Both Summer Wars (2009) and the Second Digimon Movie: Bokura no War Game (2000) were both directed by Mamoru Hosoda… and on closer inspection, these two movies might have more in common than just being directed by the same person.
Following the jump will be detailed comparison between the two movies inclusive of plot details, screenshot comparisons and more. Those who have not watched either movie yet (or at least haven’t watched Summer Wars), please do so because they are both phenomenal movies.
(SUPER PICTURE HEAVY. Don’t get me started on how long the entire post took to complete…)
Before getting into the comparisons, this will not be a review of either movie, nor is this an attempt to discredit Summer Wars. Summer Wars does have numerous differences that sets itself apart from the Second Digimon movie, however, the similarities that they share are nothing short of uncanny. It also seems that many people who have seen both movies are inclined to agree with this observation.
The thing is, I really hope that those who watched and enjoyed Summer Wars would give the Digimon movie a chance. It is really unfair to avoid the latter due to the stigma that is attached to it (Digimon = Children’s Cartoon), which it really isn’t.
The animation and artstyles are strangely similar, despite the fact that the Second Digimon Movie and Summer Wars were animated by different animation studios, Toei Animation and Mad House respectively. Not to mention, it doesn’t seem like anyone from the Second Digimon Movie worked on Summer Wars, other than Mamoru Hosoda.
When watching these two movies, I noticed a ton of shots and dialogue that were so bizarrely similar that I refuse to believe that they were coincidences.
Let’s get right to it shall we?
First, the basics:
Premise: Teenagers having to deal with a digital threat that poses a very real danger in the real world.
Main Duo: Koiso Kenji & Ikezawa Kazuma / Yagami Taichi & Koshiro Izumi
Digital World: OZ / Internet
Threat: AI / Virus Digimon
Digital Character: Avatars / Digimon
Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get right to the plot and screenshots. For the following screencaps, it will be Summer Wars first, followed by Digimon.
———
The movies begin as a threat on cyberspace emerges. This entity ‘consumes’ data.
We see our main duo in front of computers at the start of it all.
Cut to our first battle in cyberspace.
Target in sight.
Come forth our heroes!
The battle commences.
Our heroes seem to have the upper hand, but then, evolution!
…and they are swiftly defeated.
The threat then begins to mess with communications networks and the like.
Family/reinforcements can’t make it to our heroes’ residence…
Desperation face.
The effects are reported on the news.
Help is enlisted via video conference.
Then it’s time for an upgrade…
and rematch!
The enemy evolves into its final form.
Once again, our heroes gain the upper hand, but as they say, technical issues strike at the most critical moments.
Defeat.
A timer pops up.
SW:
DM:
To make things worse, the ante is upped when the enemy causes an object that can cause mass destruction to fall from the sky.
SW:
DM:
The solution is to search for one specific target within millions.
When all hope seems lost…
people from around the world come to the rescue by giving our heroes strength.
which allows them evolve into a more powerful form.
Kaboom!
SW:
DM:
People from around the world witness the final battle and cheer our heroes on.
The falling object is moments away from impact!
Disable the enemy!
Time to deliver the final blow!
The incident concludes with the object falling just meters from the protagonists’ residence.
———
So there we have it. Summer Wars and the Second Digimon Movie compared nearly scene for scene, shot for shot. Coincidence? Tribute? Reference? Homage? Plagiarism? You be the judge.
Oh yeah, Baseball!
UPDATE! 5 years later, I’ve finally managed to make a video version going through both movies scene-for-scene! Do enjoy!
Actar's Otaku Life 
Wow… he directed both movies? He was obviously too lazy to be creative twice. Interesting that they both have similar art styles, especially for their respective cyber-realms.
WoW!! that was amuse story..looks same happened in cyberspace..two thumbs up ^Y^
While I totally agree that there are a lot of…um…similarities between the two flicks, I wouldn’t go as far as commenter Alexeon did to say that Hosoda was “too lazy to be creative twice.” If anything, it seems that he had a TON of NEW IDEAS of ways to flesh out the original Digimon story. I mean, if you were to put up screen caps of all of the differences and/or additions, there would’ve been hundreds.
The way I see it, Hosoda wasn’t simply repeating himself, but following his artistic impulses by continuing to explore a theme that fascinates him. Think of the way that someone like Eminem continues to return to subject of his ex, Kim, or the way that an author like Elmore Leonard keeps writing stories about down-on-their-luck Detroit ex-cons. To me, that’s what Hosoda is doing with out-of-control computer programs/viruses/digital pets. This sh*t inspires him!
@ Ju-osh: I definitely do agree with you on the point that he improved on the original Digimon Movie’s concept. As I already stated in the post, Summer Wars does enough to differentiate itself from the original Digimon movie. Especially with Summer Wars, the tremendous increase in run-time does allow for more story, development and characterization.
It’s all fine and good if Hosoda loves this concept and wants to keep doing shows of this nature… but, and this is a big but, he didn’t have to make it so similar to a previous movie. In this respect, I can see where Alexeon is coming from and agree with him to a certain extent.
Similarities in premise and concept aside, he could have easily made variations in the story progression, the sequence of events, the real-world threat, the battles, the resolution, etc… which all remain practically the same. Even with a single concept, there are a myriad of ways in which it could have been executed differently.
Just like how Macross Zero, Macross, Macross Plus, Macross 7 and Macross Frontier all have to do with transforming planes, songstresses, a love triangle and how music can make a difference…
and just like how Sakura, Sailormoon, Nanoha, PreCure and Madoka are all Magical Girls and all have a magical item, familiar/mascot character and henshin scene…
they are all extremely different from one another and don’t share anything in common other than those core aspects that serves to identify a show as a Macross/Magical Girl show.
So I guess what it all boils down to is, yes, Summer Wars is an excellent movie that was the result of Hosoda taking the Digimon movie and improving on it.
It’s just that, for a brilliant director such as himself, he could have done even more.
I didnt mean to say it was a carbon copy or anything. I loved Summer Wars (havent seen Digimon as Im not a fan of the franchise) but I meant that as a director, its almost like he took the same script and changed the names. Like Actar said, the core concepts may remain similar but the individual scenes could have been a bit different. Still, Summer Wars was definitely an awesome movie.
You know what they say – if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it.
Bokura no War Game was one of my favorite movies growing up and was both a great movie and a great success. It is not surprising that a movie taking its plot, and adding great animation, superior characters and character development, and more side plots, had great success as well.
We all have things we wished we could do differently, I would not be surprised if Hosoda had Summer Wars planned even before the Digimon movie, and had to settle for the very limited format of a short running side-story to an existing show rather than a full time movie, and had to wait many years, until he became an acclaimed director after TokiKake, to complete his vision.
As I do hate getting on things late, I watched this last night and noticed INSTANTLY without looking anything up. I also realized that both Izzy and Kazma were drinking fruit juice! But yes, I noticed every point made in this post as I watched it and was just left asking “Why?” I went to see Digimon in theatres, and at one point in time, when my grandma had rented it for me, I watched it literally over and over. My favorite movie quote of all time is “Colorado, why there?” and I don’t even know why. I felt like my childhood was raped by this movie. That all being said, cinematically, I enjoyed it in the same way I enjoyed Digimon, for obvious reasons. I do have to say, however, that I HIGHLY enjoyed the scenery art, it was extremely well done. Digimon aside, Summer Wars would still get a 5/5.
I adored Digimon movie 2 in both the english and japanese versions and was only more proud to see a stand alone movie like this work so fantastically and appease what i’ve been looking for! There’s alot of similarities but that doesn’t mean it was bad!
The one thing I don’t understand is when people call it plagiarism. How can you plaigarize your own work? Even if it was with a different property, you can’t steal your own ideas. That just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
I like many here really loved Our War Game. And I can’t begin to explain how much I loved Summer Wars when it took all the neat stuff from Our no War Game and made it better. And besides, Our War Game didn’t get me all choked up. Summer Wars did more than once. haha I think everyone can agree the concept of Our War Game was awesome so I’m glad he was able to reuse the concept and apply it to a movie that had a MUCH wider audience so others can appreciate it just the same.
Thanks a lot for putting this together. I saw the movie last night, and I was amazed at how similar the two films were, going so far as even to replicate camera shots. And obviously enough that I noticed my first watch.
Regarding Summer Wars as an “improvement” over the Digimon film, though, I have to disagree. Now I only saw the American release of the Digimon film, so it was more than a little abridged. But it had a much more concentrated approach to storytelling, which I really appreciate.
Summer Wars begins with a documentary showing us lots of pretty things while a voice-over explains what “Oz” is. It sort of reads like someone’s highly produced demo reel, with tedious backstory laid over it. But it’s really just the Internet, and that’s what Digimon does. It forgoes any of that backstory by simply entering the Internet and presenting these bizarre images once they enter. We accept this, immediately to be “what the Internet looks like on the inside”. Audiences would have given “Oz” the same benefit had they foregone the opening sequence.
But what is really troublesome to me is that after the documentary part, we are taken away from the idea of “Oz” for several minutes. A code-monkey is dragged to his friend’s family reunion, where he is forced to pretend to be her fiance, while he may secretly have true feeling for her. At the same time, all of the members of the family come together from very different backgrounds, each bringing different secrets and belief systems. THEN, quite a bit later, a dangerous virus is introduced into “Oz”.
There are three premises right there, which, given the amount of attention Summer Wars gives each of these points, are enough to make their own movie. But since there’s only time in a movie for…one movie, it managed only to adequately conclude one of those premises.
Digimon, on the other hand, focused mainly on the virus issue the whole time, with a sub-plot regarding Tai’s love life. The love story is not focused on as much, but the through the use of some clever metaphor a subtext, the two plots are connected. That is why it is, to me, the preferable film.
Also, the Barenaked Ladies.
Anyway, thanks again for putting this together. I hope I haven’t bored you, but the idea of a director managing to make the same movie twice really interests me, haha!
I have just watched Summer Wars by now. During the movie I was amazed when I could notice the similarities with digimon movie. It’s so nice. Digimon is one of my favorites movies in my childhood and seeing a version too much developed now makes me happy.
My theory about the link between the movies is that Hosoda had a lot of ideas when directing digimon, but he couldn’t use due to superiors orders… so he decided to do Summer Wars in the way he would like to have done digimon… Both are wonderful, especially visually… but summer wars is too much developed…
I’m in love with it
Visually, I would go with Summer Wars. I had no idea that Summer Wars was this similar to another movie… I’m still having a hard time believing it. Could this movie have been an updated version of Digimon?
Good Lord….Serious lack of creativity there….
I can see the effort you put into making this post, and I applaud you for it. *Hands Feito cake*
I greatly appreciate the effort and time put into this post.
I don’t understand how this director took one of his own, old movies’ plots and rehashed it in a more confusing and overtly complex format– the rationale behind this escapes me and I assume the only thing we’ll ever be able to do about it is speculate.
On a secondary note, I kept hoping that Summer Wars’ OZ avatars would look better, but they mainly just got worse. I mean, blonde hair, growing magically out of a pair of goggles because you powered up, really? Really? Thought this was a Digimon ripoff, not a DBZ one. I really preferred the aesthetic of Digimon, especially Diaboromon’s design.
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[…]The Plagiarism of Summer Wars? « Actar’s Reviews – The Blog[…]…
In fairness to Summer Wars, Digimon Our Wargame was basically a rip off of the American movie, Wargames.
I think you’re doing a horrible disservice to both movies by comparing them shot for shot in that fashion as you’re leaving out a lot from Summer Wars. The construct around the computer world is the challenge they must over come sure… but the real drama comes from the family in Summer Wars. Digimon doesn’t have that or even come close.
I seriously feel like the director wanted to tell a story about family and was restricted to keeping the film one way for digimon and finally got his chance the second time around.
Of course it isn’t plagiarism. It’s director Hosoda’s story. And it’s a great story. This was his opportunity to make his own full length feature film without being tied down by the Digimon franchise.
If the styles look similar, it’s because 9 times out of 10, directors in Japan are artists and are able to draw and animate their own visions. That’s why all of Miyazaki’s movies look similar, even the ones animated outside of Studio Ghibli.
And what happens on the network is only half of the Summer Wars movie; what make’s it superior to Our War Game is the B story that occurs in the real world centered around Natsuki’s family. Digimon had characters and plot points all ready set up, but with his own film, Hosoda was able invent his own cast, and make the conflict more relevant to the real world, rather than the Digimon universe. If Our War Game was one of the best things to come out of the Digimon franchise, who’s to fault the man for wanting to improve upon it?
Finally to say that the man ran out of creativity, he’s directed two other feature length films — The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and The Wolf Children Ame and Yuki, the latter of which is his own original story.
This a good speculation on your account. I think though that you do not understand the basis of the similarities in the two movies. As many of the previous post say, you can’t plagiarize your own work. If you have watched the interview, Hosada clearly explains that Summer Wars and Digimon are based on the movie War Games. The movie Summer Wars is supposed to be an improvement on the elements that Hosada failed to depict in Digimon hence the many similarities.
Haha I know that they are both really similar, but I adore both movies so much! I have seen both of them a lot of times and i will continue to watch them over and over :D
I do have to say though that both of them might have quite a close story line, but in digimon, well there is digimon, and in summer wars there are avatars.
I didn’t even know it was by the same person, but that makes me like the both of them even more.
I wish people would learn what plagiarism actually means before they use the words in an article. You CAN’T steal main ideas or story themes. What you are pointing out are ALL story themes and MANY stories have the same themes you pointed out.
@ (…)
A. It’s not story themes that I was comparing in the article, but plot progression, narrative structure, etc…
B. Yes, stealing ideas does constitute plagiarism. I’m studying in a University and they drill the definition of plagiarism into our heads nearly every day. Do check your sources.
C. I never actually accused Summer Wars of plagiarism in the article. Not even once. The word is in the title, framed as a question as opposed to an accusation, was to sensationalize the article (which obviously worked) and in the end, I left it to the readers to decide.
@ Lambie
…and I never said that it was. (^.^;) Perhaps what I was trying to get at in the article is that I personally would have liked to have seen something different from Mamoru Hosoda. Yes, he’s free to re-use the basic setups, but as I said in some of the earlier comments, I didn’t think he needed to go as far as to rehash the sequence of events, the circumstances surrounding said events and even the specific camera angles and direction.
Yes, perhaps he just wanted to do the story more justice, but to be dreadfully honest, as a Digimon fan, it did somewhat come off as uninspired. Even on my first viewing, the similarities did affect my enjoyment of the movie as I found myself subconsciously comparing the two.
I’m sure someone of his caliber would be able to weave a masterpiece of similar quality even without those elements and make it stand (even further) apart from the Digimon movie that he made all those years back. After all, it is indeed as you said – the main heart of the movie is in the off-network family relations and interactions.
Of course, that’s just my opinion and take on the issue. (^.^)
ok person for one i created the ideal for king kazma and i take offense to your stupidity and they werent meant to be the same but most directors just like artist have some of the same things in there work so stfu and move on with your life you troll.
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I just finished watching this movie with my brother and he (who was a hardcore Digimon fan) made this observation towards the end of the scene. Another similarty we caught was the same “red line” outline the virtual world character has. I personally loved this in the Digimon movie, and enjoyed seeing it again.
But I hadnt realized just how many similarities there were until I read you post! I really enjoyed both films, but in my mind each one serves a different audience. I really liked the emphasis on family in Summer Wars, and that made it unique enough for me.
Great post!
It’s all about respect. that plot is the trademark of Digimon. The memoriable scene when Omegamon appear. it’s for Digimon Only. Respect the base idea, respect the characters, respect the fans. see characters as something that was lived even years ago
I really don’t think the director had any lack of creativity in having made summer wars after digimon. He created what I would say is one of my favourite movies when he made the digimon movie, but that’s just what it was. He was constrained to the digimon franchise. If anything he was able to put forward what he really wanted for the digimon movie in summer wars without having to conform to plots and ideas that would draw in the “digimon audience”. While i understand the tendency to see this as a lack of creativity on the director’s part, I think you need to look at the two films as not separate but as a collective vision by the director. Together they are two great movies and if you can’t see summer wars that way because you feel some sort of entitlement to only enjoying the digimon movie well then that’s your problem.
um, you DO know that it’s been said that Hosoda took all the ideas he couldn’t use in Our War Game and put them into Summer Wars…right? not so much plagarism as it is a 2.0. >>;
[…] Similarities my butt. Its a virtual shot for shot remake. […]
Every 5 minutes at the least I was able to recall my 40+ watches of the second digimon movie as a child, “When that probe falls, it’ll somehow fall into water and cause a geyser”.
Makes me want to watch digimon movie all over again. This isn’t a bad thing though, because I’m so familiar with the movie and loved digimon so much that made this movie more enjoyable.
I remember reading something online that said that the “Digimon Movie” served as a prototype for the “Summer Wars” movie.
In all fairness, it does not look like plagiarism; it is simply like an upgrade or a parody.
Either way, they are both great movies.
Plagiarism..? Are you kidding? I consider it a straight up remake. And I don’t blame the director, it was a fantastic plot and deserved to be made into a movie that would be accessible to non Digimon fans! (I still like the Digimon movie better though.)
I knew it! Just watched Summer Wars and while I was watching it, I already noticed its plot being strangely similar to Digimon. Plagiarism or remake, both movies are great!
In all fairness, both movies are great. I see people saying that Summer Wars was better overall, but I wouldn’t go that far. Digimon would probably be just as good (if not better) if it had as much screen time as SW.
What really makes me sick about Summer Wars is that it was a tremendous success, and well… digimon didn’t have that luck for obvious reasons, the problem I see is that, unless you’re a hardcore digimon fan and had watch the digimon movie, you’d never see how simlar both movies are, and well… digimon came first, it’s the original. I belive the director should have left a tribute to digimon in his new movie, or AT LEAST comment about it so other people would watch it aswell…. You don’t see reviewers, wikipedia, newspaper, etc, mentioning digimon even once when you serach for Summer Wars, and I think that’s TOO unfair for a movie as good as the Digimon movie.
@ Acrof: You’ve pretty much perfectly summed up what I think about this entire issue.
Reblogged this on World of Values and commented:
Both films’ climaxes give me goosebumps everytime I watch. #Digimon #BokuraNoWarGame #SummerWars #MamoruHosoda #anime #film
in the Digimon movie, Diaboromon launch 2 missiles. i guess you could say one in Digimon and the other in Summer War, only Diaboromon corrupted two avatar.
I’m not even going to dignify this by reading the whole thing, and frankly I shouldn’t even waste time on this response. It is possible to accuse millions of movies or stores of plagiarizing millions of others on any of an infinite number of possible elements. The mere fact that the STORY, a powerful tale, perhaps even an omen of the future, could be told 2, or 2 thousand ways, is not basis of plagiarism. Combine with this the incredibly well documented tendency of Japanese animation artists to draw cute avatar-like characters based in a virtual world of some kind is no different than the global tendency of fantasy artists of any genre to devise amazingly detailed characters in whatever their appropriate worlds are. Use of key background colors to elicit greater responses from the audience, like white with bright, or black with dark, are documented the world over. The classic tale of “the good guy gets defeated and comes back stronger” is so cliche’ that it’s almost impossible to find a story that DOESN’T contain this element.
The mere fact that someone decided they had to get their 15 minutes of fame by making small-minded accusations about stupid topics that are extremely subjective just makes me laugh even harder at that person, and all the people who buy into it. And besides, there are hundreds or THOUSANDS of movies that depict “global doom because of the internet”, what’s so special about this one?
What makes Summer Wars powerful is not its take on a GLOBAL theme, but the remarkable underlying elements of traditional family values, attention to the tiniest details that most people completely miss, and character development achieved in such a short period of time. Go back and watch the movie again, LEARN from it, leave behind your juvenile attention span and actually take some amazingly powerful cultural education from it. Maybe…. just maybe… you’ll find better things to focus your attention on.
Such as admitting the fault is your OWN, not everyone else’s.
@anon@penet.fi:
Haha, if you won’t read it, perhaps you’ll watch it! (^o^)
But in all seriousness, if you don’t even want to dignify reading the entire article, then I won’t even take your response seriously because your overreaction is precisely what you accuse me of being, juvenile.
Firstly, this post has a deliberately sensationalized title where I never actually accused anyone of plagiarism. I just laid the facts on the table and left it for the reader to decide. If you actually bothered to read the entire thing or were intelligent/perceptive enough, you’d know that.
Secondly, the similarities go beyond common tropes. The plot progression, set-ups, camera angles, direction, cinematography, it’s all the same. But of course, you’re too blinded by your own fanaticism to realize that. Besides, I’m not the only one to have noticed the similarities. Don’t forget to show all the others how much of an elitist you are to those people too!
Not to mention, I did say that “Summer Wars does have numerous differences that sets itself apart from the Second Digimon movie”. Just because I never talked about those differences or how they made Summer Wars a great movie doesn’t mean that I don’t get them. It wasn’t within the scope of this article and was honestly completely irrelevant. “Cultural education”? Pffft. Feel free to take a look at all the research papers I’ve written and posted on this blog. Summer Wars has been analyzed to death and I’ve pretty much read every interpretation there is. What you’re saying is hardly revolutionary.
Anyways, thanks for the laugh. It’s not that often that I get accosted by someone who thinks that they’re so much smarter than everyone else around them. At the very least, it’s refreshing. Hopefully you’ll realize that your whole condescending shtick will not serve you well in the real world.
Grow up.
Well said.
I actually saw Summer Wars before Our War Game. When I watched the latter with my sister, we both loved it (I never liked Summer Wars, but she’s a big fan), but throughout the whole thing she kept saying, “Just like Summer Wars,” and when the virus completely evolved, she said, “Geez, I can’t tell if he looks more like Love Machine or Majora’s Mask!” Everything happened in the exact same order, and we predicted everything out loud about halfway through because it followed (practically) the exact same sequence. However, I found Our War Game much more entertaining and plausible. Why?
What really lead me to dislike it (characters aside) when I first watched Summer Wars was the fact that OZ, in my opinion, didn’t have a real reason–or function, rather–for the sudden morphing, transforming, evolving, whatever you want to call it. In Digimon, that’s basically their purpose–to digivolve, giving them superior data, so they can defeat the bad guy. In Summer Wars, you get blonde hair and stuff…and…? That’s going to make your luck level go up for playing Koikoi or something? I don’t see how this effects anything, given that the setup of OZ isn’t really geared towards that… (Not to mention Love Machine is corrupting practically everything; one would think he’d be able to change the probability levels to lean in his favor if he can hack in and launch a bomb…) So…yeah, I think the director’s concept was carried out much better in the first movie. And I can’t even be biased against it because I watched Summer Wars first–it’s just that, despite the similarities (or repetition, at that), the premises for which Our War Game was built on was just more structured and flowed better. (In my opinion, of course.)
And, to be honest (and a critic, haha), if people are trying to say that Summer Wars (as a remake, spinoff, ripoff, movie in itself, or however you yourself sees it) is better/more appealing/more creative because it deals with character development and deeper plots like family and love interest…what? I feel like all of the characters were rather immature and didn’t change at all come end of the movie, and the same applies to all the relationships between, well, everyone…. Perhaps Our War Game didn’t add much character depth and relationship change (if any, really) either, but we experienced that, and got to know the characters, through the show. (Even with that, my sister didn’t even watch Digimon and she still thought Our War Game was a great movie.)
And someone said Summer Wars got them emotional several times? Does “boredom” and “annoyance” fall within “emotional”? Because then I can empathise. However, I actually did feel a bit emotional for Our War Game. My childhood buddies were dying and that music definitely made it clear that they (Digimon and Digidestined alike) were suffering, even if I knew they weren’t really going to die–now THERE, the relationship between the Digidestined and their Digimon in that movie, is a tie that actually was developed, emphasized, and expressed. I cannot really say the same for Summer Wars.
Okay, I’m done talking and ready for people to hate me, but whatever, I said what I wanted to say.
Have you seen SUPERFLAT MONOGRAM? It is a promotional short film that Hosoda directed for Louis Vuitton/Takashi Murakami. While it is much less serious and more whimsical in nature, it shares a lot of conceptual and visual similarities with the two films. (I believe it was released after Digimon, but before Summer Wars)
I believe that there wasn’t any plagiarism, nor was it a mere coincidence. Plagiarism would involve taking material that isn’t yours and taking credit for it. That didn’t happen with Summer Wars. Hosoda directed both Summer Wars and the Digimon Movie, and so he holds credit for both of them. And although there were a lot of similarities, nothing was copied and pasted from the Digimon Movie onto Summer Wars either. And as for a coincidence, since these movies were made by the same director and follow similar plots and scenarios, it would make sense for there to be many similarities between the two. Too many similarities to be a coincidence. To me, it seems more like a reference and a tribute, in which Summar Wars took made many references to the Digimon Movie (as seen with the pictures) and tributed Digimon’s success.
Ok, I got really quite disheartened about everyone here claiming that reusing your own content or ideas is not plagiarism. It is.
So for anybody coming to this hidden place on the internet, this music analyst on youtube has a really good explanation as to why self-plagiarism can be bad: https://youtu.be/N8O7DSkKe_4?t=12m2s
Personally I was quite dissapointed in Summer Wars- it was so similar to the digimon movie (which I love), that at a certain point I could just guess every storybeat of SW waaaay in advance.
I should just point one thing you said wrong. You said that Digimon has a stigma for being a children’s cartoon.
But that’s not really wrong. Digimon was a series meant for children (and cartoons are just drawings that move). The real stigma is the idea that things meant for children can’t be good or enjoyed by adults (which is BS, Disney and Digimon both proved otherwise).
Of course, they brought back the original characters for the nostalgic crowd who loved the original series as kids and created Digimon Savers for the older crowd.
The reason I’m posting my comment is because that one line is basically implying that if something is for children, it can’t be good, and if it’s good, then it can’t be for children.
Digimon was a children’s cartoon. But, it was a good and beloved one. And being made for children can’t take away from that.
Ugh!! I cant say more than ugh!!! why!? because is true, I will only say my opinion here so please dont cut my head off, BUT holy sh*t this is right, they copied one of my favorite movies of all time and you know what? I JUST NOTICED HERE, why? because I HATED THE SUMMER WARS MOVIE, it was so so soooo uninteresting and….wtf I didnt even know what was going on the half of the time….
The reason why I decided to watch it was because in the cover it looked so nice and the style reminded me of an anime which I recomend if you like weird/cute/complex stuff “Kyousou Giga”. Anyways…. thanks for let me vent my rage
Wow, I knew they were similar but I never thought they were practically identical…… oh well ^_^ I love them both to bits.
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Hey have you heard that he’s making another movie just like this called Belle