While friendships are fun, they sometimes can be very scary. There often will be tense moments of potential conflict where one doesn’t know how to address it. Neither party wants to admit a problem is definitely in the air. And then you have a friendship found in Mokumokuren’s The Summer Hikaru Died that magnifies the tension that people experience when it comes to a rocky friendship to a terrifying degree.

A lot of critical acclaim and praise was heaped towards this manga for a good reason. The Summer Hikaru Died is a look into what it means to dive into the unknown with a friendship that’s not what it appears to be.

The manga is about a young boy named Yoshiki and his relationship with his best friend, Hikaru. The two of them are having a good time hanging out in the small town they live in until Yoshiki asks something about Hikaru. He asks him about an incident 6 months ago that happened in the mountains where he went missing for a week. Hikaru replies that he doesn’t remember it well and then Yoshiki pops the grand question, “You ain’t the real Hikaru, are ya?” Hikaru replies in grotesque fashion as supernatural deformities start to appear out of him. Hikaru has long been dead and his body has been possessed by a supernatural being. He cries that he wants to be “human” all while saying that he will kill Yoshiki if the latter told people the truth. Yoshiki decides to keep quiet all because he loves Hikaru. However, Hikaru’s presence appears to be slowly causing all kinds of chaos around him.

The series is labeled as horror mixed with slice of life. I find the horror label fascinating because I didn’t find it to be scary in a traditional sense. I did read a Wikipedia article about the manga and it said that the author Mokumokuren kept the horror element to a minimum and focused more on the emotions (which I later read the official Japanese interview about that statement to double-check). One can argue that this series is more psychological horror than jump-scare horror despite Hikaru’s supernatural appearance.

I did read that the series uses the misattribution of arousal/suspension bridge effect as a plot element. The effect goes like this – you believe that you’re aroused by someone for a reason that might be good, but the arousal is more fear-based than anything (A visual example in anime can be found here). Throughout volume 1, Yoshiki isn’t sure how to deal with the being that is Hikaru. He thinks that even though Hikaru is friendly with him, it’s okay no matter what. It’s better to have a best friend than none at all. They continue to hang out like nothing happened. However, when strange incidents involving the supernatural start to happen, Yoshiki has doubts about the friendship. There’s powerful imagery showing Yoshiki’s inner concerns in a chilling manner.

Despite being friends, there’s hints of romantic love between Yoshiki and Hikaru. I like how the manga is posing the question, “What are you in love with? Why are you holding it even if it might be unhealthy? Or are you really in love?” The two sides definitely have complicated feelings for one another. The common theme for Yoshiki and Hikaru is a huge fear of loneliness that neither side wants to comprehend.

That’s why I find The Summer Hikaru Died so great and fascinating. Emotions can be frightening to handle. Certain emotions and horror go hand-in-hand. Sometimes, there are things we can’t ignore and the more we push them away, the more they start to haunt us.

I can’t wait to read more because people like Yoshiki struggle to cope with their grief over someone they lost. The way we hold onto the death of our loved ones can get extreme. I hope this manga becomes a great way to talk about grief and relationship loss for teenagers and young adults.

Absolutely one of the best manga reads of 2023 by far.