The Summer Hikaru Died Episode 4 Review: Life In The Sticks

By Elijah Gonzalez | July 29, 2025 | 9:53am

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The Summer Hikaru Died Episode 4 Review: Life In The Sticks

After The Summer Hikaru Died‘s turning point last week, where Yoshiki finally addressed his unresolved grief and fear towards Hikaru 2.0, Episode 4, “Summer Festival,” feels like the beginning of a new chapter: Yoshiki and Hikaru against the world. It’s a big change, and one that threatens to rob the underlying emotional tension that makes Yoshiki such a compelling hot mess of a protagonist so far. Thankfully, though, there’s still plenty of room for lingering bereavement, regret, and other forms of internal drama—you know, the good stuff (narratively speaking).

That said, instead of starting heavy like last week’s melancholy introduction, things begin much lighter, with two pairs of best friends being dumbass teens in a very enjoyable way. Hikaru finally manages to get close to a particular adorable cat (which gifts us the incredible image below), but not before completely fumbling the follow-through as his attempt to “pet” this little guy sends them running.

The summer hikaru died

It’s a goofy moment, but one that leads into Hikaru’s understandable frustration about how hard it is to be human, getting both us and Yoshiki to empathize with his struggles. Meanwhile, Yoshiki has troubles of his own, as he pushes down Mrs. Kurebayashi’s warning about getting too close to something that could destroy the village.

As for our other pair of best buds, Asako and Yuki, their hangout session similarly transitions from a convincing slice-of-life sequence towards lurking supernatural horror. First, there’s a hilarious subversion where it seems like Asako is going to relay to her bestie how awkward it was when a boy in their class confessed to her, before she reveals he actually challenged her to an arm wrestling contest (where she “destroyed that kid,” of course). While these two have only gotten a few brief scenes so far, they’ve already made the most of their screen time, with Yumiri Hanamori (Asako) and Shion Wakayama’s (Yuki) performances getting across the doofus-ery of people who’ve known each other their whole lives.

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But as we see repeatedly, this pleasantness comes with a cost, and the tone shifts towards menace when Asako hears supernatural horrors and warns Yuki to take a different way home. There isn’t a big jump scare or a chase or anything bombastic, just a flicker of something awful, as the series maintains its thoughtfully handled supernatural slow burn.

It’s a dynamic that’s present as we head into a summer festival scene which makes up the bulk of the episode, one that comes to life thanks to CygamePictures’ continued skill at rendering every background detail. Here, stalls, paper lanterns, and bokeh lighting capture this wholesome summer night that’s only partially undercut by gossiping neighbors and a general atmosphere of distant dread.

However, beyond showcasing the series’ visual strengths, this sequence also highlights the show’s weakest link so far: its love of cutting to a bunch of old guys who only speak in exposition. While most of the minor characters introduced so far have suggestions of greater depth, the village elders are the exception. I don’t know any of their names besides the more flavorful supernatural investigator Tanaka, and while some of the topics they discuss are interesting in a vacuum, like how this community has been performing rituals for 300 years to keep something sealed in the mountain and the somewhat off-putting implication that the village used to worship this being, it would be nice if this worldbuilding didn’t feel so sectioned off from the more emotionally affecting parts of the story.

It’s possible that this group is being portrayed impersonally because they’re going to become the main antagonists: they seemingly represent Kutibachi Village’s conservative impulses, with one of them acting as if it’s some great act of altruism to allow those born outside their community to attend their festival. But even then, it feels like we should get at least a few scenes of them doing anything besides repeatedly furrowing their brows while huddled around the same table.

Still, while these stretches are dry, they at least serve a purpose, because before long Hikaru accidentally activates this group’s spiritual alarm system that causes Tanaka’s pet hamster to start screeching (a weird and specific detail that is better left unexplained). Thematically, these elders talking about centuries-old traditions contrasts nicely against Yoshiki and Hikaru’s festival date.

As the pair share shaved ice and we learn that Yoshiki saw Hikaru’s dead body on the mountain before it became fully possessed, we slip into a flashback as Yoshiki remembers just how much his friend meant to him. We see how Hikaru was the one person Yoshiki could complain to about how much he hated living “in the sticks” and, like many stifled adolescents, wanted to move to the city at the first chance he got. This was partially because everyone gossiped about his family, but the bigger reason for wanting to get out of here is implied. After Hikaru says he heard that the household heir of a local family was “diseased,” Yoshiki corrects him that the man wasn’t sick, but that he was gay. Yoshiki, remembering all of this in the present, breaks down.

Again, the series is making it quite clear that one of the main reasons Yoshiki feels so claustrophobic here is because he’s a queer kid living in a brutally traditional community, one that’s so sectioned off from the rest of the world and stuck in the past that it is literally still dealing with the fallout from an event from hundreds of years ago. To Yoshiki, Hikaru was his one respite from that.

Much like our protagonist’s reaction to last week’s watermelons and sunflowers flashback, there’s an uncomfortable frankness to this portrayal of loss as Yoshiki breaks down again, reiterating that just because he’s come to accept that this Hikaru is different than the old one, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t still love and miss his dead friend. Voice actor Chiaki Kobayashi brings out this raw grief in stifled cries.

But while Yoshiki is still deeply sad, something has changed since the last time he remembered what he’s lost: the way he treats Hikaru 2.0. Instead of pushing him away or calling him a creep, Yoshiki tugs on the new Hikaru’s shirt like a little kid. Cut to their straws from the shaved ice on top of each other, the colors of the straws matching the colors of Yoshiki and Hikaru’s shirts for an extra bit of undeniable symbolism. “I’m always going to keep you safe,” Hikaru 2.0 says, before adding, “And if ya need something. I’ll do whatever you ask.” It’s a romantic moment only slightly undercut by his glowing red eyes. At this point, it seems that while Yoshiki is largely safe from the mountain being’s wrath, that isn’t the case for everyone else in the village.

However, while Yoshiki is seemingly in the clear (at least for now), the secondary characters are very much not. Going forward, it’s definitely in the series’ best interest to make us attached to these potential future victims. Luckily, Tanaka got a bit more flavor this episode, especially when we learn he was willing to sacrifice an internal organ to create a single measly Torii gate barrier against malevolent spirits—what made him care so much, how long has he been doing this, and what does he mean his company has a more unsavory method of dealing with these situations? Meanwhile, Mrs. Kurebayashi gets a sharp post-credits scene where she exorcises the spirit that Asako detected earlier in the episode, a satisfying payoff that further combines the mundane and supernatural while implying that both Kurebayashi and Asako may have big roles in stopping the incoming supernatural tide.

While The Summer Hikaru Died pivoted a bit this episode, it retained its nuanced tone, where sincerity and intimacy are haunted by this village’s dark past. I hope it finds a better way to deliver backstory going forward than through its brooding village elders, but it continues to thread the needle between understated romance and coiling dread.

The Summer Hikaru Died streams every Saturday on Netflix.

Elijah Gonzalez is an associate editor for Endless Mode. In addition to playing the latest, he also loves anime, movies, and dreaming of the day he finally gets through all the Like a Dragon games. You can follow him on Bluesky @elijahgonzalez.bsky.social.