00:01
When your grandparents talk, I understand like 20%.
Some of it's not actually the dialect words, some of it is also the namari.
How do we differentiate between these things?
I thought it's the same thing.
Yeah, that's their accent actually, not their dialect.
But the dialect means they're using words I don't know, and the accent means
I don't understand the words that I should understand because of the way that they say them.
Okay.
Welcome back to 2AM OTTACK!
I'm your host Mayu, a born and raised Japanese non-otaku, and...
I'm your co-host Cisco, an American otaku.
In this podcast, we share our reviews of anime and manga
through our distinct perspectives with commentary
on Japanese culture, history, and language.
Cisco.
Yeah.
We're in Japan.
We sure are.
And we've been in the countryside.
Yup.
Which definitely scared our kid who just watched this anime.
Yeah, it scared him a lot.
The place is pretty similar or any other countryside in Japan.
So yeah, he kind of freaked out at nighttime.
Yeah, he was like, what if there's a thing?
Right.
So today we're going to talk about...
アニメと漫画の紹介
The summer Hikaru died.
Yeah.
Before we start, we'd like to hear from you.
Share your thoughts, ideas, questions, or even suggestions that we should talk about.
Send us a message to the email in the description,
or you can use Spotify and the YouTube comments section as well.
All right.
Let's talk about what Hikaru ga Shinda Natsu is about.
Okay.
So we've both read the manga.
And additionally, we've watched the first three episodes of the anime, right?
So we're going to try to avoid any spoilers.
It's basically about two boys who are friends who live in a kind of spooky, weird town.
And one of the boys has like a family tradition of appeasing a local,
I don't know, spirit, shall we say?
Or like deity or something.
And he dies.
And then he's back to life.
But he's not the same.
And it's about their relationship.
They're teenagers.
They're both teenagers.
Yeah.
Would you say that's about right?
So this manga and anime started from July this year, 2025.
And so far, there are seven volume tankobons.
And I think it's still going.
Oh, that's a lot.
Actually, it's not that many.
But yeah.
It's not a lot.
作者と作品の背景
But the manga author, Mokumokuren, he was not really trying to be a manga artist.
He had an idea of a story.
And during COVID, he decided to post his idea as manga form.
And it became popular.
Like some publisher, Kadokawa.
And he got a publishing deal.
Yes.
OK.
Yeah.
So the story is still going.
And then Mokumokuren has been a big fan of POV style horror.
Like it's like his thing.
Like he really likes watching horror movies.
Only POV, though?
Not only POV, but especially.
OK.
So yeah, the place is based on Mie Prefecture, which is sort of like a central part of mainland
of Japan.
Yeah.
方言と翻訳の違い
And then as a Japanese and watching this anime, I can tell that they have a dialect, but I
can't really know it.
Right.
Because it's a little bit different from like a dialect from Osaka or Kyoto, which are familiar
with me or other Japanese people, too.
So it's slightly different, but kind of a little bit similar.
And you can still tell what they're saying.
Right.
And in English, when we were reading manga in English, they have a little bit strange
accent going on.
Yeah.
They have like a really southern accent when they translate it into English.
Yeah.
It was hard for me to read a little because I'm not used to it.
But translator was trying to have the sense of the dialect replacing with southern accents.
方言の違い
Yeah.
I like struggle with this a little bit because in Japan, there's a really strong difference
between people who live in cities, right, who tend not to have accents.
Right.
And then people who live in the countryside who have strong accents, I feel like.
Right.
That's like kind of a there's a bit of a split there.
And so when you try to translate that to America, it doesn't really work.
America has regional accents.
Like there's like a New York.
In fact, sometimes it's the cities that have accents like Boston and New York and Chicago
all have like identifiable accents.
And in the south, there are a number of different regional accents, but they're not really
limited to the city or not the city.
In fact, it doesn't matter.
You can live in a city in the south and have a southern accent, or you can live in the
countryside in the south and have a southern accent.
And then there are parts of the country that are thought to not have really strong accents
at all, like California, I think, because people moved there from all over the United
States.
And so the accents kind of merged together, got lost.
I mean, there's I guess there's like a valley girl accent, right, in Los Angeles.
But even then, that is sort of a marker of something more specific than just an area.
Anyway, I struggle with the decision to translate the Kansai accent in Japanese into southern
accents.
Like I do understand why they do it.
Southern accents are some of the most identifiable accents in America, but it doesn't really
work for me.
It doesn't it doesn't kind of like capture the right thing about the way that they're
talking.
And I don't know that there really is a way to translate it.
Yeah.
So if you know Japanese and if you can watch in Japanese or listen in Japanese, you probably
can tell it's very unique.
It's like Kansai dialect is very common in anime and like TV dramas, too.
And people kind of got used to it.
Right.
You can I think I think Americans who have watched a lot of anime will understand when
a particular character is speaking nonstandard Japanese.
But I think it's probably pretty hard for predominantly English speakers to differentiate
between one type of Japanese accent and another type of Japanese accent.
Like I think there's kind of like standard Japanese and not standard Japanese.
But beyond that, I feel like some of the regional nuances are probably hard to tell.
I, for example, didn't really appreciate that the dialect they're speaking isn't just
Kansai-ben, other than the fact that they don't really say okini for thank you.
But beyond that, it sounds kind of like Kansai-ben to me.
Okay.
夏の恐怖物語の期待
Not to me.
Right.
Well, so that's what I mean.
We when we watched the first episode, I was so excited to watch the first episode because
on Netflix, it was saying it's going to be on Netflix soon.
But then I had to wait for a month.
I was like, what is coming up?
But I assume it was going to be summer because the title has summer and it's like kind of
spooky and it's appropriate in summer.
Right.
Summer is the ghost story time.
I think we've talked about this before.
Ghost story and the Kimodameshi.
Right.
Right.
Can you explain?
Yeah.
So Kimodameshi means liver testing.
Literally.
Oh, okay.
Guts.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But like Kimo as liver or guts can also mean courage or bravery.
It can mean a lot of things.
Actually, Kimo is like a really commonly used word in different phrases.
But Kimodameshi anyway means like proving, you know, we might call it a test of courage
スリリングな体験とアニメの違い
in English.
And it's a thing that happens in the summer where it appears really frequently in anime,
especially anime about teenagers.
People will go to a scary place, hide a thing somewhere, and then teams of folks will go
and try to retrieve the thing and often get like scared on the way.
It feels like it's a common couples activity, right?
To be like, oh, yeah, like, hold me or whatever.
I'm not sure if it's a couple activity.
I mean, you do that at like USJ or some amusement park.
You go with your friends too.
If you're going a real grave, I don't think it's a couple.
Yeah.
It's probably just like dudes who are like, I'm brave.
Yeah.
Okay.
So I mean, like there are actually things like this, and I guess in America, like I
think of the like Friday fright nights and stuff like the sort of scary things that they
do at theme parks in the US is sort of similar to this, although those are very, very commercial
and Kimodameshi often doesn't have any commercial element.
It's just people going to a place they think is scary and doing stuff.
It has sort of a bad reputation though, right?
What do you mean?
We recently talked to a guy who like was complaining that people were doing Kimodameshi
at like a graveyard in the area and like not treating it respectfully enough, like
leaving trash and things, right?
Doubt it.
Like maybe you have more chance to see ghosts.
Yeah.
And he was like, yeah, maybe the people who actually died there would be pissed off enough
to come out and scare you.
But yeah, I don't know.
Anyway.
Yeah.
So we finally came out and then we watched the first episode and it's definitely different
from manga.
Not the story, but how it's presented and which I really liked.
You really liked the anime.
I really liked the anime.
I liked the manga too, but a manga like first three Tanko Bones, you kind of have to be patient.
It's slow.
Yeah.
And the way it's like, because like you haven't, you don't really have idea what's going on.
Right.
With Hikaru.
Right.
But like gradually it'll show up and it gets interesting.
So the first episode of anime contained some like small parts from other like father stories.
And you can tell like, oh, this person's going to be important.
And then this character is going to do like this thing.
Like you can kind of see it through.
I mean, I read it.
Are you sure that's not just because we've read the manga though?
Yes.
Okay.
But I liked how they presented it.
You like picked up on the foreshadowing.
Yeah.
I think it was well-made.
Okay.
What did you think?
Yeah, I really like it too.
Or at least I will, I'm sure we'll talk about the opening and ending later.
Okay.
So I'll save like that commentary for afterwards.
I think, yeah, the anime is a faithful adaptation of the manga.
I don't mind the manga's slowness actually.
I sort of dug that, but I feel like, especially with some of like the foley, the sound effects
and the like still shots of stuff, it feels a little bit like you are watching the manga
in like the best possible way.
Because those sound effects you can really see in letters in manga.
Right.
And it makes the vibe like a little bit scary and it makes you wonder what's going on.
And then it reflected in anime with sound.
Yeah.
I am not good at reading sounds in manga.
I know it's an important part of the art form and everything else.
But I'm not great at understanding which sounds Japanese people interpret as meaning what.
アニメと漫画の違い
Because I didn't grow up in Japan.
And so the idea of like, oh, these letters making this sound means this is something
that like I have to be pretty either intentional or like explicitly told, oh, that's the sound
of like this thing, as opposed to just like instantly making that connection.
And so I think I have a hard time getting the vibe of sounds from a manga, whereas in
the anime, you know, there's no words.
It's just the actual sound.
And having like been in Japan long enough, especially during the summer to have heard
those sounds in real life, there's no intermediate connection of like, oh, this means whatever.
It's just a sound that I'm really familiar with and accustomed to.
So after watching three episodes.
Yeah.
I don't know.
What do you expect?
What do I expect?
I mean, I think it's probably going to keep following the manga story, right?
Yeah.
Yeah, I don't know.
I find that even though it hasn't been that long since I read the manga, I'm not like
really sure about what, you know, how far away certain events are and like when they're
going to happen in the anime and, you know, how that's going to play out.
So I'm sort of just enjoying learning the story all over again.
And yeah, I want to see I want to see where it goes.
キャラクターの感情
It's really good.
When I was was reading manga the whole time I was reading, trying to figure out what's
happening, and I was like, maybe they are gay and they like each other.
No.
Was like my one of the possibilities.
Right.
I think that's unclear in the beginning.
But as time goes on, it becomes more and more clear that Yoshiki, the main guy, was definitely
in love with Hikaru and Hikaru might or might not have understood that at all.
But it seems pretty clear that Hikaru like wasn't at the very least exclusively gay,
that Yoshiki never told Hikaru how he felt.
And it sure seems like Yoshiki is afraid that had he told Hikaru how he felt, Hikaru would
have rejected him and been like, sorry, dude, I'm not gay.
Right.
And so some of the dramatic tension that's introduced is in, you know, the thing that
Hikaru is being in love with Yoshiki and Yoshiki is sort of indecision, frustration, whatever
you want to call it, his complex emotions derived from knowing that thing isn't really
Hikaru.
But finally having something inside Hikaru that returns his feelings is very, I think,
tempting for him.
Yeah.
ヒカルの存在
So title gives away that Hikaru is dead.
Yeah.
But Hikaru is right there with Yoshiki.
Right.
And there's something that takes taking over Hikaru's body that does something you can't
really tell, but it looks like monster.
Well, monster thing.
I think it is a monster, but it doesn't really look like one, right?
Look like, yeah, but like it can go people's body and then still has Hikaru's memory and
everything.
Yeah.
To me, the image of it looks like it's like a bunch of cells, right?
Like it looks kind of like a giant wave of like black cells.
It's kind of creepy.
It's very creepy.
Yeah.
Yeah.
What's your favorite part?
Well, I think I like one, the representation of the Japanese countryside.
That's probably what I like best about the show is a lot of Japanese anime is set in
cities.
I would say, actually, the overwhelming majority is set in cities.
And so this being a show that's set pretty much entirely in rural areas is kind of cool.
And it shows a Japan that I know really well because it happens to be where you live.
But it's a side of the country that I think doesn't get shown very often.
物語の雰囲気
And when it does, isn't shown in the modern day.
It's shown as like, this is what things were like in the 60s or something, you know?
And so to see it represented in the 2000s, I think is pretty cool.
So there's like a big mystery going on and then a little bit scared.
Not really too scary for me, right?
Is it too scary?
No, I think it's more mysterious than it is scary.
Right.
But like some of the I feel like some of the stuff that's not in the anime yet, like makes
it a little bit more like a horror movie, although I wouldn't say it's like scary.
Like, oh, my God, what if that thing is like outside my door?
You know what I mean?
You would have to live in like a fundamentally creepy place in order to get like scared of
it, about it, like being near you, you know?
Do you know who does the voice for Yoshiki?
No.
Masho?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I feel like you said that earlier.
Masho and Jack from Moonrise.
Oh, from Moonrise.
Oh, OK, cool.
And there was like one girl who is not really appear who hasn't appeared that much.
I can't remember the name.
But like a black long hair with twin tail.
Yeah, I don't know what her name is either.
Her voice is by Shion Wakayama, who does Momo's voice in Dandanan.
Oh, really?
Wow.
I would not have made that connection.
Yeah.
Then I thought maybe she is like something to do with like, like a occultic stuff.
She I will say she looks like the kind of girl who would be into that thing.
Yeah.
Right.
Just her character type.
Yeah, yeah.
All right.
So we got to talk about the opening and ending.
Yeah.
So let's talk about opening and ending theme songs.
Opening theme song.
It's called Saikai.
Yeah.
How do you say that?
How did you?
Reunion.
Reunion.
OK, right.
Reunion.
Saikai by Vandy.
Any comment?
So I think this is like hard.
I think Vandy almost always makes at least like one part of his song enjoyable for me,
either the verse or the chorus is usually pretty good.
And then the other part I find to be like usually kind of mid.
But like, I think I don't hate Vandy as an artist.
However.
This opening, it just does not match the show correctly at all.
Like, I don't know who was in charge of like directing this opening,
but they like totally blew it, in my opinion.
Like it looks like an average anime opening, which is fine.
Like if it was an opening for a different show,
it would be probably actually kind of good.
I think the song is all right.
Like the chorus is banging.
The art direction on the anime is good art direction.
It is just like it's totally wasted on this show.
And this show should have had like a much cooler, better opening than it has.
Like this is just my opinion.
Right.
But like.
No, I agree with you.
I think if the if the opening had been like all strings, right, like kind of classical
and then like a little bit creepy and all the scenes in the opening had just been like
totally normal scenes of like a town, like it would have been so effective.
And instead, it's like this action packed, like, you know,
back and forth, like into like, you know, like negative colors.
Like, you know, it's trying so hard.
A little bit trying to be dun dun dun.
Yeah.
And it was it's just like not the vibe of this show even a little bit.
And so I think the opening was like a like a real mistake.
Yeah.
But I will say this.
We watched the music video for Saikai, which is like feels like it's the same story as the show.
オープニングと音楽ビデオの考察
But like with just actors and it's like in this in like, you know, in the space of one song,
they tell kind of the whole story and it's perfect.
It's so good.
The music video is great.
And it made me like the song a thousand times more.
Yeah.
The opening was a was like a was a swing and a miss.
I don't know.
It's like Sakamoto Day's song.
Yup.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Like, like you said, it would have been perfect for like, I don't know.
Yeah.
You know, Sakamoto.
Sure.
You want to use the song for like Kill Blue, like Be My Guest, you know?
Right.
But I kind of expect some intense, like a little not intense, tense, like silent, slower kind of vibe.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Because like the song doesn't really fit with the world of the anime.
Right.
Like, I think it would have been really cool if they'd had like, like I said, just like a like
a string quartet or maybe even like a whole string orchestra.
Right.
And the first half of the opening is like a normal, like peaceful sounding, like rural song.
That's like, you know, like, you know, some like Hobbit music basically.
Right.
With like some nice like images of like a rural town in the daytime, some sunflowers
and like some farms and like a little Keitora driving on a road.
Right.
And then like halfway through the opening, like the sun goes down in one of the shots
and like the music completely goes away.
And it's just silent for like 20 seconds of like nighttime shots.
Also just a rural area, but there's no people in any of the shots.
And then like right at the end, there's like the strings going like
or whatever.
And there's like one shot of like Hikaru alone at night outside doing nothing.
Like that would be the perfect opening for the show.
OK.
Take notes for the second core, everybody.
If anybody wants to hire.
That's right.
If you want me as the director for your anime openings, I am available.
We should talk in Japanese.
OK.
All right.
エンディングテーマの紹介
Ending theme song is called
あなたは怪物 You are a Monster by Toboe.
This is my first time to hear about the artist.
Yeah, me too.
Yeah.
I mean, ending was like a normal, but like it's fine for ending, right?
The ending is acceptable and it kind of doesn't really matter as much.
So it still wasn't really the vibe, but like it was OK.
It didn't matter.
And the music video for this show is for this is also the same story as the summer
Hikaru died.
And it was pretty good music video.
Both music video has like countryside, rice fields, summer.
Yeah, I liked that, actually, because seeing like the real thing made the anime feel like
even better as a representation of what it is.
Yeah.
So check those like music videos out on YouTube and find out more.
All right.
Let's do today's word of the day.
OK.
What is today's word of the day?
So today's word of the day is Hogen, which means dialect.
And we chose this, I assume, because their dialect is sort of unusual.
It is a Kansai dialect.
They are in Kansai.
But well, actually, I feel like there's some debate over whether Mie is Kansai or not.
It is in Kansai.
OK.
But so their dialect is very countryside and not like Kansai from the city of Osaka or
Kyoto, like from the countryside of Kansai.
And I think Hikaru in particular, like Yoshiki's dialect is not that strong, right?
No, I see it in intonation.
OK.
But like Hikaru's dialect is very pronounced.
Well, I guess I think Hikaru or whatever inside of him tries to sound like Hikaru.
方言の魅力
And the first episode, he made a mistake of pronouncing the word wrong.
Right.
But not because it was a Hogen.
He was just pronouncing the word wrong, period.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So maybe I think Hikaru is trying to use dialect.
On purpose.
To sound more like Hikaru.
Yeah.
Yeah.
OK.
Yeah.
Got it.
So there's so many dialects in Japan.
And for example, where I'm from is like one prefecture, but like north and south and central,
they have like all different dialects.
Yeah.
I think I understand most of it.
And you can understand my dialect?
No, not really.
No?
I can understand how much dialect you actually use because you don't use very much.
But I understood about 50% of how your parents talked when they get really strong dialect.
Like they can speak standard Japanese, too.
I understand 100% of what they're saying.
But when they're speaking dialect, I understand maybe we'll go to like 75%.
But there's some things they say that I don't know.
When your grandparents talk, I understand like 20%.
Some of it's not actually the dialect words.
Some of it is also the namari.
How do we differentiate between these things?
I thought it's the same thing.
Yeah.
That's their accent, actually, not their dialect.
But the dialect means they're using words I don't know.
And the accent means I don't understand the words that I should understand because of the way that
they say them.
OK.
So it's not from me, but I think many people have heard okini, what you said.
Okini means thank you in like Kansai-ben or like in Osaka.
In Osaka.
And like I think you've heard the word in like maybe Kaiju No. 8.
Hoshina speaks in Kansai-ben.
Or Kuron generic romance, Kaorun generic romance.
Right.
Yulan was talking Kansai-ben.
There's so many more animes that people like Kanshi in Witch Watch.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
So yeah, I think if you're interested in learning Kansai-ben, it'd be awesome to know some words
and then come to, you know, Osaka and try them out.
And the people would be so happy.
Would they?
Yeah.
OK.
People would be like, oh my God, how do you know?
Maybe.
Depending on what you say.
Yeah.
Okini.
Okini is a good one.
Okini is like a really useful one.
And it's pretty easy.
I agree.
Do you know any other Kansai-ben?
Yeah.
Choude.
Yeah.
Which means like, no.
No.
No.
What else do I know?
Hona.
Hona.
Hona.
Hontoni.
No.
Oh, Hona?
Hona means see ya.
Yeah.
When you say goodbye.
OK.
I didn't know that actually.
I'm not that good at Kansai-ben.
In Akita, my home prefecture, we say Seba.
Yeah.
Or Heba.
Those I know.
All right.
アニメの魅力
Before we end, who would you recommend?
See this anime?
I think people who are either interested in like, horror.
Because it's definitely got some like, elements of horror.
Or people who are sort of like, interested in like, a slow like, you know, slow burn story.
And it's not really like, boys love in the classic sense.
Because there's not a lot of like, anybody actually hooking up or anything.
I think it's not like a, I don't know how to say this.
Like, it's not a story about people being gay.
But I think like, Yoshiki's complicated feelings about Hikaru are a really important point of the
anime.
And so people who are sort of like, interested in seeing an anime that explores that, I would
also recommend it too.
Yeah.
We're going to keep watching and see what's going to happen.
物語の完結と実写化
Because like, the book is not finished yet.
Yeah.
I don't know how they're going to wrap this up.
Yeah.
It's been a kind of thing.
Like, Kowloon Genetic Romance was the same thing.
Like, you know, anime ended.
Right.
But the story manga is still going on.
And then they are about to have a live action movie.
Yeah, they need to chill.
Do you think this will be in live action?
I don't know.
I think the fact that there's like, sort of a gay romance, and it makes that option like,
less likely for Japan.
But it's kind of getting a thing.
Like, do you remember the Cherry Boy?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That was hilarious.
That was funny.
Yeah.
Well, yes.
I mean, maybe this is a good candidate for live action.
Because although there are some like, special effects involved with Hikaru, the rest of it,
this would be an easy thing to shoot.
Like, you think?
Yeah.
With a monster looking thing?
Yeah, I think this would be an easy thing to shoot.
Because like, so much of it is like, you know, standard, regular countryside Japan.
I think the first person shots of Yoshiki would be hard.
Where like, you know, his hair is covering it and stuff.
Like, I don't know if that would really work, that first person POP.
But everything else.
Yeah, I think this would be pretty good.
Yeah, right.
Check your local library if you're interested in reading this week's manga for free.
And that's what we do.
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