Summertime (Cinnamons and Evening Cinema song)
“Summertime” (stylized in lowercase) is a love song by Japanese bands Cinnamons and Evening Cinema. It was released digitally on August 7, 2017, and later appeared on Evening Cinema’s album Confession. The song was composed and written by Natsuki Harada, who is the vocalist, keyboardist, and guitarist of Evening Cinema, and Harada also produced the track. It was released as a digital single and later as a double A-side CD single with “Tokimeki of Winter” on December 12, 2018. A version with a new arrangement appeared on the 2018 album Confession. The music video was animated by Tsukunem (Tsukunejirou) and features a couple on a coast drive under a spell of love.
At first, Summertime did not attract much attention. It went viral in Southeast Asia around late 2019 and early 2020, topping Spotify charts in Vietnam and the Philippines and then spreading to Japan via TikTok. The song became associated with the late-2010s city pop revival, even though Harada did not intend it to be city pop.
In 2021, the song inspired a novel titled Kimi no Toriko ni Natte Shimaeba, Kitto (Only If I Could Just Fall in Love with You), written by Aira and serialized on the Peep app. Remixes followed: Evening Cinema released Summertime (Evening Cinema Remix) on June 25, 2021, and Maeshima Soshi released Summertime (Maeshima Soshi Remix) on July 23, 2021. Indonesian YouTuber Rainych posted a popular cover version on YouTube.
Harada later arranged a cover of Miki Matsubara’s Mayonaka no Door (Stay with Me), and Evening Cinema helped produce Rainych’s Japanese debut single Ride on Time, a cover of a classic 1980s song. In 2021, a vocal audition on Mix Channel selected Suu to record a new cover, Summertime (Kimi no Toriko ni), released in July 2021.
On May 19, 2021, the novel adaptation Kimi no Toriko ni Natte Shimaeba, Kitto was published on the Peep app.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 20:11 (CET).