Netflix has locked down another major anime series fans should be keeping an eye out for next Summer, and the first look at The Summer Hikaru Died has been revealed with its first teaser. Mokumokuren’s The Summer Hikaru Died has been a rather quiet hit ever since it debuted with Kadokawa Shoten’s Young Ace back in 2021, and soon it’s going to reach a whole new audience with the upcoming debut of its official TV anime adaptation as fans will see why it’s been such a creepy and kooky hit thus far.
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First announced to be in the works earlier this Spring, The Summer Hikaru Died is officially scheduled to appropriately make its TV debut in Japan some time during the Summer 2025 anime schedule (which begins in July). It’s been licensed for an international release with Netflix which teases it’s going to be hitting “soon” with no concrete release date as of the time of this publication. If you wanted to get the first look at the new anime, you can check out the teaser trailer for The Summer Hikaru Died in the video above and first poster below.
What Is The Summer Hikaru Died?
Originally created by Mokumokuren for Kadokawa Shoten’s Young Ace, The Summer Hikaru Died is an eerie story that follows two best friends (and maybe even more) named Yoshiki and Hikaru. One day when Hikaru goes missing, he comes back with something a bit off about him. It’s then clear to Yoshiki that this isn’t really the same Hikaru as he knew before. But rather than avoid this new Hikaru, Yoshiki is instead drawn to him and still wants to always be by Hikaru’s side regardless of what otherworldly thing might be going on with him. All the while an even bigger danger lurks in the darkness.
Ryohei Takeshita (Jellyfish Can’t Swim in the Night) is directing The Summer Hikaru Died for Cygames Pictures (Uma Musume Pretty Derby: Beginning of a New Era). Takeshita will also be overseeing the scripts for the new series with Yuichi Takahashi serving as character designer and chief animation director. The anime will star Chiaki Kobayashi and Shuichiro Umeda as the main duo, Yoshiki Tsujinaka and Hikaru Indou respectively. With the new anime gearing up for its Summer launch next year, we’ll be getting more concrete updates in the coming months.
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Netflix Is Really Amping Up Its Anime Game
The Summer Hikaru Died is just the latest of the licensing and original works that Netflix has been producing in the last couple of years. Netflix has really amped up its anime library, and has since offered up some of the biggest new releases for the year. With The Summer Hikaru Died already poising itself up as one of the bigger 2025 anime releases to look out for, it looks like Netflix is already setting up 2025 to be a big year for anime offerings as well.
The brief teaser along sets up the ominous atmosphere that fans of the manga have been praising. This series has been garnering a lot of awards talk here in the United States, and it’s likely that it will find a whole new audience with this new anime. And when added on top of Netflix’s worldwide distribution, The Summer Hikaru Died might go from being a cult horror hit to being one of the blockbuster anime franchises with a long future. It’s already happened with Dandadan this year, so there’s precedent for that kind of explosion in popularity.