Studio Cypic has released a new summer visual for The Summer Hikaru Died, showing leads Yoshiki and Hikaru wading through a river with a catch net under a bright sky. The illustration arrives as the anime’s second season, announced last year, remains in production.
The Summer Hikaru Died is a horror series set in a small rural village, following two childhood friends. One of them, Hikaru, dies, and something inhuman takes his place, wearing his face and inhabiting his body. Yoshiki realizes the boy beside him is no longer his friend, but he cannot bring himself to push it away, and chooses to stay close to it and keep its secret. What follows is an uneasy continuation of their ordinary days, shadowed by strange events that begin to trouble the village.
The anime adaptation is produced by Cypic, the studio formerly known as CygamesPictures, which was renamed in 2026 after being consolidated under CyberAgent. Directed by Ryōhei Takeshita, the first season ran for twelve episodes from July to September 2025, streaming worldwide on Netflix. Its second season was announced at the close of the first season’s finale, with original creator Mokumokuren, returning leads Chiaki Kobayashi as Yoshiki and Shūichirō Umeda as Hikaru. A broadcast window for the second season has not yet been announced.
