Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
Think I got goosebumps towards the end of episode 1 of ‘The Summer Hikaru Died’ (光が死んだ夏), the anime adaptation of the horror-manga series by Mokumokuren, directed by Ryōhei Takeshita. The animation might not be the best, but it’s gloomy, creepy, and already hitting some strong emotional punches with its opening chapter.
Plot overview: Teenager Hikaru goes missing in the mountains for a week near Kubitachi, a quiet rural village. Once he returns, best friend Yoshiki realizes something is amiss. “You are not Hikaru. Are you?” he directly questions his friend. In response, an eerie entity partially leaps out of Hikaru’s body, exclaiming it was doing its best to imitate the boy and didn’t want to kill Yoshiki. Stunned, a grief-stricken Yoshiki resolves to accept the entity in Hikaru’s body, thinking it’s better to have this shell of a friend than nothing at all.
Titled ‘Replacement‘, episode one of ‘The Summer Hikaru Died’ establishes all of this in the very first few minutes, setting the pace for the bizarre horror manga, where a parallel subplot shows an organization working to hunt entities like the one inhabiting Hikaru’s body. So even though a scared Yoshiki (voiced by Chiaki Kobayashi) wants to hold on to the ghost-like Hikaru (Shûichirô Umeda), there’s a threat of him losing his friend all over again. What makes the entity more confounding is the fact that it retains all of Hikaru’s memories.
In just 23 minutes, the pilot episode of ‘The Summer Hikaru Died’ captures a myriad of themes and emotions – an unknown alien-like entity excited to have human experiences, teen Yoshiki struggling to cope with his grief, loss, and the bizarre new circumstances, and a village full of people who seem to have some connection to supernatural events and beings.
The character animation in ‘The Summer Hikaru Died’ stays true to the manga designs, while the overall animation quality feels slightly dated yet still engaging. Yoshiki is tall, with a dark mop of hair and sad eyes that accentuate his serious demeanor, while Hikaru’s cheery personality is reflected in his bright white hair and a cute snaggletooth. The episode is elevated by its background music and vivid ambient soundscape, filled with the hum of summer, chirping birds, and thrumming cicadas. Although the animation does go more modernist and psychedelic in the horror scenes depicting violence.
Overall, this is an excellent start to what promises to be a complex relationship between a regular human teenager and the entity that has taken over Hikaru, blending horror with deep emotional tension. Chiaki Kobayashi’s voice as Yoshiki is emotionally charged, serving as a gripping narrator for this horror-anime about loss, friendship, and loneliness.
Watch ‘The Summer Hikaru Died’ on Netflix.
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