Summer Hikaru Died EP3 Reaction
Added 2025-07-19 20:32:13 +0000 UTCI'M ACTUALLY GOING INSANE LOL HOLY HELL
i love yoshiki and "hikaru" oh its over 😭
Comments
The way every episode blurs the lines of and reverses right/wrong, good/bad, desirable/disgusting, real/fake, before/after, etc. is so perfect and so fitting. And the romance and internal and external conflict is so incredible, like this may turn out to be one of my favorite anime... ever?? (i'm really about to write a whole thesis again bc i am enjoying this show too much. we only get this kind of mainstream queer work like once in a decade so i cannot not eat it up) If I extend my analysis of the previous episodes, the classroom scene would be something like Yoshiki starting to realize and openly reject the queerness of their relationship after the dance mom pointed it out to him and started to sow seeds of doubt in his mind. Someone has eyes on him now, someone sees what he is (queer) and knows about the monster in Hikaru (also queer). The monster spilling out across the room from Hikaru is almost like a representation of the gayness that Yoshiki senses and feels is going to hurt him or take him over. And so the visual of the monster part of Hikaru spreading all over and attacking Yoshiki is basically Yoshiki experiencing Hikaru forcibly coming onto him. But Hikaru realizes what he's done isn't what he wanted and was him snapping due to the fear of losing Yoshiki and trying to force his feelings into reality and onto Yoshiki. It's actually chilling seeing Yoshiki go from disgust to questioning to feeling good in that moment, knowing that in real life we often have to go through those same feelings if we have been made to feel scared of or disgusted by our sexualities and the only way to grow comfortable is to confront or be confronted by those fears. Is it okay to cross a line if that line is arguably made of ignorance or misplaced disgust and fear? If you feel good after having a boundary crossed, how is one meant to react? Here, the intuitive answers to those questions are made less intuitive, since we're not sure what is truly dangerous and what is just a projection of fear. I think these are feelings and moral conflicts that many people and especially many queer people experience because of their own complicated and often negative relationship with their own bodies and desires and senses of right and wrong, as well as their view of other people's sexual desires. A queer person in denial of their feelings can feel incredibly violated and triggered if another queer person shows interest in them, as this crosses a boundary the in-denial queer person has yet to cross and forces them into a dynamic that they are afraid of. But this can also open them up to a world of connection and intimacy and love that they otherwise may have rejected and never experienced. Existing with other people and their desires can at once be one of the scariest things and also one of the most beautiful things we experience. The "childness" of Hikaru maps well onto being a baby queer or any person who has just awoken to their sexuality or intense feelings or even just a different worldview. The whole world is a new place and every experience is framed in a completely new way. There's something both chaotic and immature but also undeniably pure and genuine about Hikaru and his feelings at this point, but this seems to be highly contrasted to the previous episode where we are shown Hikaru still having a slight detachment to his feelings and thinking for a moment about whether he would need to "get rid of" Yoshiki, but quickly throwing away the thought because he knows Yoshiki won't betray him. The framing makes Hikaru seem like a manipulative monster, but after watching episode 3, we might look back and see that as Hikaru just trying to distance himself from the intensity of his feelings and desire, pretending to himself that he could throw away what matters to him most. The moment that nearly happens in this episode when Yoshiki rejects him, we see all of his real feelings come flooding forth and force him into a fit of frustration and inner conflict. Please don't leave me, you're the only thing I have. But I do still have a lingering sense of "Is this actually just an incredibly deceptive monster, maybe the kind that can even deceive itself to accomplish some kind of scheme?" I am truly on the edge of my seat, since as there is a dance between the literal and symbolic narratives going on that leaves the viewer unsure what is real and what is imagined. And something else that felt really salient to me was that in the flashback while eating the watermelon they were sitting side by side, as though they see the same things and think the same way, but now they're sitting across from each other at the table, representing a sort of conflict but also a shift in their awareness of each other. Romance and the tensions that come along with it change the dynamics of friendship and can put some distance between people, but that distance is closed through the closesness and intimacy that emerges from the new dynamics and feelings and seeing each other in a new, often more opposing way, like yin and yang, and less like an extension of yourself. It's so wild that I genuinely can't predict what will happen next. At the same time the romance and emotions are all becoming even more "mixed" and entangled than before, to borrow the language of the dance mom. The central question I felt this episode posited to the viewer is: Is Hikaru someone (or something) that needs to be protected? What happened in the past that set all of this into motion? Can Yoshiki and Hikaru be together or is this relationship doomed in spite of it so often resembling a genuine relationship and connection between two people?
holdmyhandsaw
2025-07-20 14:07:45 +0000 UTC“This feels nasty. This feels… good?” What have you got internalized there…
Holo
2025-07-20 02:35:50 +0000 UTCOh I'm becoming more and more obsessed with this show each episode its so over for me lmao
Locke
2025-07-19 20:47:53 +0000 UTC
