Summer Ghost is only 40 minutes long but stunning, and perhaps that’s not a surprise coming from the director Loundraw, known for fantastic illustrations.
Ryou, Aoi and Tomoya are three teens who bravely meet as strangers to try and track down a ghost. There’s a local legend of a suicide who appears to people under the right conditions, and the three believe the secret to summoning her is fireworks.
Fireworks might seem a bit random, but as Loundraw told a Scotland Loves Anime crowd in 2023, there is a cultural connection between ghosts and fireworks as there are some summer festivals, spirits, and death.
Death
Our plucky youngsters succeed and actually manage to summon the summer ghost. Her name is Ayane, and she’s coping with being dead very well.
With a warm smile, the plot gets kinda creepy from here.
Firstly, Ayane explains that only those people who are connected or close to death can see her. Uh-oh.
Tomoya has given up on life so he can see her. Tomoya wants to be an artist, but his parents are bullying him into studying science. You might not be surprised to know that Loundraw defied his parents’ desire that he do science and engineering to do art. Nor will you be surprised to discover that Tomoya goes on to be the main character.
Aoi is considering suicide because evil, unrelenting bullies are making her life a living hell.
Ryou, the cool one, is dying.
Ayane would much rather her body be found so that she can move on and her family get some closure. A driver killed her, and then her body was hidden.
The seductive lure of death
Ayane isn’t a malicious ghost, but she makes death feel welcoming and warm. She does this to three troubled youngsters.
There’s only 40 minutes, not even a short feature-length, and smaller than many Disney+ episodes these days, but her ‘death is okay’ approach to unlife is pretty seductive to the teens in that time.
It’s also easy to miss stuff. Blink, and you might not see the temptation. Blink, and you might not notice the death.
Overall
It’s pretty, but it feels incomplete. I’m being cruel because Loundraw had no money, barely any staff and just wanted to finish the thing. There is an end, but it’s an end with looser ends than a bowl of spaghetti.
I think Summer Ghost is one to tuck in either side of a shorter but feature-length anime movie if you’re sitting down to watch something. There’s not enough meat on the ghost to really get your teeth in this, although it’s certainly easy on the eyes.
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