Natsume Yuujin-Chou – 36



Here’s an interesting one: this is another two-episode arc, but this time it is not connected to the plot of youkai politics or anything. Instead, it again is about Natsume and his friends. Once again, this season is really dedicated to character development, character development, and more character development.

The thing also is, that it’s been entirely dedicated to Natsume. Every single episode was focused on him. If an episode happened to develop a different character at the same time, then this always was in order to also give extra depth to Natsume himself. This lead to the strange effect that Nyanko-Sensei is rather left behind: he really feels like a side-character now, and not the second main character that he was in the first two seasons. He’s still pretty fun to watch, but that’s pretty much it. There’s nothing of the charming stories like that time when he walked around as a giant cat for a while.

Beyond the obvious things as his friendship and finally getting the confidence to confide in the people he trusts, I also love how the creators portray Natsume’s worries. He still has them, though they’re completely different from what they used to be. At this point, most of the youkai who want their names back have already gotten them. Instead though, the huge amount of hostile youkai have made a great impact on him, to the point where he unconsciously tries to blame everything on them. If Tanuma would have caught a real cold, he probably would have thought the same.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

2 thoughts on “Natsume Yuujin-Chou – 36

  1. It would be awesome if there is more character development on nyanko sensei..i feel like the previous seasons have only showed how his relationship to natsume changed..it would be awesome to know more about his past..

  2. Natsume still strikes me as pretty trusting of Youkai. Anyway, I particularly enjoyed Nyanko-sensei’s voice acting in this episode and he’s always been a foil to Natsume in the manga.

    Anyway…as far as I can tell Tanuma’s frequent colds are always youkai related. Isn’t he actually pretty athletic and physically healthy? In the manga, I remember a little doodle of him as a child with a black belt in Karate.

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