The Summer Hikaru Died

what if something took the place of your best friend and only you noticed

It is October, ‘tis the season to be spooky, so today let’s talk about the ongoing horror series “The Summer Hikaru Died” (Hikaru ga Shinda Natsu) by Mokumokuren, which currently has 3 volumes out.

volume covers 1 to 3

Summary: Hikaru and Yoshiki are two best friends who live in a small rural town. During the winter, Hikaru goes hiking in the nearby mountains and disappears. Upon returning, he claims to have no memories of what happened during the time he was missing, and things go back to normal... except Yoshiki can tell that the thing calling itself “Hikaru” is not actually his best friend. Something else has taken control of his friend’s body, something that says it wants to stay close to Yoshiki. Despite his fears, Yoshiki’s complex feelings for his dead best friend make him start to grow attached to this new “Hikaru”, and together they begin to unravel the secrets of their town.

A big selling point of The Summer Hikaru Died is without doubt the art style—the way that the artist is able to capture the oppressive heat of summer on every page, making you feel as trapped as the main characters. The dripping sweat, the humid air, the background noise of cicadas—it all makes you feel like the summer and its horrors will never end. Yoshiki and the reader are both covered in sweat, wondering what will happen next.

The Summer is a horror story, but more importantly, it is a queer horror story. The fear of being a closeted gay boy in a rural, traditional town is mixed with the fear of the supernatural, and Yoshiki is caught between being disgusted and being entranced by the otherworldly nature of “Hikaru”. Fear and love are two sides of the same coin for our main character. The monstrous and the alien have always resonated deeply with people who exist outside the “normal” for a reason.

This corporal fluidity, this simultaneity of anxiety and desire, ensures that the monster will always dangerously entice.¹

As the story progresses, it becomes apparent that this small town has many secrets. There is something wrong about the whole place, something that ties into the mystery of what took over Hikaru’s body. Supernatural entities start to follow Yoshiki like moths drawn to a flame, just as Yoshiki becomes more and more attached to the inhuman “Hikaru”. Grief, love, desire, and fear are all tangled together inside Yoshiki’s mind.

Repeat to yourself
“I won’t leave you, I won’t leave you”
until you fall asleep and dream of the place
where nothing is red.
When is a monster not a monster?
Oh, when you love it.
Oh, when you used to sing it to sleep.²

The focus of the story is, obviously, the relationship between Yoshiki and “Hikaru”, but that doesn’t mean the side characters are uninteresting. Recent chapters have started to weave the other students of Yoshiki’s class into the greater mystery of the town, and I’m especially excited about the role Asako will play in the future.

There are a lot of open questions and possibilities for the story right now, which is why it’s hard to judge ongoing manga, so for the time being, I give it a 4.5/5 score. I don’t doubt the story will only get better as we find out more of the lore behind the town and its inhabitants, and continue to explore the psyches of the main characters. If you have already started this series, what are your thoughts?

1. “Monster Culture (Seven Theses)” by Jeffrey Jerome Cohen.

2. “Start here” by Caitlyn Siehl