on the world depending on who you're following. Many of Facebook's current functions are well within OZ's capabilities. can even request and send money to their friends.
It certainly doesn't have a customizable avatar that you can decorate with the hottest fashion, nor can you pay your taxes on it. Not many people exclusively use Facebook for work Instead, we have individu- tives with different purposes, you're better off downloading different keyboard layouts for your typing purposes. different functions from news updates to financial transactions, and most of them can be accessed from our smartphones alone.
PC magazine keeps an for options for you, you have plenty of options. annual list of even preferred as for keeping up with your bills such as TurboTax and H & R Block. They even boast that the H & R Block app works just as well as its browser version.
Though you can't explore the entire internet with them or outfit them in the latest games Gucci styles, games like the upcoming P new new new new new up up up up up up up up ucci Code Vein People can also use platforms like feature several options from which you can choose your appearance. VR Chat with custom avatars to interact with online users.
Trello and Slack are common sites for employees to keep their assignments organized and stay in a state of the world. There are also plenty of note-taking apps that you can download or are you pre-loaded in your phone with begin your work notes in check.
Translation apps have come a long way Apps like iTranslate Voice 3 allow you to speak into your voice and translate your phrases automatically into your language of choice. Other apps like TextGrabber can have love There are also plenty of successful and ongoing Kickstarter projects for sleeks and portable translation devices that strive to help us get closer to real-time translated conversations between the scenes with taking pictures of the text. it's not common practice yet, the idea has started to take shape in recent years.
The same can be said about anything that OZ came up with back in 2009. In many ways, we've got a closer and closer to the vision that Hosoda had for an internet-reliant society. Though we certainly don't have nuclear codes or hospital health monitoring available on a whim, our current internet capabilities allow us to streamline both our professional and social lives in many different ways.
In reality, the internet connection grants you the same kind of accessibility to just about anything about having something else to make sure the world still goes round. In the 10 years since Summer wars' It's certainly be interesting to see how it's about civil network will advance in another 10 years! As of now, all we can say is that Summer wars Certainly wasn't far off in predicting where we'd be now.
Do you think our society is anything like Summer Wars? Leave a comment and let us know! What OZ innovation would you like to see in real life?
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Carlos is a freelance feature writer for Crunchyroll. Their favorite genre from magical girls to over-the-top robot action, yet their favorite characters are always the obscure ones. Check out some of their satirical work on the Hard Times.
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