Summertime Render

Since the death of his parents, Shinpei Ajiro had lived with the Kofune family and their two daughters—Mio and Ushio. Although he then left his home island to continue his education in Tokyo, Shinpei returns after Ushio tragically drowns during the attempted rescue of a little girl. During the funeral, his best friend informs him about bruises found around Ushio's neck, casting doubt over the cause of her death.

Suspecting a murder has taken place, Shinpei reevaluates recent events, but strange incidents only continue to transpire. Disappearing people and other unexplainable occurrences lead Mio to recall an old folktale referring to entities called "Shadows," which may not be entirely fantasy. Supposedly, an encounter with one's Shadow foretells the person's impending demise.

Facing the dark side of Hitogashima Island, Shinpei stands against his grim fate to fulfill Ushio's final will—to protect Mio.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Ajiro, Shinpei Main

Hanae, Natsuki Japanese

Kofune, Ushio Main

Nagase, Anna Japanese

Minakata, Hizuru ing

Hikasa, Youko Japanese

Kofune, Mio ing

Shirasu, Saho Japanese

Haine ing

Kuno, Misaki Japanese

Hishigata, Shidehiko ing

Konishi, Katsuyuki Japanese

Minakata, Ryuunosuke ing

Sanpei, Yuuko Japanese

Nezu, Ginjirou ing

Urayama, Jin Japanese

Hishigata, Tokiko ing

Kawase, Maki Japanese

Hishigata, Sou ing

Ono, Kensho Japanese

Sotokawa, Akihiro Producer

Kojima, Hiroaki Producer

Shimosato, Satoru Producer

Kitazawa, Shiryuu Producer

Reviews

Sep 29, 2022

dead__123454

Recommended

Ya can’t just act on instinct and expect things to work out.
Anger, frustration
View them objectively and they become weapons.
- Ajiro Shinpei.

From the outset, Summertime Rendering has the air of a slice-of-life anime with a lighthearted and clean story. But as the story goes on, one can find themselves drawn into a storyline that is amazingly intriguing and engaging.
I began reading the manga just after the sixteenth episode aired; the ... chapters were short, and I was able to finish it in a few days.
The excellent thing about this anime is that it adapts the whole manga; the 139 chapters of the manga are covered in all 25 episodes.
There are no cliffhangers, and a new season is not required.
Additionally, the plot is fantastic, and the show's premise is quite unique.

Story: 10/10

Animation: 8/10

Sound: 10/10

Characters: 9/10

Enjoyment: 10/10

So, Shinpei is the main protagonist of the story, who, He made his first trip back to Hitogashima in two years to attend the funeral of his childhood friend Ushio Kofune. He was raised in the Kofune family and has been close to Ushio and Mio as if they were his family because he lost his parents when he was a little child.
And the show's female lead Ushio will surprise you.
She is my favourite character XD.
I love how the antagonist in this show, who are also extremely intelligent, try to obstruct the MC's efforts to figure things out.
It's really interesting how time travel works and how everything resets after death. Without giving away the narrative, the programme does a great job of explaining the crucial points so that viewers are not confused.
Also, there are several well-integrated mystery, thriller, and supernatural aspects in the plot. Although the anime builds up a lot in the first half, watchers won't be able to guess what will happen in the last act.
I think the animation was fantastic, and the action parts were thrilling.
The character designs, especially the eyes, were beautiful.

And the drastic tone changes throughout the anime will blow your mind.
Summertime Rendering is a nice change of scenery in the first half of the anime.
But, watchers will find an anime full of negative feelings, regret, despair, desire, and sadness as they become immersed in the plot. The story doesn't end there, though. Near the end of the anime, viewers will be greeted by brutal violence, suffering, and murder.
Man Shinpei will endure the greatest hardship, and as the story progresses, he will grow to be quite likeable. But sometimes it appeared as though he might just break.
The story will also be carried by other characters including Mio, Hizuru, tokiko etc.

Since the plot would draw you in, it was difficult to watch this show on a weekly basis. A 20-minute episode felt like 4-5 minutes lol.

The Opening and endings songs were super good my fav one is Shitsuren Song Takusan Kiite Naite Bakari no Watashi wa Mou (失恋ソング沢山聴いて 泣いてばかりの私はもう.) by riria.

I also watched some episodes twice.
And, there is a slight amount of romance too.

And what a wonderful ending.

This is a show you could binge watch, and it’s one of the best shows of 2022 in my opinion, a true gem.

I’m glad that I watched it.

＼(◎o◎)／！

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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Nov 23, 2022

Resting_Bonfire

Mixed Feelings

Summertime Render


I don't know if I wanted to praise the anime for the fact that I could hardly stop watching it. Or to express my sadness about how this show got worse and worse with each episode. This is of course often the case that series lose quality over time, but here it was impressively fast. Especially from episode 19 on, you couldn't talk about quality anymore, it felt like the writer was changed and some amateur grabbed his chair.

And the golden rule... if in an interesting anime, a white-haired evil loli with different colored eyes appears, then you already know that the ... anime is going to be bad. It's the same thing over and over again.

[Story 4]

The main topic of Summertime Render has everything a heart desires. It has a mystic atmosphere, unexplainable murders, good pacing, creepy monsters, and many mysteries that simply captivate the viewer.
Unfortunately, much of the suspense is already sacrificed in episodes 5-6, when the "killer" is given a face and the big baddies are already revealed. From then on, a lot of the atmosphere practically disappears and it veers more towards an action shounen.

From that point on I just thought to myself that it was disappointing but maybe it will still be good. But my hope evaporated, it resembled more and more from episode to episode an unwanted child between Re: Zero and Mirai Nikki and it got worse and worse. Why throw out everything that created actual interest at the beginning of the series? This is beyond my understanding.

To make matters worse, the story became weaker and weaker towards the end, with less and less content and more and more clichés. The opponents turned into clowns and no longer had any charisma. And I don't even want to start writing about episodes 22-24. The villains got caught in a time loop so often that their IQs suffered massively. Despite being radical and manipulative, to begin with, they evolved into the dumbest antagonists I've seen in a long time.

Episode 25 would have been less bad in that regard if not for the impressively brainless finale. Also interesting to see how little impact it had to change 300 years of the history of an island and still come to almost the same result. Heh, Stein Gates put the whole thing in a much more interesting light.

[Characters 4]

I don't hate any of the characters, some of them are relatively understandable or even rational. Unfortunately, they are massive stereotypes and grossly unrealistic. The protagonist is the worse Tanjirou, who goes from a rational character to an irrational one.

The female protagonist is the LIVING PLOT, without her the entire story would be meaningless as she does practically everything and is the answer to every question. She is strong, has all sorts of abilities, is invincible, and doesn't even want to die. When she shows up, you know the scene is going to be boring. The first episodes were so impressive precisely because this invincible monster wasn't present and it was just human versus shadow.

Double G Cup is the typical female bookworm with big boobs, except that this one can fight shadows for story reasons and does everything without a problem, except when it comes to the supreme boss.

The rest of the side characters are simple stereotypes with no achievements to speak of.

The 2 antagonists are an absolute disappointment. Although the shadow was interesting at the beginning, he developed into a generic pseudo-Isekai antagonist that knew no logic or sense.
And the Loli... yes, every cliché that was on the list was chopped off with her. It's impressive how the author managed to create a good atmosphere and on the other hand, had no idea what he wanted to do with the plot.


[Animations 7/ Music 6]

The animations were fascinating at the beginning and lifted the atmosphere, it was a gorgeous image and the scenes practically flowed into you. From the halfway point, they were rather shaky and limited to only a few moments of brilliance. By the end, it was just average carnage with no sense of detail.

Music-wise, the anime was average, both intro and outro. What I did like, however, was the spoiler-free first intro and some osts.


[Conclusion 5]


And so you see again what happens when a good idea ends up in the wrong hands. Under other circumstances, this series could have become an unparalleled top title. The subject matter around the island and the shadows was a goldmine and so little was made of it, and in the very end, it was just slapped on the table. What a disappointment. When we saw the ending, we could hardly believe that this was the same series as when we started.

[Enjoyment 6]

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Aug 24, 2023

GranzchestaRev

Not Recommended

After getting heavily disappointed with the latest Higurashi titles—Gou and Sotsu—I was very excited about Summer Time Render. It ticked all the boxes I sought—a murder mystery in a rural town with time travel, scary monsters, two-cour without any prequel and sequel, and good production values. With the first minutes of Shinpei's journey, I quickly sold out for the series. The summer atmosphere was on point. The art style was great for the most part. The main plot was like a knock-off mix of Higurashi and Steins;Gate but still gripping, and most importantly, you could feel the thriller. So, what happened? How this propitious thriller ... show turned into a mindless action where you can't get the intensity.

The first major problem: Breaking the "Don't Show the Monster" rule

In horror/thriller works, if a horrifying monster is way more powerful than the main characters is present, there's a crucial rule about not showing the monster. Why? It's simple, due to the nature of the mind, we fear the unknown. If we can't see the scary monster that tries to catch the main characters, we start to feel uneasy and almost feel like we are in the same story as those characters. Summer Time Render breaks this rule very early by showing its two main antagonists and revealing some of the most important secrets of shadows. Although nothing says this rule is absolute, if you throw it into the dumpster after the first couple of episodes, you need to use another method to make for its absence. And, once again, Summer Time Render has a perfect contender for this. One of its antagonists is a very tall shadow with four arms. His strength is ridiculous, and he has so many tricks under his sleeves. This guy was a perfect contender for being an "Implacable Man" where he will chase the main characters while they are hopelessly trying to find a solution to this calamity. However, this four-armed idiot doesn't chase the main characters. Instead, he backs down, relaxes, and gives enough time to the main characters to come up with multiple plans. If there was a threat who constantly chased the main characters and they tried to come up with a strategy during this cat-and-mouse game, it would be way more exciting. Also, it would be a match made in heaven with the shadow concept. Instead, the author used him as a simple action boss. And this is not something unique to this four-armed beast. The whole show starts to become an action story after the episode the main antagonists had introduced, and it almost totally transforms into a generic battle shounen with the start of the second half.

The second major problem: ACTION!... Action?

I was strongly sorrowful after realizing I got deceived into watching a battle shounen instead of a mystery-thriller. Still, I didn't fall into despair quickly. There were some battle shounens I liked a lot, and Summer Time Render could turn into one of them at the end of this journey. However, despite having some great sakuga sequences, most action scenes felt underwhelming due to the dialogues. If we trained an AI to read every battle shounen created in human history and requested it to write a new one, the story it would come up with would have the Summer Time Render's dialogues. These dialogues are the corniest, the most cheesy, and the banalest dialogues you can ever write. The plot already has enough problems—like how the time loop concept becomes a useless gimmick in the second half—and because of these AI-generated dialogues, even the good parts of the plot had left in the shadows. So, we only have a battle shounen with horrendous dialogues at the end of the day. But we still have a broad character cast. They can save this abomination, right?

The third major problem: Characters, all of them

I'll get straight to the point, all of the ing characters in Summer Time Render are either generic stereotypes or failed attempts at writing characters with multiple layers. There isn't even a single exception for this. Mio is there only to create an unnecessary love triangle, Hizuru and Ushio are just fanservice materials, and Ryuunosuke is just a plot device. All three of the Hishigata family could've been compelling characters, but they didn't get explored enough. Nezu was so close to being a well-written character, but his character arc got only 5 minutes of screen time which is very disappointing. She is just a cliché villain who wants to destroy the world. Haine is a complicated villain, but her character gets tossed out from the main focus for no reason, and Shinpei is...

The fourth major problem: A failed time traveler protagonist

The last and most crucial major problem I will touch on in this review is how worthless Shinpei is as a mystery story protagonist and time traveler. Although the show heavily shifted into action in the second half, it still holds onto mystery and thriller elements, so what I will complain about in the next segment will include the whole show.

For time travel shows, where the protagonist needs to repeat certain events over and over to find a solution to the dire situation they are in, the main traits of the protagonist should be set very early by the author. Otherwise, the audience can see most of the protagonist's actions in the later parts of the story as unnatural or plot convenience. Two of the most popular time travel anime are good examples of this—Re:Zero and Steins;Gate. In both shows, the protagonists face much stronger enemies than themselves. And the most important thing these two shows manage to do is make the viewer as desperate as the protagonist. You know the protagonist has the wits to defeat this enemy, and you try to think about what will be the protagonist's next move and how they can beat the enemy, and this thought process makes you as nervous as the protagonist. In Re:Zero, this has been done by setting Subaru's character as a masterful tactician right in the first arc, so you know he will come up with an astonishing plan no matter how things become worse and worse. In Steins;Gate, this has been done by making Okabe a clever problem solver in the trigger messages stories—so he can be seen as a reliable protagonist when the real action starts despite him being a kind of goofball from time to time. However, in Summertime Render, just like Shinpei, you also have no idea how he will defeat the enemy because you have no idea what Shinpei can do in this situation since you don't know Shinpei enough. And the reason for this is the show didn't care about his characterization—he is just a cardboard protagonist filled with generic tropes without any riveting character traits. So, unlike in Re:Zero and Steins;Gate, the feeling conveyed to the audience is cluelessness, not despair or anything else powerful.

The writing in Summer Time Render sucks, but the production values are still solid. Character animations aren't the best, and there are so many still shots in some episodes. However, it can get overlooked since the show keeps its impressive photography and composition throughout the whole series for 25 episodes. Voice actings have their ups and downs—Anna Nagase's Ushio performance was one of the downs, for example. And I'm still salty about how Natsuki Hanae's voice doesn't fit Shinpei even a bit, and they probably cast him just because of his immense popularity in recent years. But Katsuyuki Konishi and Youko Hikasa's performances were enough to say the overall voice acting quality was good.

There are still some topics I didn't touch on in this review. Such as how the show comes with a complicated question about clones, but instead of focusing on this question, it throws it out of the window after "solving" it with a couple of subpar dialogues and keeps its focus on action with AI-generated dialogues. So, unless you watched all 2-cour action anime with good production values that don't have any prequel or sequel and strive for more without caring about the writing quality, nothing but disappointment awaits you in Summer Time Render.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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