Summer

Summer is the season in which Hideo Harada’s renewed family life and relationship with Kei unfold, its oppressive heat pressing into ordinary scenes of eating and walking. At the end, the season’s passage becomes a measure of loss: when Hideo returns to Asakusa, he feels that summer, his parents, and Kei have all passed away.

Heat in Domestic Life

In the apartment, summer heat shapes the smallest decisions. Hideo’s mother remarks on the heat wave and says she thinks a rash is forming around her neck; his father urges Hideo to take off his shirt and make himself comfortable. The scene places bodily discomfort alongside the relaxed familiarity of family life, with the prospect of eating watermelon making the heat something the household can share and answer together.

The season also makes a celebratory hot-pot meal impractical. Hideo suggests going out for sukiyaki, partly because he would rather say goodbye to his parents in a public restaurant, among other diners and staff. His father points out that it is not really the season for sukiyaki and suggests eating at home; his mother, meanwhile, doubts that they should make hot pot without air conditioning. Summer thus enters both as weather and as a constraint on the farewell Hideo is trying to arrange.

Heat in the City

On an outing with Kei, Hideo walks toward a small Spanish restaurant a full kilometer down Tokyo Route 8. The mid-afternoon heat is intense, and car and truck exhaust hangs so thickly in the air that he has made a habit of curbing his breathing. Even so, he enjoys the excursion; Kei does not share his pleasure and complains about the walk, asking why he does not have a car. Their differing responses give the summer landscape a place in their relationship: the oppressive conditions are shared, but not experienced in the same way.

The Season's End

Two days after his hospital stay, Hideo returns to Asakusa with Mamiya. As they emerge at Tawara-machi Station and walk along International Boulevard, he notices that summer has ended. The traffic fumes remain, but autumn is perceptible in the air, and pedestrians move with more energy than they did at the height of the heat. The change of season is rendered through both the city’s atmosphere and its people’s pace.

For Hideo, autumn marks more than a change in weather. He has already found emotional closure in the hospital and believes that neither his parents nor Kei will appear again; on the walk, he understands the season’s passing alongside their absence. Summer therefore holds the period of their renewed presence, while its end gives that experience a boundary. The transition does not restore what he has lost, but makes the loss legible as something that, like the season, has passed.