Hizuru had to give up a lot so that Shinpei could come out alive in that encounter, which would all go to waste if Summer Time Render Episode 21 didn’t figure out a way to make use of her sacrifice. Let’s see if that happened in this review!
Summer Time Render Episode 21 Overview
Summer Time Render is the latest anime by the Anime Studio OLM, previously known for producing critically and commercially acclaimed anime like Komi Can’t Communicate and Odd Taxi. Ayumu Watanabe directs the series, a director whose career so far has been intrinsically linked with OLM, having previously directed Komi Can’t Communicate and Space Brothers for the studio. The anime is based on a manga written by Yasunori Tanaka.
The series is also referred to as Summer time Rendering or Summertime Render, making this episode’s name also be Summer Time Rendering Episode 21 and Summertime Render Episode 21. You can read our review of the previous episode of this show right here!
– Summertime Rendering Episode 21 Review does not contain spoilers –
Summer Time Render Episode 21 Review- The Prodigal Daughter
An alternative title for this review was “The Calm Before The Storm” because those words perfectly capture how it felt to watch this episode. This was an episode that came just after a major character sacrificed herself in one of the best battles in the show so far and just before we had into what is going to decidedly be an epic and hard-hitting finale for a show as good as this. This was an episode where you could smell the flowers for the final time and get some other small plot-adjacent stuff out of the way before everything kicked off.
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Supplementing that was the beautiful animation that was featured here, as this was one of the prettiest episodes that this show has ever produced. Rains and sorrow go hand in hand, and how this show portrayed how everyone felt about Hizuru’s death despite never speaking much about it said a lot about how well this is written and produced. Hizuru was a great character, but she was also someone who would have chided Shinpei and the others if they had sat around moping about her loss instead of capitalising on it and working towards defeating Haine, which is exactly what they did.
We haven’t had much time to focus on attraction and love for a while since people have been too busy trying not to die in this show, but if there was a time to revisit and tie up some of the romantic sub-plots that are present in the show, it was now. Sou and Mio resolved their relationship quite amicably, which was lovely to see. Shinpei and Mio have both been doomed from the start due to the (non) existence of Ushio between them, but Shinpei being upfront about it said a lot about how little time he has for things like this.
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Shinpei is a weird protagonist, to be frank. He is super competent, much more than people like to give him credit for, and his resolve to fix the island any way he can is admirable. However, beyond that, his real personality is never made very clear. He doesn’t have thoughts and aspirations beyond what is happening to him at the present moment, and despite being perfectly reasonable at the time, his weariness at the start did sour some people on him. He is a good fit for the show, no doubt, but this is a case of the show making the character instead of the other way around.
With Hizuru’s death, things have never been direr for our group. However, with some extraordinarily clever writing and a little sleight of hands, there is hope again. Shinpei discovers a way to reacquire the biggest weapon they could have had at this moment, something that should have been blatantly obvious but wasn’t due to how quickly the show’s time progresses. The thing about time loops is that they are sometimes confusing, which the show used to its benefit. Things just got very interesting, folks.
Verdict
Summer Time Render Episode 21 was the calm before the storm and the one moment of calm we are going to get before the show starts popping off with relentless abandon. This was a much-needed episode and a great one at that.
Click here to read the review of the next episode!