“Wig Ghost”
What They Say:
Two best friends living in a rural Japanese village: Yoshiki and Hikaru. Growing up together, they were inseparable… until the day Hikaru came back from the mountains, and was no longer himself. “Something” has taken over Hikaru’s body, memories, feelings… and everything they know begins to unravel.
Review: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Based on the manga Hikaru ga Shinda Natsu, which is released in English through Yen Press, it comes from its creator, Mokumokuren. It began in 2021 and has seven volumes out so far. The anime brought in Ryohei Takeshita to both write and direct it, with CygamesPictures handling the animation production. Takeshita’s an interesting choice since they have a lot of varied credits, from two seasons of Jellyfish Can’t Swim in the Night to Eromanga-sensei, but also a slew of unit director work across a range of titles. CygamesPictures has been interesting to watch its evolution as it’s taken on a lot of projects, and the quality for them as a main production studio has largely been strong, which helps set a tone for this.
With a heavy focus on character and the entire dynamic that’s going on with Hikaru, this episode takes a turn into some very familiar kinds of horror. Here, we see how Kaoru is starting to panic when she discovers a clump of hair in the shower since it’s so wildly unexpected, initially as a problem with oneself and then as something coming up through the drain. It’s something that Yoshiki eventually talks about with Hikaru, who in turn comes over, but not until we get some fun, if weird, school material first. Especially in cooking class, since Yoshiki had to work with raw chicken, and it reminded him of how it felt to put his hand into Hikaru’s body. That whole thing becomes a new experience as Hikaru tries to help him with it after school, late in the afternoon, but it just takes an even more surreal feeling with Yoshiki’s hand inside Hikaru’s body, and Hikaru’s body basically reaches back, freaking out Yoshiki for obvious reasons.
When it does shift to Yoshiki’s home in the second half, with Yoshiki being pulled underwater by the wig ghost that it’s determined to be, it’s a wonderfully surreal sequence. This takes its own turn with what he’s dealing with, but also draws on the past between Hikaru and Yoshiki during one of the more tense periods of their friendship that blends into the present. It’s a hard sequence to watch as it’s a reminder of how boys are when they’re young in their emotions, easily turning to violence, but we also see how Hikaru realizes the scale of what’s going on and does his best to help Yoshiki through it. Hikaru handles it well enough since he understands the supernatural aspect of what’s going on in the present, but it’s conflicting for Yoshiki as it draws on his past with the real Hikaru and that adds its own complication as well. Between that and the quiet time afterward, especially once Yoshiki’s family comes home, adds to the surreal nature of it all as Yoshiki grapples with how this can be reality for long.
In Summary:
The undercurrent of the strange and supernatural dominates the episode once again as it filters through in small ways. It does have its big moments here and there, but so much of it is just the quiet presence of these things, and how Yoshiki is trying to process it because Hikaru kind of just glosses over it. The interactions between the two young men continues to be fascinating to watch with how they’re handling what’s happening, but also with the way Yoshiki’s memories come back at different times and colors in more of their larger friendship for us to understand. I do wish it had spent a bit more time with Kaoru here and the fallout from the opening encounter, but the time spent with the boys is just priceless to watch unfold.
Grade: B+
Streamed By: Netflix
