Ahead of the anime’s premiere, manga creator Mokumokuren discusses their inspirations and creation process of ‘The Summer Hikaru Died.’
Written and illustrated by Mokumokuren, The Summer Hikaru Died is the story about two best friends, Yoshiki and Hikaru, who live in the quiet countryside. One day, Hikaru goes missing in the mountains and returns, but there’s something different about him. Despite knowing that Hikaru isn’t quite himself, Yoshiki overlooks these unsettling differences and befriends “Hikaru” because he wants to cling to anything left of his best friend.
Manga creator Mokumokuren greeted the audience at Anime Expo in a black box headpiece and long black cape to conceal their identity. Despite their mysterious appearance, they were eager to share insights into their inspirations and creation process of the award-winning The Summer Hikaru Died.
Growing up reading shounen manga like Naruto and JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, the creator named Tokyo Ghoul as one of their biggest inspirations for its depiction of the titular character’s psychological struggle. They also cited BERSERK for similar reasons. Given how emotionally complex The Summer Hikaru Died, it’s easy to see how these stories deeply resonated with Mokumokuren.
“I actually initially considered a story where many people died,” they began. “But, I went with a story where the young characters grow up and mature, with each individual character having their own value and being treated with respect.” As they enjoy mysteries that utilize folklore, setting the story in the remote countryside opened up opportunities for encounters with the supernatural. To wrap the story up in enigma, they shared, “I made it so that when one mystery is solved, another mystery pops up. This is so the story doesn’t end up being too neatly and cleanly resolved, and so that it makes the reader want to keep flipping the pages and read more.”
Just as sound and volume play important roles in horror films, they are also equally as crucial in the manga, The Summer Hikaru Died. “In some of my manga panels, you can really get a sense of how loud it is because all these sound effects are filling up the composition to the point that it’s almost in the way. And then once you take away all those sound effects from the page, it feels very empty, and you can really feel the silence. At the same time, once these sound effects are gone, it almost feels like you can still hear the sounds, and it’s stuck in your head.”
Yoshiki is an ordinary teenager living in the countryside. He’s very serious, critical of himself, and hates talking about himself. To demonstrate his struggle with wanting to accept this new Hikaru despite the differences, Mokumokuren depicted this through his internal thoughts and physical manifestations of his conflict like “all the hands grabbing at Yoshiki’s back to show the burden and stress that is on his mind.”
On Hikaru, they said, “Hikaru is a paranormal being who entered the lifeless body of the former Hikaru. He is very curious. He’s innocent and childlike in some ways, but in the sense that people are also childlike when interacting with people from a completely new and unfamiliar culture, and not because Hikaru is a literal child.” They continued, “So even though Hikaru is borrowing the name, body and form of the former Hikaru, he is still figuring out his own identity, so he still doesn’t quite understand himself very well.” Make no mistake, while Hikaru enjoys human culture, he has no desire to be human. The creator explained that becoming human was only to fulfill the wishes of the former Hikaru.
The complex relationship between Yoshiki and Hikaru evokes a strange mix of feelings. “The relationship between Yoshiki and Hiikaru is very complex and ambiguous, to the point where it can’t be summed up in a single word,” they began. “So there might be readers who might feel frustrated because of that ambiguity, but I think that it is exactly thanks to the ambiguity that makes it so relatable to so many people. And there are probably many opinions out there, and I think that I would like to have readers to listen to and value their own feelings rather than the opinions of others, and create their own interpretation of the story and their relationship. So I hope that you as the reader can find where there are similarities, where there’s differences between them, and if you are able to critically analyze and form your own opinions that would make me very happy as the author and creator of The Summer Hikaru Died.”
The Summer Hikaru Died premiered on July 5, 2025.
