#original panel from hikaru ga shinda natsu

[kyodelika]

sorry

[raaindropps]

I think it is all a matter of love; the more you love a memory the stronger and stranger it becomes

[ID: A digital drawing of Hikaru, as lord brainsnatcher, and Yoshiki from Hikaru ga Shinda Natsu walking through an art museum. The room is dark, except for a spotlight shining on a marble statue of the original Hikaru. The placard reads "Hikaru Indou, Artist Unknown". Yoshiki is stopping to marvel at it, while Hikaru uses his insides of pull him away.

In the background are various paintings. Some of them are manga panels, an others official art of other drawings. Behind Hikaru is a painting of an angel stabbing themself. Their halo is positioned so that Hikaru is right below it, looking like it's his. /End ID]

[levbolton]

As funny as it sounds, the chapter two of Hikaru ga Shinda Natsu has strong duality vibes. 

this post is kind of messy so please excuse me beforehand

This discussion about the difference between different dragonflies is rather obvious, because they look pretty much the same, but they’re entirely different species (you’ve caught that, didn’t you?)

In many cultures these insects represent overall growth, one’s transformation through maturity. They can symbolize going past self-created illusions that limit our growth and ability to change, as the site I linked says. 

Which leads to that reference to Emil Sinclair from Demian (by Herman Hesse) as ‘Hikaru’ mentioned. I want to make an entirely different post about Demian and HGSN because I think it deserves it. In short Demian is coming of age story about growing up and finding yourself, that part is easy to understand, but it’s quite philosophical and that isn’t as easy to explain (thus me not making the post yet).

Update 26 July 2023: the original post is from 1st January 2023, so here I am 7 months later to tell you that it is not Demian that’s referenced, but Das Nachtpfauenauge, still by Herman Hesse. Everything I wrote here was before any official version would be out, so I might be wrong to mirror Demian, however, some aspects are still similar (maybe because both the manga and Demian are coming of age stories).

Almost everything is expressed through concepts of religion,the mc going from seeing the world split in two (the bright world and the world that’s perverted) to Abraxas that’s the god of both good and bad at the same time, just as the scanlator said, the main theme of the book is duality. And just like that site I’ve linked, Emil grows past those self-created illusions he had as a child. It’s very obvious if you read the book, my mind is a bit burnt out so i hope you get what i mean.

*something I also wanted to point out is that the dragonfly makes its first appearance (and probably there aren’t any after chapter 2, i didn’t skim through every chapter before writing this sorry) at the end of the first chapter when he “accepts” ‘Hikaru’

and the way I can see this is Yoshiki’s (or maybe Hikaru’s?) start of maturity journey with the “help” of ‘Hikaru’. There’s something in me that would rather think it’s about Yoshiki’s growth rather than ‘Hikaru’ (despite Moku saying they want to focus on the feelings of the one who has been substituted) after reading Demian. 

and then my question on this chapter is, why did Moku choose to draw ‘Hikaru’ like this in these panels? Yeah the lightening of the golden hour probably (i can visualise it clearly), but why did they choose to represent it like this? half of ‘Hikaru’s face being shaded, half in light, you see the duality in this, right? 

After revising this post, it makes me think of Demian again... (i’m sorry this is so messy). Emil Sinclair is the main character, and then there’s this other character named Max Demian whose looks are rather often described as both young and old at the same time. So you can see this in Hikaru, his face is both lit by the sun and in complete darkness. Not to mention the switch between the text box fill, white and black, yeah it’s for dramatic effect, but isn’t this maybe another hint to the book? 

Even the cicadas have a meaning of being born anew, yeah they’re the sound of summer and Moku said they use it for the creepy effect but it’s interesting to see all the background details point towards one route.

My hypothesis for now, as of when the first 14 chapters are out, is that, this story will try to focus on the growth of Yoshiki, to learn about himself, to accept himself. Yeah i bet that you can see clearly that he liked Hikaru, but moku did not intend it like that from Yoshiki’s point of view, they said it repeatedly with the word “bromance”. Put yourself in Yoshiki’s place of a youth in a traditional small village with strong traditions, so i think that Yoshiki’s growth will also focus on him accepting these feelings and letting go of this grief. The whole plot? I have no idea, I trust moku’s story telling and creativity that this series will be very impactful as these 14 chapters have already been. 

All i can say for sure it’s that the manga covers represent the sky, and moku said they want the sky to turn into a gradient (did they like that heritage tumblr post?), so at some point there will be complete darkness and i’m not sure if we will reach dawn though...