The Summer Hikaru Died Episode 9 Review: A Heady Discussion And A New Ally

By Elijah Gonzalez | September 10, 2025 | 9:12am

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The Summer Hikaru Died Episode 9 Review: A Heady Discussion And A New Ally

After a painful weeklong break due to a scheduling conflict with a Japanese television station, The Summer Hikaru Died is back with another gripping episode that delivered everything the show excels at: nuanced characterizations, unsettling body horror, gut-punch moments, and quite a bit of queer longing. As multiple storylines finally converged, we got a climax likely to make you lose your head.

Events begin in the aftermath of last week’s apparition attack as Miss Kurebayashi continues to prove herself a powerful force in this escalating conflict with the world of the dead. Perhaps most importantly, we get a more thorough look at her previously alluded-to backstory; her deceased husband returned to the world of the living in the form of an impurity, which she believed she could coexist with. Then it attacked her son.

While the sequence likely could have used a bit more time to breathe, it gave us yet another example of how this series is fundamentally about people struggling with grief. Here, Kurebayashi holds on to the vestiges of her husband, with the apparition becoming so entangled in their daily life that her son credits the spirit for helping him play his legally distinct Pokémon game. It’s only when this ghost does something that Kurebayashi knows her husband would never do, physically harm their son, that she sees she’s been projecting her grief onto the apparition and that she must move on. Of course, it’s a circumstance that has at least a few parallels to Yoshiki and Hikaru’s arrangement.

However, a clever touch here is that while Kurebayashi has the type of narrative setup that would normally position her as an antagonist whose negative experience around similar circumstances gives her the opposite outlook of the main characters, instead, she’s able to realize the nuance of the situation because she’s an empathetic person.

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The Summer Hikaru Died Episode 9

She almost instantly realizes that Hikaru 2.0 is different from his predecessor and that Yoshiki has largely made peace with this: at this point, Yoshiki’s desire to protect the new Hikaru is less because he’s unable to move on, and more because of the bond he’s formed with his eldritch boyfriend. While his grief over his dead friend is still fresh, the fact that he lays out a grave for Hikaru 1.0 in this episode shows that he is slowly coming to terms with this loss (while also pointing out the tragic reality that only Yoshiki knows this truth, because everyone else thinks Hikaru is still alive).

As a result, Kurebayashi agrees to help the pair, marking the first person outside these two who understands the full picture and is still on their side. What an ally! “They’re good kids,” Kurebayashi affirms after winning over Hikaru’s trust with treats.

Unfortunately, though, she drops the frightening reality that if Yoshiki continues to “mix” with the world of the dead, he may be unable to ever return to the world of the living. Until now, this situation has been represented by the handprint on Yoshiki’s arm, but it’s still somewhat ambiguous what this means metaphysically; is “mixing” representative of being emotionally attached to Hikaru? Spending time with him? Or is it a symptom of the times Hikaru has consumed Yoshiki after transforming into Unknowable Goo mode? Regardless, it’s yet another problem to be anxious about in a whole host of them.

These circumstances also set up another big issue, which is that Hikaru’s continued presence in the village is putting everyone’s lives at risk. Even with Kurebayashi’s support, it’s clear that this burden weighs on both boys. We continue to see Hikaru take steps towards understanding the value of a human life, especially related to how this situation affects Yoshiki, but this comes with the unfortunate side effect of him realizing how his desire to exist is indirectly causing harm to the community he wants to be a part of. As a result, he offers to return to the mountain.

But in this episode’s mandated deeply romantic moment, Yoshiki says that this idea sucks, actually: instead, they’ll save both the village and Hikaru. Moreover, he affirms that Hikaru doesn’t need to become “more human,” he just needs to understand and respect the human desire to not get murdered.

Yoshiki’s viewpoint here is a refreshing one that rejects the typical storytelling conceit of non-human entities wanting to “become human,” instead opting for a fittingly more inclusive message that entities—whether human or incomprehensible blob creatures from beyond the cycle of life and death—should be able to be who they are (as long as they’re not hurting anyone else) instead of conforming. Oh, and we also get the most explicit confirmation that Yoshiki was in love with the original Hikaru when he bashfully refuses to answer whether he had romantic feelings for his friend, more or less confirming that he did, in fact, have romantic feelings; it’s very adorable!

But of course, what would an episode of this show be if these thoughtful ruminations on grief and life beyond conformity weren’t also paired with supernatural horrors? As our boys go to visit the episode’s namesake, old man Takeda, we get lore bombs amidst incoherent ramblings. The big thing is that apparently, the Indo family was tasked with appeasing the mountain spirits because they committed a blasphemous act generations ago, which is the cause of the town’s ghost problems. Given this village’s rotten outlook on most things, I wouldn’t be surprised if the original Indo’s “blasphemous act” wasn’t inherently wrong, but was merely against social convention.

Then there’s the body horror goodness; the elder Takeda’s body begins to undulate as his eyes are replaced with empty sockets, and he turns into a long-haired monster wielding a samurai sword. It’s an unsettling reminder of how both Yoshiki and Hikaru are lightning rods for the supernatural, with this moment just a prelude for future woes.

And it doesn’t take long for those misfortunes to arrive, because the only presence more frightening than a paranormal entity suddenly appears: Tanaka. Earlier, it was revealed that Tanaka unleashed the creepy headless apparition from episode 8, all so he could merge with it and learn more about his prey—it was yet another confirmation of just how far he’s willing to go to destroy Hikaru. And then came the more explicit proof of his resolve as Tanaka destroyed the Takeda apparition, stole its sword, and beheaded Hikaru in one fell swoop, leaving a lifeless cranium in Yoshiki’s lap.

After sucking us into the messy details of its central relationship, this series loves to jarringly threaten to shatter this bond, and this prompt decapitation was just the latest example. Perhaps most unsettling, Tanaka unhesitatingly cut off Hikaru’s head at a “test”, implying he didn’t actually know if Hikaru was supernatural or not and that he would be fine murdering a teenager to test his theory. This guy sucks!

All in all, Episode 9, “Old Man Takeda,” proved a great return for the series after its short break, as it finally brought together two parallel storylines in a shocking display. While we know it will take a bit more than separating his noggin from his shoulders to kill Hikaru, it seems clear where he got that scar along his neck in the ED—from a rusty katana wielded by an evil blonde man who wears sunglasses inside. And beyond the battle wound, Tanaka piecing together Hikaru’s secret means there probably won’t be many places for our central pair to hide in this small town; can things ever return to “normal” again? (Also, old man Takeda is very dead, which probably isn’t a good look either)

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.