The Summer Hikaru Died

Episodes 1-3

Which is scarier, the known or the unknown? Your gut probably told you that it's the unknown. That's why we fear darkness. That's why Jaws doesn't need to show the shark. The truth, however, is that we can know something intimately and still be unmoored by it. The mere act of knowing can itself be the vector for horror. The Summer Hikaru Died opens with Yoshiki confronting the monster who looks like his friend, who immediately confirms his worst fears: Hikaru is long dead. Yoshiki knows exactly what's wrong. It's a total vindication of the nagging doubts he's been feeling for the past six months. But when the monster posing as Hikaru cries and hugs him, Yoshiki doesn't pull away. He goes limp and sheds a single tear as a warm alien body finds respite in his own.

There's a lot to write about when considering the themes and construction of The Summer Hikaru Died—too much for this inaugural review—but Yoshiki's immediate, if conflicted, acceptance of the new Hikaru sticks out to me as the keystone. Classic stories about impostors and doppelgangers usually build their tension on the foundation of deceit. We wait anxiously for the protagonists of Invasion of the Body Snatchers to piece together the plot happening right under their noses. The final act of The Thing is rife with paranoia, and even the audience is kept in the dark through the end. Hikaru, meanwhile, literally opens himself up to Yoshiki. Despite lingering questions about his existence and purpose, Hikaru acts like an overeager puppy whenever the two of them are together. When he says that he likes Yoshiki, I believe him. Hikaru literally means “light,” after all.

If there is an element of the unknown in the horror here, it lies within Yoshiki. He can't fully comprehend why he acts the way he does. He embraces Hikaru in one moment and rejects him in another. He seeks outside advice from a complete stranger, yet shuts himself in his room at home. He has eleven copies of volume one and zero copies of volume three. He hides behind his overgrown bangs, unable or unwilling to take in an unfiltered panorama of the world around him. While we can chalk some of these contradictions up to coming-of-age angst, we can't ignore the deeper queerness boiling just beneath the surface.

There's no doubt that Yoshiki is in love with Hikaru. It's the force that compels him to accept the lonely monster's charade, whose outward affection overpowers any lingering sense of guilt directed toward the real Hikaru. Moreover, Yoshiki likes this new relationship. Within a sweltering kaleidoscope of gender and sexuality, he sticks his hand elbow-deep into an invagination on Hikaru's chest, listening to his friend's moans as they vibrate through the top of his skull. He gets so caught up in the moment that he almost lets himself fall completely into Hikaru. The same thing happens in the third episode, as Yoshiki once again realizes how frighteningly intoxicating it is to join flesh with flesh. While the two boys fight and hurt each other, these conflicts seem to only strengthen their connection.

Nestled among the warm and writhing innards of its titular doppelganger, the complexities of queer identity lie at the heart of the horror in The Summer Hikaru Died. Reckoning with that repressed part of oneself is equal parts exciting and terrifying. Don't take my word for it, either. Mangaka Mokumokuren says as much in this interview published last year. Yoshiki can't stick a hand into his own chest and work out its machinations through touch alone. Hikaru, however, gives him an opportunity to explore those feelings with another person. They both have secrets they have to keep from their friends and family. They're both hiding something that threatens to devour everything.

It's also not difficult to understand why Yoshiki would gravitate towards Hikaru's eldritch bosom. Pastoral horror seeps into every nook and cranny of their small town, and only a small portion of it can be traced back to the supernatural. At home, Yoshiki's parents argue incessantly about his truant little sister. In public, the townsfolk openly gossip about his family's affairs, opining with little regard for his feelings or agency. We watch him dissociate as a defense mechanism, and that's more unsettling than any of his scenes with Hikaru. The terror of feeling like an outsider in a tight-knit community is another manifestation of queerness, of course, but pastoral horror invokes plenty of far-reaching themes about in-groups and out-groups and the way paranoia can fester. The Summer Hikaru Died possesses a lot of parallels with Higurashi in particular, given its rural setting, invocation of a vengeful god, adolescent protagonists, shifty adults, and cicada motifs.

I feel like I'm rambling, and there will be plenty of subsequent reviews to dig into the specifics of story and character, so let me wrap up for now by talking about the adaptation. It's really good! Director Ryohei Takeshita most recently came to my attention with Jellyfish Can't Swim in the Night, an anime with some faults but very few directorial ones. The better touchpoint, though, is his episode of Flip Flappers, which is the one I affectionately dub as “The Gang Goes to Yuri Hell.” With its horror setting and send-up of Class S tropes, it has always stuck out to me as one of the best parts of that series, and those talents have definitely found purchase in adapting The Summer Hikaru Died. You can feel the suffocating summer atmosphere in every scene, and I always appreciate it when animators use horror as a license to be avant-garde in their storyboarding. This might not be as bold an aesthetic statement as The Flowers of Evil, but I think it's gunning for a similarly surreal vibe, and so far, I'd say it's successful. Not every adaptation is slinging photographs of raw chicken at its audience.

I must finally confess that I haven't read the manga yet, although I fully intend to do so before the season is up. I think it's worthwhile, for instance, to know whether the frequent framing of Yoshiki's POV through his bangs is an anime invention or something Mokumokuren came up with. I'll find the time to catch up soon. I do know that Mokumokuren was involved with scripting the anime, so obviously this adaptation isn't siloed. From what other people have written, I've also gathered that the hamster guy shows up earlier than he does in the manga. Having no frame of reference for the original structure, I like his presence here. He brings a sinister Twin Peaks vibe to the narrative and introduces a modicum of external pressure to the interior drama between Yoshiki and Hikaru.

Overall, I just like The Summer Hikaru Died a whole lot. It's visually bold, confidently written, unrepentantly weird, and brimming with big ideas. Each of these three episodes has made me gasp for one reason or another, and I'm looking forward to squirming in my seat through the rest of the summer.

Episode 1 Rating:

Episode 2 Rating:

Episode 3 Rating:

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.