A story visual for The Summer Hikaru Died has been released ahead of its soon-to-air seventh episode. The illustration shows Yoshiki and Hikaru walking with the glare of the twilight sun between them, while Asako, Yuki, and Tanaka are depicted in their shadows.
The Summer Hikaru Died began its Japanese broadcast on July 6 JST and is streamed overseas on Netflix. The anime adapts the KADOKAWA-published manga by Mokumokuren, which Yen Press describes 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…
The manga began serialization on the Young Ace Up website in August 2021 and has seven volumes as of July 2025.
Staff
• Director: Ryohei Takeshita (Jellyfish Can’t Swim in the Night and Eromanga Sensei)
• Series composer: Ryohei Takeshita
• Character designer and chief animation director: Yuichi Takahashi (Vivy -Fluorite Eye’s Song- and Mononoke The Movie: The Phantom in the Rain character designer)
• Dorodoro animator: Masanobu Hiraoka (Chainsaw Man Ending 9 storyboard artist, unit director, animator, and editor)
• Background art director: Kohei Honda (Akiba Maid War)
• Color designer: Naomi Nakano (Solo Leveling)
• Compositing director: Tomohiro Maeda (Granblue Fantasy 10th anniversary movie)
• Animation production: CygamesPictures
Cast
• 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 Tadakoro
Source: @hikanatsu_anime
