/anime/129201/summer-time-rendering

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Time travel thrillers are nothing uncommon. I remember being a lil boi and got fascinated by the thought of travelling back in time, just to undo that one cringe moment. Years later, that lil boi is now a grown ass man, still cringing over it on his bed. But what often makes me lost in thought is just how much we got used to this fascinating concept, and its imagined rules. After consuming several time-travel related media in different forms, I just lost the excitement I once had to this sub-genre of SF, due to the lack of creativity and just reusing the same rules without bringing anything new to the table. Summertime Rendering is one such case, but well executed.

Summertime rendering follows the nerve-racking time travel storyline: "Redo until it becomes Right".
Ajiro Shinpei, upon his homecoming to the remote island "Higotoshima" finds out that his childhood friend Ushio, is long gone. But at the end of the day, he finds out that Mio, Ushio's lil sister, got killed by her "shadow", which eventually kills him too. But instead of meeting the deceased Ushio after getting killed like a normal human, Shinpei travels back in time, and starts the day again.
Who and what is this "shadow"? Why is Shinpei looped back? What's the cause of Ushio's death? More and more questions and hurdles start to surface as the protagonist repeats the same day, assuming he won't go insane in his unending suffering.

Rules and Characters

The main hook that pulls anyone into these storylines is, "Figuring out the rules". And the characters of Summertime Rendering understand this to their very core. Every character, no matter how insignificant quickly notices when things happen and responds (or at least tries to) in an unbiased fashion. And there is no better example for this than our protagonist, Ajiro Shinpei aka Shin-chan. With his 'Bird's Eye View', Shinpei takes the objective stance to look at things instead of getting swayed by insanity and horror that unfolds to him. This always keeps things interesting, as in anything can count as a big clue, from a severe bullet scar to an awkward panty shot. The Anime always keeps the mystery as the main focus which gives it an engaging experience, and Shinpei is a perfect protagonist for that. Well, not entirely perfect.
The main hurdle with having a protagonist obsessed with objectivity is to make them emotionally resonant. To give an opposite example, take S1 Subaru from Re:Zero or Satoru from Erased. They mess up things big time, but we relate to them because of that. We relate to that stupidity that brought the tragedy on themselves by themselves, which is why even when we know they are doing stupid things, we still empathize/sympathize with them.
But here, as the series progresses, Shinpei becomes obsessed with finding & defeating the villain, that he gradually strays away from human emotion, despite being driven by it. This is where the side cast comes into the play. Ushio, Mio, Tokiko, Hizuru, Sou and the old man Nezu, despite being distant to emotion similar to Shinpei, ground him to stay human by showing care and opening up to him, while also taking their own spotlight and not just living under the protagonist's shadow. In the grand scheme of things, however, some are less relevant.
The side cast are not just pawns to the plot, but arms in hands to the protagonist, as they should be.

Art and Animation

Have you ever seen a moment where the camera seems to be falling down but the character gaze is just so intense that camera seems to float in the air?

...Yeah, that (I think, it's called a "Panning Shot" but I'm not sure). The Anime is filled with a lot of these techniques and some of them feel misplaced or distracting. Something I like to mention are the "Realization shots", where the background goes blank as the character tries to analyze their situations, and while it's a bit off, it adds to the warm and alienating atmosphere of the show. And the eyes. God damn them eyes! The occurrence of a fight sequence in an Anime, ranges from rare to occasional. And a lot of the action is pretty short-lived with less 'animation' and more tricks to give the feel of movement. But I remember watching episode 15, "Lights, Camera, Action" (yes that's the title) and albeit the dark lighting, it still has hype animation and good camera work. I'm running out of words, so I'll simply say: Yes, it has some good animation. ▶ Video
#### It's from OP2

The Downsides

• The emotional side of the story is a bit flat. Considering how most of the time, the characters are all about solving and objective thinking, their subjective experiences are mostly left in the dark and only implied that they have a strong emotion for their actions, which are only explored for Ushio and Hizuru/Ryuunosuke but not for the rest.
• The ending is relatively bad. For all the hype and suspense it created, it still ends on the same shounen formula, a big boss battle. Only problem is the villain motivations seem spontaneously made, with no proper thought or foreshadowing done.

Miscellaneous

• I particularly like the first ending song "Cadode - Kaika". I remember somewhere around episode 6, when the opening humming kicked in, I relistened to it the entire night.
• The voice acting is another thing I want to give some praise. They did an excellent job for, not only the rural accent but also the shadow counterpart of that accent. Especially, Natsuki Hanae and Maki Kawase killed it.
• Yeah, I'm a Hizuru fan. How could you tell?

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#Summary Pros * Shining art style * A tight knit mystery * An all-rounded ensemble cast with everyone having a relatively big moment * Intense action scenes * Brilliant voice acting * A memorable ending song (ED1).

Cons

• Relatively weak ending
• B grade antagonist
• Emotional arcs are overshadowed by strong Mystery elements.

Final Verdict:

An entertaining time loop thriller, through and through.

Time loop stories remind us of the human perseverance to strive for a better tomorrow, a better today.