The popular psychological horror manga The Summer Hikaru Died by Mokumokuren has been given an anime adaptation.
The announcement came on the manga’s official X account, alongside a celebratory visual, and a reminder that Volume 5 of the manga will be released in Japan on June 4th.
The manga itself has won or been nominated for several high-profile awards, including the prestigious Eiser Award.
Personally, while I thought The Summer Hikaru Died featured beautiful art, I didn’t particularly enjoy the manga as I found it slow-moving, not horrific and with no real direction to any of the narrative — at least by the end of Volume 1 — which is why I dropped it.
That being said, I will be interested to see how it is adapted into an anime and if the “horror” that wasn’t scary (to me at least) translates better to the screen than the flat page.
Especially if the story is tightened up quite a bit.
As for the studio animating The Summer Hikaru Died, the anime’s staff, cast and release date, they have not yet been announced.
We will update you here at Anime Powered as soon as they are.
The Summer Hikaru Died manga series
The anime is based on the ongoing manga series written and illustrated by mangaka Mokumokuren.
Called Hikaru ga Shinda Natsu in Japan, the mangaka first began posting his story on X (formerly Twitter), but was soon approached by Kadokawa Shoten to serialize it on their Young Ace Up website.
It has since been released in four volumes in Japan, with the fifth one due out in June, and with Yen Press publishing the horror manga in English. The English translation of Volume 4 will be out in August.
The Summer Hikaru Died has more than 2.1 million copies in circulation as of May, 2024 so, yes, it is very popular. It is especially popular with male readers.
Yen Press describes its plot in this way:
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…
Interestingly too, The Summer Hikaru Died was originally marketed as a Boys’ Love manga when the mangaka was publishing it on Twitter but, as soon as KADOKAWA bought it, all the BL references were dropped in their marketing campaigns.
An odd decision, as the manga clearly has strong BL overtones.
Yen Press and KADOKAWA Anime have also put out trailers for The Summer Hikaru Died manga series, which you can watch below to see if the upcoming anime may be your thing.