The Summer Hikaru Died, Volume 4
(Japanese title: Hikaru ga Shinda Natsu)
by Mokumokuren
published by Yen Press
2024
The story of rural schoolboy Yoshiki and the eerie, replacement version of his dear friend, Hikaru, resumes with a sink full of bloody clothes, plus a newfound determination to figure out what Hikaru is.
The boys’ research uncovers darkness. A name written by original Hiraku triggers a rant from Hikaru’s unfocused grandfather about a man asking <a being> for something inappropriate in the distant past, which created the current misfortunes… Hikaru uncovers creepy place names of surrounding towns… A local back to bury her mother shares that her sister went up the mountain and never came back…
The only positive-seeming news is that Kurebayashi-san, the ordinary-looking lady whose dead husband’s unworkable-but-wanted return informs her views with deep empathy, intervenes when the boys are in danger. She has an ability to push <things> back to where they belong, and a theory about why there are so many <things> in the village now.
Her theory involves Hikaru.
This volume ends in violent suspense at the end of chapter 21. (Chapter 29 will be released this week in digital format, so my impatience while awaiting the tankōbon to be printed is catching up with me!)
This is my first real horror manga, and it is SUPERB. I am eager for more.