Episode 4 – The Summer Hikaru Died

The Summer Hikaru Died spends a commendable and concerted effort to evoke the feeling of a sweltering summer in rural Japan. It’s an oppressive season, when heat and humidity force people to cope in ways that, through repetition across generations, become codified as synonymous with it. Festivals, shaved ice, cooling down by the creek, and other similar signifiers turn into rituals. These are practical responses, born of natural phenomenon and biological necessity, that we elevate into the pantheon of culture.

Rituals are at the forefront of this week’s episode, and it’s a subject that gels well with the narrative’s focus on small town secrets. While they perform many individual functions, rituals as a whole serve to foster in-group solidarity and forge a barrier to keep out-groups away. They simultaneously unite and divide. We see this, for example, when Kaoru wears a yukata to better adhere to the stereotypical festival experience, yet at the same time, she suffers under the sound of hushed voices openly judging her and her family. We seek community through participation in rituals, but as individuals, we also don’t get to decide whether or not we “fit in.” Other people do.

On a more literal level, Hikaru physically can’t enter the shrine due to a barrier that was erected by a ritual. He laments his “gross” (i.e. gay) behavior last week and tells Yoshiki, in so many words, that he wants to become more normal. However, he can’t change who he is in the eyes of the people who hunt him. That barrier rejects his existence as an inhuman entity, regardless of his intentions. Still, when he notices, he has to pretend that everything is okay, lest more members of the crowd discover that he’s not one of them. It’s an apt metaphor all around for hiding and disguising one’s queerness while in hostile territory.

Hikaru must also contend with the revelation that he never fooled Yoshiki, who has known for six months that his friend died on that mountain. Unsurprisingly, though, this pleases Hikaru. While he initially responded to the real Hikaru’s dying wish to protect Yoshiki, the fake Hikaru’s affection for him is all his own. The clearer a delineation between the two Hikarus that Yoshiki can make, the more it vindicates the creature’s feelings as an independent person. And that’s important, because it holds existential implications for him. Nonuki-sama is an object of reverence, fear, and ritual that the villagers confine to the mountains where it can be controlled. Hikaru is just Hikaru, even if he’s not the same Hikaru. It’s little wonder which identity he prefers.

On the flipside, however, Yoshiki’s feelings are fraught and fraying. We now know that he kept Hikaru’s death to himself for half a year, which earns him an Olympic-sized gold medal for repression. Moreover, bottling feelings up and dismissing them are familiar coping mechanisms for him. In the flashback, when talking about the Yasaburo family’s gay son, he uses the longer and more clinical term “homosexual,” as if holding it at arm’s length. In Japanese, he says douseiaisha, which more or less directly translates (the kanji 同性愛者 breaks down to “same sex love person”). Hikaru, without a second thought, chimes in with the letters “LGBT,” which is a more modern and inclusive initialism that Yoshiki immediately pretends not to know. The difference between these two terms says a lot about both characters and their relationship. Right now, I’d conclude that the original Hikaru did not harbor romantic feelings for Yoshiki, so he doesn’t have any baggage affecting his language. Yoshiki, meanwhile, is a hopeless closet case who, in Shakespearean terms, doth protest too much.

I continue to be impressed by how much The Summer Hikaru Died crams into itself, much like the fleshy eldritch monstrosity squeezes itself inside of the titular character’s skin suit. This episode lacks a “big” moment like the chest fisting or last week’s terror-charged makeout session, but it still wrangles a lot of big ideas with a deft hand. Notice, for instance, that when Asako perceives the supernatural aura by the train tracks, she advises her friend to stay away, and the two quickly depart. When Rie encounters the same being, she exorcises it. That’s a meaningful contrast. Asako, either out of weakness, naivete, or empathy, lets the spirit live. The older and more experienced Rie, who told Yoshiki in unequivocal terms to get away from Hikaru, thinks such coexistence is impossible.

Finally, on a lighter note, I love the macabre slapstick behind the real Hikaru’s death. Given the circumstances surrounding his disappearance, the audience originally assumes that he must have been cursed or had otherwise perished in a ritual gone awry—or that’s what I assumed, at any rate. In truth, he caught a glimpse of a remarkably voluptuous tree trunk and slipped on some wet dirt. Maybe there were other unseen and nefarious factors at work there, but I like the wry mundanity of this bloody tableau. I also can’t ignore the symbolism. On a coming-of-age quest that can only be performed by men of a certain family, a visage of heterosexual attraction murders Hikaru, whose dying thoughts of Yoshiki give birth to a more openly gay version of himself. Perhaps Hikaru only truly started living that winter. Unfortunately, we have a good idea of what’s coming this summer.

Rating:

The Summer Hikaru Died is currently streaming on
Netflix.

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