English Dub Season Review: The Summer Hikaru Died Season One

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Yoshiki Tsujinaka, a teenager in rural Japan, discovers that his childhood friend, Hikaru Indo, has been possessed by an otherworldly entity, forcing him to navigate their changed relationship amid supernatural dangers.

Our Take:

The Summer Hikaru Died is an anime adaptation of a manga series written and illustrated by Mokumokuren.  It is written and directed by Ryōhei Takeshita, with CygamesPictures producing the series.  CygamesPictures is known for producing other projects such as Mysteria Friends, Princess Connect! Re:Dive, Umamusume: Cinderella Gray, and Apocalypse Hotel.  The character designs and chief animation direction were handled by Yuichi Takahashi, and Taro Umebayashi composed the music.  The opening theme song, “Saikai”, is performed by Vaundy, and the ending theme song, “Anata wa Kaibutsu”, is performed by Tooboe.

Whenever you reunite with a childhood friend after so long, you might expect something different from them compared to when you were kids.  While they may look the same as before on the outside, some situations reveal that their true personalities lie within.  One such occasion is a seemingly normal teenager who may not be as “normal” on the inside as he appears on the outside.  This encapsulates the anime adaptation of one of the most acclaimed manga of 2025, which blends supernatural horror with coming-of-age themes that reflect on an “ordinary” friendship between a moody teen and a mysterious entity.  As far as I can tell, the adaptation has been receiving the same amount of love as the manga since its July release.  Having now witnessed the show’s surprising last-minute English dub drop, do I think this summer is as good as its word-of-mouth? Surprisingly, yes.

Consisting of twelve episodes, the first season of The Summer Hikaru Died kicked things off on a somber note, with the death of Hikaru Indo resulting in his body being possessed by a supernatural entity.  Indo’s childhood friend, Yoshiki Tsujinaka, immediately caught wind of the situation due to Indo’s inconsistencies in behavior and memories.  However, despite this shocking revelation, Yoshiki decides to hide the secret from everyone, hoping to hold onto the last thing he has of Indo.  This resulted in Yoshiki and Hikaru facing various challenges in real life and from the afterlife that would test their changed friendship.  This includes an enigmatic investigator named Tanaka, who takes an interest in the boys’ village because of the supernatural presence there.

At first glance, The Summer Hikaru Died appears to be another supernatural horror anime, with a monster-of-the-week narrative in each episode.  That may be the case on such occasions, notably through its fifth episode involving Yoshiki and Hikaru confronting a wig ghost in the former’s household.  However, those elements actually serve as a backdrop to the series’s actual direction: a coming-of-age drama about two friends whose lives are altered by a tragic incident.  Despite the ghostly threats, Yoshiki’s real problem is the mental struggle of Hikaru’s changed personality caused by an entity that’s connected to the cursed mountain the latter explored.  This posed a challenge for writer/director Ryōhei Takeshita, who had to balance the sentimental drama of the characters’ complex emotions with the suspenseful supernatural terror seen in other anime.  It doesn’t seem easy to accomplish at first since most people watch horror-related projects just for the frights.  However, upon watching the series’s first half, I have a reason to believe that ghosts aren’t the only things that injected fear into people’s hearts.

It featured typical horror elements we would expect from a supernatural series, including some pretty unnerving shots that made my bones shake.  However, the biggest draw of The Summer Hikaru Died is its effective emotional core, which underscores life’s biggest questions and even the heart-wrenching moments, including death.  Its emotional depth stemmed from its protagonists, both of whom are confronting their own inner struggles.  In Yoshiki’s case, he finds himself grappling with the real Hikaru’s death while adapting to his friend’s body being possessed by the mountain’s entity.  However, his attachment to Hikaru also risks his life, highlighting the psychological mentality behind Yoshiki’s decision.  The entity possessing Hikaru also displayed a sense of humanity, not just through its journey of self-discovery but also through its fear of abandonment, prompting Yoshiki to teach it about the values of being human.  These characters represent the usual themes of identity and humanity, set against the concepts of life and death, with The Summer Hikaru Died becoming another series that explores them in a captivating and poignant manner.

Its seventh episode, “Dedication”, was one of the series’s defining moments, emphasizing the friends’ doubts and perspectives amid their “day off”, and culminating in a sentimental conclusion.  Notably, the entity decided not to kill Yoshiki due to feeling accepted by Yoshiki, who chose to keep it hidden from the public, prompting it to find its own place in society.  This moment highlighted not just the complexity of the boys’ estranged connection but also Takeshita’s blend of heart and discomfort.  The show’s horror elements were unsettling through its metaphorical imagery and ghostly entities, with a few jump scares that caught me off guard.  However, Takeshita demonstrated that real life can be just as discomforting as creepy folklore, with his vision adding convincing depth to its character-driven drama amid the supernatural eeriness.  It may resort to a few familiar horror tropes, but its soulful story retains its humanity long enough to stand out from the genre crowd.

The show’s animation also delivered impressive merits in its presentation, particularly in its atmosphere.  The color grading and bleak palettes underscore the show’s eerie imagery, complementing the light-hearted serenity without disrupting its tone.  Additionally, this is another anime that effectively blends traditional animation with CGI without invoking any uncanniness, notably through its panning shots and art design.  Rather than displaying any cheapness in its presentation, The Summer Hikaru Died is perceived as something that could’ve translated well as a film for theaters outside the action genre.  It also had several moments in which live-action shots were used as the show’s background, including the train in the season’s finale.  While they may seem off-putting in an anime at first, seeing how well these shots blend with the traditional animated characters made me realize that this combination can work with the proper mindset.

The Summer Hikaru Died may be seen as another supernatural horror series filled with unsettling spooks and menacing ghouls.  However, underneath this seemingly spooky core lies a humane and poignant drama involving humanity and death that’s surprisingly more complex and poignant than scary.  Fortunately, under Ryōhei Takeshita’s direction, the series utilized this balance beautifully, delivering a meaningful and often creepy exploration of grief and identity that’s both engaging and heart-wrenching.  Regarding its well-written characters, direction, horror aspects, and terrific animation, this anime adaptation is one summer that I won’t forget anytime soon.  Given its season two announcement, this is undoubtedly the case worth mentioning.