With shows like Dandadan returning and Gachiakuta being the hottest new shonen right now, there’s never been a better time to be an anime fan. The one anime this season that has its claws, hooks, and alien-like tendrils stuck in me is none other than CygamesPictures’ latest production: The Summer Hikaru Died.

[Ed. note: Spoilers ahead for episodes 1-4 of The Summer Hikaru Died.]

Adapted from Mokumokuren’s 2012 manga, The Summer Hikaru Died follows teenage boys Yoshiki Tsujinaka and Hikaru Indo. One winter evening, Hikaru is lost in the town’s mountains, where he is fatally wounded. Only his death isn’t that simple. Hikaru ends up being consumed by an eldritch entity, which gains control of his body and physically becomes one with it. It gains his memories, but is still very much its own creature at the same time. When Yoshiki does eventually find Hikaru, Hikaru’s body is already cold. Yoshiki, assuming his best friend is dead, stumbles back home in a traumatized stupor.

The next day, Hikaru is found alive. He speaks like Hikaru. He knows the things Hikaru would know. But then the local weird woman, Matsuura, ends up dead, having choked on her own fist, and strange creatures appear in the forest. Knowing his best friend isn’t who he seems to be, Yoshiki faces a choice that will have a heavy impact on their rural Japanese town. Does he expose Hikaru to the town's inhabitants so they can drive the entity out and return to normal? Or can he comfort himself by embracing the delusion that he has his best friend back?

As a horror girlie through and through, I’ve always had a fondness for the trope of “someone........

© Polygon