Summer Ghost

By James L. Perkins.

After working as an illustrator and character designer on light novels, manga and anime features such as the gut-punching and emotional I Want to Eat Your Pancreas, and the heartfelt romantic tale of Josee, The Tiger and The Fish; new director loundraw (no caps… just because) truly exploded onto the scene like a dazzling firework display with his feature debut Summer Ghost – the first film produced by loundraw’s own Flat Studio. I found it to be an extremely satisfying and emotional film that is perfectly paced, leaving me truly excited for what this magnificent auteur has planned next for audiences.

Out in late 2021, and getting a wider and home disc release elsewhere in the world throughout 2022, this poignant, gripping and spellbindingly gorgeous coming-of-age short film depicts three friends who meet through the internet and vow to discover the secret of the “Summer Ghost” – a girl named Ayane, who is said to appear when fireworks are lit in a special place, but only by those that have a vested interest in the idea of death and the beyond. In Japanese folklore, summer is the time for telling ghost stories, because they give you chills…

Tomoya, a young man who is enticed by the concept of death, is joined by Ryo and Aoi – all three of whom have a deeper drive behind their interest in meeting the ghost, as revealed in the script by Hirotaka Adachi, a deep study about life, death and the lines in between. 

loundraw has a simple yet stylish character design that manages to put a spotlight on the protagonists’ realistic human elements, bathing his characters in the same light as their backgrounds, allowing you to truly feel as if the environment is a living element in which the characters actually exist. It also gives life to the special, more spiritualist moments with that line between fiction and reality blurring seamlessly together – with every frame also evoking emotions similar to when a viewer takes in a painting.

“Colour and light were very important to this project,” he told Andrew Osmond at Animation for Adults. “Because the film is a collaborative project, there are a lot of things I can’t control, but layout and colour, including light, were things I could control, which is why I put such emphasis on them. With colour in particular, a lot of the time you’ll find in animation that the characters stick out against the background, they don’t fully integrate. But I wanted to change the colours (of the characters) with the backgrounds, so (the characters) felt like they actually exist in the scene. That’s apparently something not normally done when making animation.”

Speaking with Kalai Chik of Anime News Network, loundraw stated that his aim with the film was to have audiences embrace a “changed view of the world when they step outside” with them maybe starting to think “about what it means to live.”

One of the core themes explored – suicide – but also poses a difficult challenge for filmmakers wanting approach this subject with grace and compassion. Adachi’s writing and character development, along with loundraw’s chemistry with the screenwriter, not only has Summer Ghost succeeding within its 39-minute runtime, but also handling it with better stability than its bigger-budget and vastly longer peers.

“I did think about making a longer film,” he confided to Osmond, “but then I thought that there was no real precedent for ‘a film by loundraw,’ so my priority was just to get people to come and see it, and so I decided that a short film would be the way to go. Summer Ghost itself was always going to be a short film.”

Speaking with Josh A. Stevens of Anime UK News, loundraw talked about his attitude when tackling this task, stating; “In the script, initially there was a lot more action and feelings expressed, but I tried to cut all that down so that what needed to be said could be expressed with a single shot.”

The fact that loundraw is still under thirty (his 29th birthday is next month) and has already presented himself with the most solid and secure of foundations for a long, glittering and prosperous career ahead will excite fans of this beautiful art form and may also inspire those that wish to take that step on their own path.

James L. Perkins is a filmmaker and film journalist. loundraw will be appearing at Scotland Loves Anime.