The Summer Hikaru Died episode 3: Yoshiki faces reality but chooses to accept the Hikaru impostor

Released on Sunday, July 20, 2025, The Summer Hikaru Died episode 3 sees Yoshiki trying to figure out how he truly feels about the entity posing as Hikaru. He meets up with Rie and shares the truth. Their conversation makes him realize that he must accept the truth about Hikaru’s death and move on. Later, he has a tense exchange with the fake while trying to avoid him.

Eventually, Yoshiki accepts that while the fake isn’t Hikaru, he still feels drawn to him and can’t bring himself to let go. This time, he accepts the fake for who he is, not the real Hikaru, and their dynamic starts taking a new turn.

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The Summer Hikaru Died episode 3: Yoshiki shares the truth with Rie Kurebayashi

Yoshiki and Hikaru as kids with Hikaru's father (Image via CygamesPictures)

The Summer Hikaru Died episode 3, titled Denial, begins with a flashback scene from Yoshiki and Hikaru’s childhood. They casually chit-chat and eat watermelon together on a summer day.

The narrative returns to the present. Yoshiki heads to Hikaru’s house with a watermelon. He’s still contemplating whether he should contact Rie. After he arrives, the two sit and eat watermelon again, just like the old times. The fake Hikaru brings up the same things the real one used to say, which leaves Yoshiki feeling uneasy.

Though things seem normal on the surface, deep down, he knows that they aren’t. Carrying that truth by himself starts to slowly wear on him. While Hikaru takes a nap, Yoshiki sees an old photo of them with his father, taken shortly before his father passed. Yoshiki remembers that his father also went into the forbidden mountain, just like Hikaru did, around the same time of year.

Yoshiki in The Summer Hikaru Died episode 3 (Image via CygamesPictures)

Hikaru was the only kid Yoshiki's age in the village, so they had grown up together. Seeing all those old photos makes the absence of the real Hikaru harder to ignore. Yoshiki finally reaches out to Rie. He sends her a text but has to step away, leaving his phone behind. While he’s away, Rie responds, asking if he’s ready to talk. The fake Hikaru sees the message and wonders who she is.

Later in The Summer Hikaru Died episode 3, Yoshiki meets up with Rie and finally opens up about what’s been going on. Rie reassures him that he hasn’t done anything wrong, and wanting to hold onto someone he has lost is natural. She shares that she, too, has experienced something similar. Still, she says that accepting the truth is an important step in moving forward.

The topic shifts as Rie asks if Yoshiki has noticed anything unusual around the town and village. She suspects that something unnatural, a kind of distortion, has made its way into the area. She refers to these strange presences as "visitors" who aren’t supposed to be here. Rie thinks that the thing that replaced Yoshiki’s friend is the cause, and it likely came from the forbidden mountain.

She also ties Matsuura’s death to it and reveals her own experience. She shares that her late husband returned one day; however, things didn’t go well. He hurt their son, leaving him with a wound that wouldn’t heal. Regardless, she wanted him back, the same way Yoshiki feels about Hikaru. But Rie doesn’t want Yoshiki to end up like her, because things can’t go on like this forever.

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The Summer Hikaru Died episode 3: Yoshiki faces the reality but is still drawn to the impostor

The Summer Hikaru Died episode 3 shifts to a regular school day, but things are off between Yoshiki and Hikaru. Hikaru looks for Yoshiki, but the latter avoids him. Yoshiki can’t stop thinking about what the impostor said when it first revealed its true identity, how it didn’t want to kill him. Yoshiki realizes that it could easily kill him if it truly wanted to.

As he tries to make sense of everything, Yoshiki starts connecting the dots between Nonuki-sama, the sealed entity in the mountain, Matsuura’s death, and the strange atmosphere around the village. His curiosity about the impostor grows, and he wonders what the being posing as Hikaru really is. The situation starts to wear him out, especially as he tries to figure out how to move forward from this.

The Summer Hikaru Died episode 3 then sees Hikaru find him. Yoshiki tells him to leave him alone. Hikaru picks up on his mood and asks if he’s upset because of him. Yoshiki denies, but Hikaru brings up Rie. The conversation turns to an argument. Yoshiki ends up saying out loud what’s been on his mind, that things aren’t the same between them because he’s not the real Hikaru.

Yoshiki accepts Hikaru's death in The Summer Hikaru Died episode 3 (Image via CygamesPictures)

His words clearly hurt the impostor. It admits that, of course, he’s not the real Hikaru, but wonders if it's still not good enough for Yoshiki. Something shifts in him. It grabs Yoshiki’s wrist and says it needs him, that it can’t manage on its own. Its emotions begin to overflow, and the being possessing Hikaru’s body starts to seep out. It attacks Yoshiki and begins to merge into him.

While struggling to free himself, Yoshiki sees a strange image of someone who looks like Hikaru, holding what seems to be a human head. Suddenly, Yoshiki is freed. The impostor snaps out of it, realizing what he was doing. He apologizes and leaves abruptly, asking Yoshiki not to hate him.

Later at home, while thinking about what happened earlier, Yoshiki accepts the truth that the Hikaru he knew is truly gone. No matter how much he wanted to believe otherwise, pretending won’t change that. Yoshiki accepts that the impostor can’t replace his childhood friend.

The entity seeps out of Hikaru's body (Image via CygamesPictures)

The next day at school, Hikaru is absent. Their friends notice and ask Yoshiki if they fought. They’ve also picked up on how Hikaru’s been clinging to Yoshiki lately. Something clicks for Yoshiki, and he decides to check on him.

He finds Hikaru hiding under a blanket at home. Yoshiki apologizes for earlier. Hikaru asks if Yoshiki is scared of him now. It says that it doesn’t care what Yoshiki does, as long as he lets it stay by his side.

Yoshiki knows that getting too close to this thing is dangerous, but he also can’t bring himself to push it away. Something about it feels almost like a lonely, naive child. The Summer Hikaru Died episode 3 ends with the two making up as Yoshiki decides to at least teach it a few things.

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Final thoughts

The Hikaru impostor attacking Yoshiki in The Summer Hikaru Died episode 3 (Image via CygamesPictures)

The Summer Hikaru Died episode 3 offers an emotion-focused entry, dialing down the eerie atmosphere to focus on the relationship between Hikaru and Yoshiki.

While the mystery of the being posing as Hikaru still lingers, the character development comes from Yoshiki beginning to accept that the real Hikaru is gone. He chose to accept the fake not as a replacement, but for what it is. This adds a new direction to their dynamic, though it might come with risks, just as Rie had warned.

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