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

Kofune, Mio Supporting

Shirasu, Saho Japanese

Minakata, Hizuru Supporting

Hikasa, Youko Japanese

Haine Supporting

Kuno, Misaki Japanese

Hishigata, Shidehiko Supporting

Konishi, Katsuyuki Japanese

Nezu, Ginjirou Supporting

Urayama, Jin Japanese

Minakata, Ryuunosuke Supporting

Sanpei, Yuuko Japanese

Hishigata, Tokiko Supporting

Kawase, Maki Japanese

Hishigata, Sou Supporting

Ono, Kensho Japanese

Sotokawa, Akihiro Producer

Kojima, Hiroaki Producer

Shimosato, Satoru Producer

Kurashima, Mayumi Producer

Reviews

May 5, 2024

jmhj_

Recommended

If I was solely reviewing the first ~50% of the anime, then most likely it'd be a strong 8 (easily an 8.5 if MAL had 0.5 review scaling). The first half definitely succeeds in grabbing your attention, and leaving you with plenty of questions at the end of each episode. The second half, however, greatly suffers from routinely trying to one-up itself, and the plot just becomes bloated and ultimately much less engaging.

Animation was generally pretty good, though some moments in smaller fights were a bit freeze-framey.

Overall it's definitely an enjoyable watch, but IMO begins to fall off towards the end.

Plot: 6
Characters: 7
Animation: 7.5
Soundtrack: 7
Enjoyment: ... 7.5

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Dec 19, 2023

RyanSpring

Mixed Feelings

Summertime Render is almost a tale of two different anime. For the first third or so of the show, maybe even the first half, I was largely glued to my seat. It had the right blend of mystery, action, genuine creepiness and plot twists that were still within the realm of normal human comprehension. The latter half, however, goes completely off the rails and continuously tries to one-up itself over and over again until the plot is so bloated, convoluted, over the top and hard to follow that it just feels like a mess. It absolutely tries to do way too much rather than simply ... sticking with what was already working.

The anime is modern, having only come out in 2022, and therefore looks nice. It's not THE prettiest anime I've ever seen, but it's far from ugly, and the action scenes in particular are very fluid and have a lot of moving pieces. The sound however, and perhaps this is just a Hulu problem, seemed very poorly mixed during my viewing with music and effects being much, much louder than the spoken voices of characters, requiring me to repeatedly turn the program significantly up or down with each viewing.

In this anime I disliked the randomly sprinkled in fan service. To be clear, I have no issues with fan service as a general concept whatsoever, but if you're going to do it, really do it. Go all in, be unapologetic, make sure there are half a dozen fan service moments in every episode. Here, however, it happens so infrequently and seemingly randomly that it simply feels forced and out of place. It's as if someone at the studio was afraid to do it too much, or perhaps didn't want to do it at all, but someone above them told them they WILL include these moments, so find a way to make it happen.

Throughout the entire show, the abilities and powers of the characters in this show are increasingly over the top and increasingly convenient. I also found the ending of this anime extremely unsatisfying. It's neat and clean and it removes any and all stakes from the show and makes all deaths and sacrifices that came before it more or less irrelevant. It felt lame and forced and clearly designed to appease that audience who can't handle anything other than a happy ending.

At the end of the day I don't regret seeing Summertime Render through to the end, but I'm confident my final score would have been considerably higher had I simply put it down around the halfway mark. It was doing things the right way up until that point but then it fails to adhere to "If it ain't broke don't fix it" and opts instead to go more and more and more over the top until it's just a giant mess with way too much going on and much less believability. Nevertheless, it's probably still good enough to recommend watching for fans of the genre.

OBJECTIVE RATING- 7-8
PERSONAL ENJOYMENT RATING- 7

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Oct 6, 2023

OtAkU_TaBiB

Not Recommended

Didn't expect a sci-fi series to start dragon ball lvl fighting whereas the enemy is literally madara lvl. Shinpei would've been wiped out within first 10 EPs. The story dragged just bcz of pure plot armors
I appreciate the anime though for the good plot and bringing a concept like time travel. And you bring time travel things get pretty complicated as our human mind didn't reach that level (proof is steins gate). Steins gate was sci-fi focused. It discussed about time leapp, time travel, timelines, butterfly effect etc. But if you are here to enjoy those concepts then sorry you are in the wrong ... place .
Ending was top notch though. It's been a long time seen an anime with a wholesome and expected ending. The romance was really good. But in the end story development really disappointed me.
I would definitely not suggest sci-fi lover to watch this show. Rather I continued it just for the romance part
Overall Rating: 6.5/10

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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	Poll: Summertime Render Episode 25 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 ... Last Page ) Stark700 - Sep 29, 2022	475 replies	by jaesverse »» May 24, 4:24 AM
	Poll: Summertime Render Episode 21 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 ) Stark700 - Sep 1, 2022	200 replies	by jaesverse »» May 24, 1:16 AM
	Poll: Summertime Render Episode 22 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) Stark700 - Sep 8, 2022	124 replies	by Lanz »» May 23, 11:56 PM
	Poll: Summertime Render Episode 14 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) Stark700 - Jul 14, 2022	122 replies	by jaesverse »» May 23, 7:06 AM
	Poll: Summertime Render Episode 12 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 ) Stark700 - Jun 30, 2022	152 replies	by jaesverse »» May 23, 5:53 AM