YoshiKyon

9/10

I watched this one as part of a trade with Tricodin, who has a terrible sense of humour but an amazing taste in anime~
This came shortly after we'd talked about Re:Zero, and the similarities are clear, albeit at a surface level only.

Instead, Summer Time Rendering is a difficult show to rate, because it feels like it does practically nothing wrong and yet somehow manages to not do anything especial to justify being a 10 - even a 9 feels generous (and yes, scores mean nothing, I just like giving the shiny numbers to things typically) but it's hard to place exactly where it goes wrong.

Minor spoilers below

It'll be tough to talk about this show without giving at least a basic rundown of the premise, although I promise I'll avoid big spoilers here. Essentially, main character returns to his hometown because of the death of a childhood friend, where he discovers that things are pretty fucked up. He ends up dying and returning to the boat ride before arriving at the island with all of his memories intact. Cool.

With that out of the way, it's weird for me to say that it took a while to really get into this one. I loved Re:Zero and, in particular, the use of death loops and the constant one-upmanship, which this fully leans into (where Re:Zero occasionally detours for fantasy world-building that I like a little less). Something about it felt low-tension, despite the show constantly reminding you of just how high-tension the situation is - I have no idea what, though, and I'd love to hear if anyone else thought the same or has an idea as to why.

The characters, meanwhile, are incredible. I won't say everyone is perfectly fleshed out or engaging - the antagonists especially feel somewhat one-dimensional - but even the side-cast are mostly interesting, each with their own dynamics and relationships that make their involvements feel realistic and add complexity and realism to their exchanges. Tokiko stands out as a shining example of this, where every interaction she has feels restrained but engaging; I feel like the best characters are the ones where their personalities are so clearly defined that it'd be obvious the second they stepped out of character, and not only is Summer Time Rendering really good for that, but it follows those characters to the end without veering away for the sake of the plot. Mostly.

The plot is, however, probably the weakest part of the show. Where the early episodes do a fantastic job of building the universe, it does a bad job of giving the antagonists any actual motivation, and where the later episodes begin to do that, it gets lost in what quickly becomes more of an action show than a thriller. It's unfortunate because it's so good at being both an action and a thriller, but it loses something in between in terms of narrative.

I know this review sounds incredibly negative - a lot of this is me trying to piece together exactly what stops this from being a 10 in my eyes - but the core point still stands: this is an incredible action-thriller with some fantastic world building & an incredible cast. It just loses something in between all of that that could have made it unforgettable.