The Summer Hikaru Died – Episode 1

Content Warning: Body horror, cosmic horror, violence against elders, grief; flashing lights

What’s it about? Hikaru was lost in the woods for a full week, and everybody searched for him and couldn’t find him. So what’s he doing back at school? And why does he seem…not quite right? Yoshiki, his best friend, has concerns–but knows, more than anything, how happy he is that Hikaru is back at all.

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If somebody makes a copy of you, and the original you dies, is that copy of you, well, you? Say you get in a teleporter, and the original you is broken up into tiny atoms and then reassembled someplace else. Can the “you” that exists on the other side really call themselves you?

This question is, in a sense, one of the hearts of The Summer Hikaru Died, one of my favorite horror manga. The manga uses body horror to explore melacholia, grief, identity, and societal decay in a way that is deeply unsettling and surprisingly queer, and it has now been made into an anime by Cygames Pictures.

Cygames has been on a roll recently, using their gatcha kiddie gambling money to fund many of the most interesting, high quality, queer, and often original anime projects of the last few years, including Apocalypse Hotel, ZOMBIE LAND SAGA, and Brave Bang Bravern!, so when I saw that they would be adapting Hikaru Died, I was thrilled.

It would seem my excitement was justified, because The Summer Hikaru Died so far is fantastic. The director, Takeshita Ryohei (of Jellyfish Can’t Swim in the Night), finds ways to integrate many different styles of animation into a cohesive whole, such as the opening shots where Hikaru lays dying, sees a vision of the eldritch being engulf him, and then cries out–the animation of the eldritch being is scintillating in the eerily moving lines, courtesy of “dorodoro animator” Masanobu Hiraoka, and the cuts between that and the close up of Hikaru’s face into the pan out to show just how alone he is in the woods are notable for not trying to hide the differences in style, but calling attention to them (these scenes are also where the rapid flashing occurs, for photosensitive viewers at home). The editing and directorial choices in general are remarkable, taking moments that are often extremely short in the manga and stretching them into full sequences of unsettling horror, or creating motifs such as the isolated image of Yoshiki’s eye as he cries. The change from manga to anime also allows the director to use color in non-realistic ways, always contributing to the atmosphere being established.

Speaking of the differences between manga and anime, there is a significant amount of reordering in the anime of the manga material, including material that I hadn’t personally been exposed to yet. It would seem that this anime is trying to set up certain plot threads earlier in the season, possibly so that it can wrap them up effectively before the season’s closing, and each time it happened it did sometimes take me a bit out of the narrative, simply as somebody who has already read the manga. One of the dangers is if the anime gives away too much of who/what not-Hikaru is, which would take away from the sense of looming dread that suffuses much of the manga. We will have to wait and see on this front, but what we know for sure is that Hikaru is not the only strange being that takes the form of objects––and there is a whole set of hunters of these beings out to kill him.

The vibes in Hikaru Died are decidedly queer. The intimacy between Hikaru and Yoshiki propels the narrative–in fact, the most creepy moment in the premiere is also the most homoerotic and intimate: Hikaru whispering in Yoshiki’s ear that he likes him and does not want to kill him as his body disintegrates, while Yoshiki whimpers in shock and his popsicle drips on his leg. One of the tells that Hikaru is not Hikaru, in fact, is that he is willing to say “ちゃ好き” (“I like you”) to Yoshiki—something Hikaru has never said to Yoshiki before. Yoshiki is trapped by his own desire and attachment. It is hard not to read him as having had a crush on Hikaru, and that to hear Hikaru say “I like you,” even in the context of why he does not want to destroy Yoshiki, is enough to keep this monster around. 

The Summer Hikaru Died is without a doubt worth your time–and I highly recommend it for anybody interested in horror, queer storytelling, experimental animation, or just good anime generally.