Earlier this year, it was announced that an anime adaptation of The Summer Hikau Died was in the works. Despite the lack of details at the time, there was a ton of excitement surrounding the project, as it's based on Mokumokuren's incredibly successful psychological horror manga series.
A teaser for the anime was shared earlier this week announcing a summer premiere on the NTV channel in Japan, as well as a streaming premiere on Netflix for those outside of Japan. Following the teaser's release, Netflix shared the official English subtitled trailer, giving us a more proper translation.
The trailer reveals that The Summer Hikaru Died will debut in summer 2025, with Netflix simply offering a more vague "coming soon" window.
Perhaps more importantly, it gives us our first official look at the adaptation from studio CygamesPictures.
For those unfamiliar with the source material, The Summer Hikaru Died is a psychological horror that follows the story of Yoshiki, a teenager living in rural Japan who discovers that his best friend Hikaru has been possessed by an otherworldly entity. As previously announced, Chiaki Kobayashi (Gabimaru in Hell's Paradise) voices Yoshiki Tsujinaka and Shuichiro Umeda (Akira in Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead) voices Hikaru Indo.
The anime adaptation of The Summer Hikaru Died is directed by Ryohei Takeshita (Jellyfish Can't Swim in the Night). Takeshita also serves as series composer alongside Yuichi Takahashi (Vivy -Fluorite Eye's Song-) as character designer and chief animation director and Masanobu Hiraoka as "Dorodoro" animator (Chainsaw Man episode director).
With a few months still to go until the adaptation's Netflix debut, you may want to check out the original manga series from Mokumokuren. While The Summer Hikaru Died manga has been serialized on Kadokawa Shoten's Young Ace Up web imprint since August 2021, Yen Press publishes an official English version. It describes the story:
It has Hikaru’s face. It has Hikaru’s voice. It even has Hikaru’s memories. But whatever came down from the mountains six months ago isn’t Yoshiki’s best friend. Whatever it is, it’s dangerous. Carrying on at school and hanging out as if nothing has changed—as if Hikaru isn’t gone—would be crazy...but when it looks so very like Hikaru...and acts so very like Hikaru...
Despite having debuted in August 2021, the series has already become a critical and commercial success with the first volume selling 200,000 copies in three months. The series has received critical praise for its story, artwork, and characters and was nominated for the 16th Manga Taisho Awards.
The sixth volume of The Summer Hikaru Died is set to be published on December 4th, while Yen Press just published the fourth volume of the English-language version in August.