Two new character trailers have been unveiled this week for the upcoming The Summer Hikaru Died TV anime series, spotlighting the main leads Yoshiki and Hikaru. The anime is set to begin broadcasting in Japan on July 5, 2025 and will stream on Netflix worldwide.
Ryohei Takeshita (Jellyfish Can’t Swim in the Night and Eromanga Sensei) is directing the anime series, with Ryohei Takeshita as series screenwriter, Yuichi Takahashi (Vivy -Fluorite Eye’s Song- and Mononoke The Movie: The Phantom in the Rain character designer) as character designer and chief animation director, Masanobu Hiraoka (Chainsaw Man Ending 9 storyboard artist, unit director, animator, and editor) as Dorodoro animator, Kohei Honda (Akiba Maid War) as background art director, Naomi Nakano (Solo Leveling) as color designer, and Tomohiro Maeda (Granblue Fantasy 10th anniversary movie) as compositing director. CygamesPictures is in charge of the animation production.
Meanwhile, the anime’s voice cast includes:
- • Chiaki Kobayashi as Yoshiki Tsujinaka
- • Shuichiro Umeda as Hikaru Indo
- • Yumiri Hanamori as Asako Yamagishi
- • Wakana Kowaka as Rie Kurebayashi
- • Chikahiro Kobayashi as Tanaka
- • Yoshiki Nakajima as Yuta Maki
- • Shion Wakayama as Yuki Tadokoro
Both the anime and manga will be featured with their own panels and booths at Anime Expo 2025.
The horror manga series by Mokumokuren on Kadokawa Shoten’s Young Ace Up website on August 31, 2021 and has released six tankobon volumes as of December 2024. A seventh volume will be released on July 4, 2025. Yen Press releases the manga and novel in English for North America.
A novelization of the manga series was published by Kadokawa Shoten in December 2023.
Yen Press describes the main synopsis of The Summer Hikaru Died as:
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…
Source: The Summer Hikaru Died Official Twitter (2) via AIR News (2)
