We’ve come to the “Mystery” entry in my anime genre review collection. And I’ll be upfront here. Summertime Render is a wild and exciting ride! Synopsis This one starts out quite simple. A boy, Shinpei Ajiro, returns to his...
We’ve come to the “Mystery” entry in my anime genre review collection.
And I’ll be upfront here.
Summertime Render is a wild and exciting ride!
Synopsis
This one starts out quite simple.
A boy, Shinpei Ajiro, returns to his remote island home after several years to attend the funeral of his childhood friend, Ushio Kofune. However, during the funeral, Shinpei learns that her death may not have been an accident as was reported…
Supernatural Mystery
I’ll likely bring this up several times, because it’s a similar anime to use as a comparison, but there are a lot of similarities between Summertime Render and Sakurada Reset. Both are in a similar niche, a supernatural mystery anime that takes place in a modern environment.
As it is a mystery, you will experience the elements of a traditional mystery:
The story will call up various questions that need to be answered, and then feed you pieces of information, clues, hints, and so on. That’s all given some time to stew in your brain, and then the story finally gives you the solution which feels oh so satisfying.
The catch is that this story takes place in a world where supernatural elements exist, and so these supernatural elements are often used to obfuscate the solution. You may see the parameters of the mystery in a box and try to solve it that way, only for the story to introduce a supernatural element that indicates the true solution is actually outside of the box altogether, and then a new box needs to be created, and so on.
Comparisons with Sakurada Reset
Even if you’ve never seen Sakurada Reset, there’s a reason why I’m incorporating it like this into the review, so just trust me on this one. That, and in a way, you’re getting a mini Sakurada Reset review here, so if you haven’t seen it, you may end up walking away from this review with two anime instead of one!
Anyways, overall I noticed one main difference between Summertime Render and Sakurada Reset, and that is related to the complexity of the mysteries / solutions presented, and the pacing / pressure of the story.
Summertime Render is a very thrilling anime. Once it gets going, this anime does not let up until you reach the end. And as a result of that, while all of the elements of a mystery are there, there’s also a lot of pressure. It’s fast paced, things are constantly happening, and just when you think our protagonist has found the solution to a predicament, he finds himself immediately in another one. It’s basically one high pressure situation after another, over and over, until the end. Very exciting, very thrilling, but often the mystery elements can be boiled down to “how should these characters act in order to get out of this current situation?”
By comparison, Sakurada Reset is much more relaxed, in that the pressure lets up frequently throughout the story, and the story feels more fragmented instead of one non-stop death race of thrills and excitement. But what Sakurada Reset delivers over Summertime Render is that the overall mysteries in my opinion have a higher level of complexity, and the satisfaction you get from seeing the solutions to the mysteries presented is much greater as a result.
I’d say both anime deliver a very similar level of satisfaction, but in a different way.
Predictability
The one thing that I would say was a bit of a thorn in Summertime Render’s foot is something that doesn’t come until you near the end of the series, which is a respectable 25 episodes by the way. No spoilers here, as always, but basically what I found was that as the end approached, in the final few episodes or so, the tension and pressure that was there all series long felt lessened by the simple fact that the end was near.
As we know with anime, true bad endings are as rare as they come, and so as a result, as I found myself watching the final moments of the anime, in the back of my head I had a strong feeling that everything would work out, because the anime was almost over, and the anime surely wouldn’t end on a bad note.
Normally I wouldn’t even notice something like this, but I think one of Summertime Render’s strongest qualities is how thrilling it is, and so when those thrills are dampened by the inevitability of a good ending, it’s noticeable.
But then, I suppose with all mystery stories, one can expect for the mystery to be solved in the end, so there’s always going to be a degree of this. It just hurts Summertime Render a little more than most, I think.
Rating
I’m going to give Summertime Render a 9 / 10.
It’s an excellent anime, very gripping, from start to finish. I’d say that the beginning is stronger when it comes to mystery, and then at some point it becomes more thrilling and exciting than anything else, even if it has mystery elements until the end.
While not mentioned prior, the animation is also top notch, there are many very beautiful landscapes featured throughout the anime, and the characters look fantastic.
Also, if you watch this and enjoy it, or have already enjoyed it, consider checking out Sakurada Reset if you haven’t already!
Oh, and on one final unrelated note, I love the Japanese dialect that you hear a lot in this one. I don’t know enough to be able to distinguish if it’s any different from Kansai-ben, but I’m assuming there probably are some differences as this takes place on an island in Wakayama prefecture. Love it either way, lot of fun to listen to basically an entire anime in another dialect.
Until next time,
Thanks for reading.
