The Summer Hikaru Died

Episode 5

This was a great episode to watch on the day after I cleared out my shower drain. A sopping wet mass of parasitic hair is just the image I needed running through my head this weekend. Speaking genuinely, though, The Summer Hikaru Died should be proud of its ability to give me the ick. This week's installment proves especially adept at thinking outside the box, depicting its unique flavor of horror in a fittingly singular way. Eerie storyboarding, mixed media, and impeccable sound design all contribute to the terrifying vibes.

Visually, The Summer Hikaru Died feels like it's always hitting above its weight class. This is by no means a virtuosically animated show, and the shortcuts are there if you know where to look for them. However, as a complete package, it consistently looks prestige. The background art and compositing are strong and arguably the most important component to get right, given the story's reliance on atmospheric terror. This week's storyboards also stand out with their use of high angles and warped perspectives to instill unease in the viewer. And I love the jarring inclusion of other media and art styles. The marinated chicken was a perfect bit, and it's great to see it again, but Yoshiki's nightmare wields uncanniness even more expertly, as photorealistic pillars of flesh suffocate him. I prefer my horror to be avant-garde; this adaptation continues to fit the bill.

Sound is another key factor in the adaptation's success. If you think about it on a fundamental level, audio is the most obvious sensory embellishment that anime possesses over manga, and it's especially important to the genre of horror. I always go back to my first time watching Eraserhead and my immediate fascination with its dark industrial ambience. I hadn't ever experienced a film that sounded like that before. The Summer Hikaru Died uses natural summer ambience well, evoking Higurashi's similar soundscape to a similarly unsettling effect. This episode dials up the variety and shows off more of sound designer Kōji Kasamatsu's formidable talent. Again, Yoshiki's nightmare when possessed by the wig ghost is the highlight, with the gross squelches, distorted dialogue, and Taro Umebayashi's discordant soundtrack working in tandem. I also want to commend whoever decided to add drum and bass to this week's chest fisting scene. That is yet another orthogonal decision that ends up working impeccably.

That scene reminds us, too, that Yoshiki and Hikaru are nothing stranger than a pair of gross and horny teenage boys. There is nothing more authentic than two guys their age egging each other on to do something inadvisable, and the homosexual lust only enhances that veracity. It's legitimately cute how transparent Yoshiki is in both his yearning and his hesitance, while Hikaru's eagerness continues to be his charm point. These feelings also blow up in each other's faces realistically. Hikaru may be a mysterious yokai with an invitingly fleshy chest hole, but he acts on impulse like any other adolescent. Yoshiki, meanwhile, is too far inside his own head to properly consider Hikaru's feelings and the give-and-take necessary to any satisfying sexual encounter. To be fair, sex at his age—especially an encounter that brings out his closeted gay feelings—can often be a scary thing, even when teens can't help obsessing over it. That grounding is why The Summer Hikaru Died's horror hits as hard as it does.

And while these are clichés, love and hate go hand-in-hand alongside sex and violence. In the flashback, we see Yoshiki and the original Hikaru fight as boys over the death of a crow they had been taking care of. Although we only see the explosive ending, we can imagine how this domestic play began on cuter terms. They mutually cared for another creature as partners, and when that falls apart, they fight like a married couple, shoving the blame back and forth as they knowingly prod each other's sore spots. In the present, Yoshiki mindlessly claws and bites at Hikaru, drawing blood and leaving teeth marks. While violent, this is also a deeply intimate exchange, and it mirrors the time that Hikaru lost his cool and almost devoured Yoshiki in the throes of angry passion.

Hikaru assuages Yoshiki's guilt once he comes to his senses, and he joins the Tsujinaka family for dinner afterwards like nothing had happened, his injuries hidden beneath bandages. Yoshiki, however, knows by now that he has been marked. He touched Hikaru, and Hikaru touched him back, leaving both the imprint on his arm and the aura that attracted the wig ghost. They have been “mixed.” Worse still, it affected his sister. However, we should question the reasons behind this haunting. In the post-credits scene, Tanaka performs a small ritual to harness another spirit that can “sniff out” Hikaru. The history of human civilization is the story of us harnessing nature to fit our needs. Maybe we're all “mixed,” and it's only a matter of who is aware of that.

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The Summer Hikaru Died is currently streaming on Netflix.

Steve is on Bluesky for all of your posting needs. You can also catch them chatting about trash and treasure alike on This Week in Anime.