ACACasualViewer
September 29, 2022
Recommended
Imagine if you crossed Higurashi with Erased and dialed up the production values by several points, you would essentially get Summertime Render. I went into this anime without any real expectations, the source material was not one I had previously read, and I assumed this was going to be another poorly made horror anime given the description. However, I was pleasantly surprised, while not original in concept, STR is one of the most well executed psychological thriller anime produced to date, with a great cast and stellar production. This review will expand on why I personally thought this series was excellent and will attempt toprovide an answer as to why this anime is overall worth watching along with explanations on the aspects at which it excelled and what it overall lacked.
The single most important aspect of a psych thriller is the execution of the story, as far as storytelling goes, STR handles a fast paced action oriented plot quite well. The first episode starts with a very calm but somber summer atmosphere as Shinpei visits the island he grew up on to attend the funeral of a childhood friend. There are a number of comedic moments like Shinpei diving headfirst into a pair of breasts and another childhood friend getting into a minor bike accident which led to her flashing the main character with her panties and getting soaked in the ocean. Despite how ridiculous this stuff sounds, bear with the show, these events actually end up plot relevant in an interesting way down the line, although I won’t go into it here.
The day progresses and he goes to the funeral, and this is where the atmosphere starts getting a bit tense, Shinpei realizes that Ushio might have been murdered instead of dying in an accident and also learns a bit about supposed fantasy creatures called shadows. Out of nowhere near the end of the episode, Shinpei comes across a shadow, basically a clone of Mio who proceeds to murder Mio and then him. The story would have ended there if not for the fact that there is a time loop going on and the entire plot from this point on becomes a story on Shinpei retrying the same timeline over and over until he wins or is permanently killed. Sound familiar? While this premise is definitely not unique in the slightest, I do have to praise the actual execution. A lot of these time loop anime don’t truly explore the potentials and the pitfalls of time travel that effectively, they downplay the absurd advantage time travel provides by dumbing down the protagonist or they cheapen losses and any drawbacks through the nature of endless repeats.
STR manages to avoid these pitfalls by doing the following, first Shinpei is actually an intelligent protagonist, after his first 2 loops he is already aware that he is in a loop without any doubts, and he starts immediately using it to his advantage. In addition, STR manages to create a threatening atmosphere by limiting the time loop such that every loop he goes through has a shorter time window due the loop starting a little bit later. This means that after a certain point death will be permanent for side characters, Shinpei will run out of tries and there is an upper limit to the time he has to save people and potentially the time he has to remain alive himself. By adding these limits to the time travel, along with making Shinpei intelligent enough to use the time travel properly, there is an effective tense atmosphere where the stakes feel real, and the mysteries are interesting. Of course, there is one other key element that makes STR stand out in terms of execution, the antagonists themselves fight in an intelligent manner and the shadow duplication mechanic carrying over the Shinpei’s memories to his clone give his opponents a way to mitigate the advantage of him repeating the timeline. There are some other additions to these mechanics and abilities each side possesses later on, but these are the core abilities, and they allow for the series to have an actual threat to the protagonist without dumbing the protagonist down in a very annoying way. There are definitely some flaws to the story telling, especially the one instance during the festival where the main antagonist spent a lot of time flexing their win over Shinpei and ended up allowing him to repeat the timeline, this was a real low point for the writing and possibly my least favorite moment in the series. However even considering drawbacks like the occasional plot convenience where the antagonist suddenly starts acting very dumb or out of character, STR ultimately had an excellent execution for a time loop mystery story that stayed interesting from start to finish, the actual explanations for the mysteries and the ending were satisfying as well.
Moving onto production, this anime is absolutely gorgeous, from the first moment I saw the animation for the sauce rolling over the katsu dish at the diner in episode 1 I already knew this show was going to be great in terms of visuals. The backgrounds, objects, camera work, animation, character designs are all so well done. We have a beautiful island environment with thoroughly designed vegetation, caves, and a realistic looking small island town. The food, weapons, cars, and even regular household items like kitchen tools and phones are all drawn in a very realistic manner with minimal to no use of CGI whatsoever. The camera work involves a lot of scenes where there are minimal cuts and instead the camera follows the scene in its entirety, this usually leads to a lot of still scenes in many other anime, but STR remains dynamic which is a testament to how good the camera work is. The angles for the camera are also pretty great, although there are a lot of fanservice angles I can let it pass due to just how well choreographed so many scenes are. As for actual fight scenes, there are multiple fight scenes that are on par with top tier action anime and various well known animators such as the guy who did the beast titan fight in Attack on Titan worked on the combat scenes in STR. The fights with the shadows are especially impactful and they always feel very thrilling due to how the anime conveys a bunch of dangerous scenes and how they represent body damage, for example a character getting injured on a specific part of their body leads them to slowing down visibly or not using that body part and getting hit to the face has real consequences like impacts to vision or balance. Every character also has a nice striking character design, the girls are all very attractive despite having relatively realistic body types and the guys all have traits that make them distinctive without it being ridiculous.
The OPs and the second ED were fairly memorable, while the first season had a pretty subdued OP which reflected the somber mystery atmosphere early in the series, the second season went for a more upbeat battle Shonen OP which conveys that the characters are finally united and found ways to fight back. Both of these openings effectively communicate the atmosphere of the series and the transition that occurs over time. In terms of sound direction overall, STR generally excels in using intense sound effects to rattle the viewer and add weight to scenes, the sound effects of the gunshots and the weapons used are especially good. Background music is also solid, it complements most scenes really well, although none of the tracks are so good you would want to listen to them stand alone, the tracks accompany scenes within STR perfectly. The tracks during the final fight in the last few episodes was especially great for how well they fit the scene and the sound design for the planes and bombing run felt incredibly immersive which brought up the soundtrack to another level.
In terms of characters, Shinpei has a few solid points that put him above the average time travel anime main character, the first being that he’s actually intelligent and not in some unrealistic super genius way but in a more reasonable believable way where he analyzes situations and makes decisions that don’t annoy the viewer. Essentially, Shinpei makes decisions that the viewer would expect someone to do if they were in a time loop with clone enemies, he takes videos to prove to people that these clones exist, and he quickly figures out in a few loops on how to tell them apart. He doesn’t make rash decisions and does not let the shadows manipulate him emotionally, he always considers the best moves he can make in his situation and what the most effective way of beating the shadows and protecting his friends would be. Outside of this it is nice to have a main character who understands sacrifices might need to be made, while he hesitates a bit, he is willing to kill shadows that act like humans, and he understands that his victory would lead to the loss of shadow Ushio and accepts this outcome quickly. Shinpei is the sort of realistic and smart MC I have always wanted to see approach a psych thriller series, he isn’t an absurd super genius or unrealistically edgy guy, he’s a normal person with intelligence who can calmly make difficult decisions, this is what is appealing about him and makes him compelling as the protagonist.
The other main cast members have a decent amount of depth to them, they all have their own motivations and goals, some of them are a bit more comedic than others like that cop who just wants to pick up girls but still overall I would say the main cast has depth. I especially like Ushio due to both her awesome character design and her straightforward and open manner of speaking, she does what she wants when she wants and is a true partner to Shinpei at every step. There couldn’t be a better partner for Shinpei, and she covers for his weak points, if he struggles with fights she can help or if there is a challenge, he can’t overcome, then it might fall under one of her strengths, she complements him well and makes for an excellent teammate. I also love her island girl accent, it’s such a cute way of speaking and makes her sound like she is emphasizing everything she says, the voice acting for her was done very well.
Haine and Shide made for great antagonists all things considered, as did the shadow versions of the main characters, while I would have liked to see more shadow Shinpei in the middle of the anime they did make good use out of an alternate version of Shinpei early on and at the end. I specifically enjoyed that the antagonists weren’t dumb, they noticed all the weaknesses that Shinpei had that the viewers would have also noticed and found ways to consistently beat him despite time loops, they also had compelling motivations for their goals even if these motivations would not necessarily apply to humans. Overall, the mind games between the protagonists and antagonists, the realistic portrayal of these characters, and how much depth was available for a number of cast members made the cast stand out strongly and kept the viewer engaged with the series.
In consideration of all the different factors such as solid story, great visual production, decent sound, and great cast, along with how much personal enjoyment I got out of this anime I would have to give it a 9 overall. It is definitely one of the most under watched series of 2022 and its way to bad that this series couldn’t have been streamed on a better platform.
