Certainly a lot to unpack there, ROFL. We’re in full Japanese horror mode now, with mysteries unspooling and some proper jump scares. Hikaru ga Shinda Natsu is good at those for sure, but the essence of its horror identity will always be creepiness and atmosphere first. Since world-building is so essential to its identity, it’s entirely fitting to have an episode focus heavily on the geography (and naming conventions) of the places involved.
Hikaru’s wound is not a problem of course – he “fixes” it without any trouble. The evidence, however, is another matter. That falls to Yoshiki (why did the Tsujinakas have a big bottle of blood cleaner remover?). It is indeed like covering up a murder, as Hikaru says (from the mouths of babes). Soon Grandpa arrives, and Hikar2 immediately shows him Hikaru’s note (which he has no memory of himself). “Hichi” is definitely a name the old man recognizes – someone who “had a rough time of it”. He mumbles some stuff about curses, Unuki-sama, and a murder village before falling asleep in the genkan.
School is no refuge from the strange events happening in Kubitachi. Asako reveals to Yoshiki that she’s had trouble hearing out of her right ear since the incident on the road with Hikar2. This is Hikar2’s doing of course, though Yoshiki can’t admit that – he merely begs Asako not to hate Hikaru if indeed he’s possessed, as she suspects. Hikar2 certainly has an awareness that he’s responsible for this, as he was for old lady Matsuura-san’s death, and that it bothers Yoshiki-kun. But whether that awareness could be called remorse is very much an open question.
Things get even worse from there. A monster shows up and starts waving and calling out to Yoshiki from the quad, which naturally freaks him out. Except this is monster is a person – a nude one with a knife, which he turns on himself when surrounded by staff with the defensive weapons Japanese schools provide for these situations for some reason. Asako insists that there was something inside this person which made him do what he did, and notes that someone in the baseball club randomly went berserk and attacked Yuuta with a bat. Things are getting progressively weirder in Kubitachi, of that there can be no doubt.
As promised, Yoshiki has gone into research mode, trying to get to the bottom of what Hikaru is now. Naturally that involves a trip to the library in town, where a look at some old maps reveals something odd. The original villages of Kibogayama – Kubitachi, Udekari, Udeiri, Ashidori, and Darumasute – seem to form the shape of a body (and their names reflect this). Some have merged, some are now abandoned, but the original form has a distinctly bipedal look to it. The librarian chides them for being a bit loud (boys will be boys), but then reveals that she too is from Kubitachi – and her name tag says “Matsuura”.
There’s not much new in what Matsuura-san tells the boys – she does suggest that they contact her former classmate Hajime (Takeda-san) but it reiterates for Yoshiki that in covering for Hikar2, he’s covering for a killer whose victim had families too. He’s realistic – he’s made his choice now, and that makes him an accomplice both morally and legally. On the way home he runs into Tanaka-san, whose hamster seems to notice something odd about him right away. Tanaka stops Yoshiki and asks him about souvenirs, and the two of them bond over the rodent – which Tanaka says he’s had for 12 years (an impossible lifespan for the species) and calls it a bakenezumi (hamonster).
Finally, a very unsettling series of events at a family restaurant (a theme of this weekend’s anime). This time around the youkai Yoshiki sees is most definitely not a human. And it appears to be a pretty formidable one, as even Hikar2 seems quite unable to subdue it. He falls unconscious, bleeding from an eye, as Yoshiki cowers by the locked door as the creature menaces him. Then he blacks out too, only to wake up to find Kurebayashi-san hovering over him. Her role in all this is still a mystery, but she has a way of popping up when and where strange events are happening (which in this place would certainly keep her busy).
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