Hikaru ga Shinda Natsu (Season 1)

this review contains spoilers for the first season, don't read if you haven't watched it

Ever since the anime got announced, I've been pretty excited. The manga has been on my to read list since the pandemic, and the way people described it I was expecting something really cool and psychological. Instead, hmm, I'm a bit disappointed.

First of all, as a standalone, season 1 is pretty lacking. I like slow paced anime, but this felt way too slow paced. Even my husband, that never drops anything, got bored and stopped watching on episode 9. I wasn't as bothered by the pace, but it's definitely slower than what I like, and to add to the slowness it's really too repetitive. We start with Yoshiki realizing Hikaru was dead - the first few episodes are really good. But then we continue going in circles. Something bad happens to Yoshiki, Hikaru helps him, angst, Hikaru does something bad to Yoshiki, angst, Yoshiki forgives Hikaru, happy, something bad happens to Yoshiki... rinse and repeat. I feel like we repeated the cycle about 3 times all up until the last episode. And all the while, instead of emotions and tensions getting higher by the last couple of episodes everything simmers down. When something feels final or dangerous, it gets reversed easily, and it begins to dull any tension.

We have this situation with Hikaru's body being possessed and all. Even though he has quite literally murdered someone, we sort of just glaze over that fact. Next we find out him being in the village could end up with something bad happening to the village and Yoshiki especially, but we decide to power through anyway. It's all kind of not serious and despite the stakes being high I somehow feel like they're not at the same time?

Now we have this whole gay thing. Yoshiki lives in a close minded and small environment and he wants to move to Tokyo to escape it. He obviously has feelings for Hikaru, and that's why he wants him to stay possessed. You know I was expecting it to be more carnal and for the story to deal with the "body" part of it all. Like.. Hikaru is not there anymore and teenage boys are depraved. But no, we're staying very uwu, that's fine too I guess... Except in the last episode Yoshiki does admit he wants Hikaru to stay for selfish reasons, which ultimately makes Hikaru decide to not to return to the mountain (FOR NOW...). And at this point I feel like the bl aspect starts feeling like bait rather than anything genuine.

Lastly, the mystery/horror section. The art was great, but idk, I wouldn't really call it horror. Nothing about this anime is remotely scary, and even the story is kind of whatever about it. Hikaru has very convenient memory gaps, which makes the mystery plot crucial. We have to figure out what's going on with the village and what Hikaru's family's secret is. This is all very easily solved at the very end of the damn season, by Yoshiki finally talking to his manchild of a father. Ok great, we spent the whole season waiting for something that could've been solved in 0.2 seconds, and then on top of that Yoshiki has another reveal (the gehenna painting) by accidentally stumbling upon a book and it opening on the correct page. Ughhh I hate this trope, it makes the whole research part of the story so redundant.

Generally this is an issue I notice when I read this specific type of modern manga made like past 2012, and at this point I'm pretty certain this issue is personal because I don't see anyone else talking about it. It's not just bl but this is where I encounter this issue the MOST. I feel like the stakes in these stories never feel truly high, the emotions I'm supposed to feel never hit me hard, and I can never get fully invested - YET the way people speak about it makes it sounds like there's a lot more to it than what I end up receiving. I feel like it's too fluffy, and the tenderness of the characters does not fit the story. In fact, these stories make any genre they're a part of extremely subdued and hardly crucial to the plot - which is FINE - but the world in which these stories are in tend to treat the genre plot (mysterious spooky village with an evil god ooo) as a big thing. At the same time the bad things that are happening are both "bad" (the old lady dying) but there are no consequences and the story treats it as whatever. And the characters being schoolchildren all the while makes it even worse lmao. They keep missing school, they're getting into dangerous stuff and ending up in hospitals yet their parents are like whatevs dude rock on. Even when these works are supposed to be edgy, scary or degenerate, they're always sprinkled with some kind of fluffiness that breaks my immersion completely and ruins my enjoyment. Like they're scared to go all out, things start to feel constrained, thematically dull and too safe.

This is a pretty negative review but I did enjoy this season... mildly. I hope season 2 gets better and we don't end up just going in circles. I really liked the designs of non high school aged female characters, and Rie was a favorite overall, both in her unexpected role in the story and appearance. The season had a really good start but like I said, it simmered down towards the end and I ended up being very meh about it.