Category: Natsume Yuujin-Chou

Oh my god, Natsume. Are you really delivering another brilliant episode? Seriously, even the previous seasons had episodes that slightly disappointed or didn’t work out as well as the others. This season has delivered one amazing story after the other.

Interestingly, this wasn’t necessarily about Natsume’s development. Instead, we’ve got a story entirely dedicated to a youkai here. In this episode it still was apparent how much Natsume has grown over the past seasons, but it really was about this quirky youkai that runs into him, along with a story of what happened in the youkai’s past.

For one, the Youkai was delightful to watch. He really nailed being funny, while also not getting lost in his own quirk. This guy is funny, but also surprisingly complex for a youkai. All in all it was a really interesting twist on the usual “youkai versus human romance”. It masterfully stayed away from cheese, despite an arranged marriage being used, along with “we can’t meet because we’re different!”. The ending in particular was delightfully light-hearted, yet incredibly charming. For the girl, it probably was a very nice experience, after which she went on and lived the rest of her life doing who knows what. All we see here is the side of the story of a youkai who is full of guilt for what he did.

I also realize now that the third season had surprisingly little of the book of friends. Because of this it’s also been quite a while since we last saw Reiko. With these opening episodes, you’d think that this season would be more about Matoba and Reiko, but with this series you’ll never know what the next story will focus on.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Well, there you have it. The third episode, and yet again this show delivers. Heck, I did not expect this, but out of the four Natsume seasons, the fourth actually had the most consistently excellent opening three episodes. I really hope that that’s a sign for the rest of this season, because this show already is better than anything else that airs right now that I’m watching.

This episode really toyed with the heartwarming type of stories of Natsume Yuujinchou. Natsume has taken care of cute things before, but this one had a bit of a twist here: it was poisonous and easily startled. It’s much more like a wild animal than the others that Natsume took in, and for a long while it didn’t reveal how sentient it was exactly, especially with it disappearing around the halfway mark of the episode. Because of that, it was really heart-warming to see how it felt sorry for hurting Natsume. This episode was completely adorable, though in a different way from the other cute episodes so far.

My one criticism of this episode is that it had some obvious continuity errors. One scene Natsume’s room is full of holes and blood, the next it’s finished. Also, it’s implied that Natsume went to sleep right on top of dirty berries. Of course this is nothing minor. It’s easy to assume that he cleaned all of that up out of camera, but here I believe that it would have made this episode even easier to relate to if there was just one small scene spent on Natsume actually doing this.

Also, this episode showed sometihng very interesting about Nyanko-sensei: he got sealed off in this episode and walked around through most of the episode with this strange eye-patch. It’s implied that he can’t get it of on its own, and yet he easily dispatches of it near the end of the episode. He could have chosen to do it immediately to just get rid of an unthankful youkai, but instead he agreed with Natsume to first try to solve things in a peaceful way by allowing Natsume to reason with it.

I mean, at this point it must also be obvious to him that that book of friends will be mostly empty when he can finally get his hands on it. I sense the same loyalty here to Natsume as the other youkai that Natsume befriended. He keeps teasing Natsume to hide it, but I doubt that the book of friends is his biggest reason to stick with Natsume at the moment. Heck, even Natsume teases him with that in this episode.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

And the first series this season also is very likely going to be its best. I mean, it’s Natsume Yuujinchou. The other shows this season are going to have to be really good if they want to be able to match it, but based on just first impressions, there doesn’t seem to be any other series that can get close to it anytime soon. I do emphasis “seem” here, because things haven’t aired yet and I do stress that this is just a prediction, but I will be really surprised if I turn out to be wrong here. I wouldn’t mind this at all, though. Does that make this season bad? Nah, but more on that later. I first want to rave all over how good these two episodes were.

But seriously: this fourth season wasted no time at all. This episode already was amazing. This one was one of my favorite arcs of Natsume Yuujinchou so far. This episode immediately took the third season, and went even further with it. Matome became an even better villain in this episode due to how he immediately researched Natsume, and checked up on his background, and tried to use this against him. I mean he probably too knows how it must be to be looked at weirdly. He just grew up being expected to head the Matoba house, and was surrounded by like-minded people. Natsume meanwhile had to do everything for himself.

Matoba really is a great villain. The research this guy does makes excellent use of this series’ arc-based nature, and how the arcs are relatively small. He is a villain who experiments. He’s constantly looking for things he can use, and if things don’t work out, then ah well; he learned something new, he can move on to the next, and he actually has a lot of different ways of accomplishing whatever the hell he needs to accomplish. This guy is very, very flexible for a villain. That’s not something we see often, considering how often villains need to be thwarted by a bunch of teenagers.

Overall though, I really am serious here: these were the best two opening episodes of all of the Natsume series so far. The other three needed to take their time to really get going. This one immediately is awesome. Now talk about promise here!
Rating: *** (Awesome)

I’m not going to say that this was the best ending of the season for two reasons. The first is that this show hasn’t actually ended yet (the Winter season can’t come soon enough). The second is that this ending was completely different from any other ending this season.

But still: if this would have been the ending of Natsume Yuujinchou, I would not have complained at all.

This episode was so different from your usual ending, and yet it was the perfect way to end the third season. This was by far the episode with the most positive outlook of the entire third season. There was no evil youkai to take care of, and instead the creators chose this to just show a bunch of youkai having fun (playing hide and seek, or Kakurenbou with Youkai; ah, the irony). It was a wonderfully fun and heart-warming episode that showed the cast just having fun, while at the end it also had a powerful message when Natsume’s friends arrived: he’s not alone. Neither in the world of youkai, and the world of humans.

I also want to yet again applaud Brains Base for understanding the importance of an ending. Here is the interesting thing: final episodes often have a lot of budget, meaning a lot of animators are put on them. That’s nice, but also constraining: because of that you hardly ever see final episodes with interesting direction, animation, or plot progression, like what you sometimes see when a particularly talented team is behind just one episode. This episode instead brought together a bunch of excellent animators, who really got to do as they pleased during the hide and seek game. This brought the characters even more to life than they already were.

I would love to say that Brains Base’s endings this season are awesome, however Kamisama Dolls doesn’t seem to fit in that picture. Instead though, I do have to praise Sadayuki Murai for adapting this story, and getting the best out of it. This wasn’t just animating a bunch of random chapters. Every single episode was dedicated to Natsume’s development, and the final two episodes were just the perfect ending. He also seems to be doing the fourth season, which is yet another reason to look forward to it.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Oh my god, I’ve found it: after years of waiting, I’ve found the episode to rival the Hotaru episode of the first season. This episode was the single best episode of the third and second season combined, and very likely also the first. This also was the single most emotional episode I have watched in the entire summer season. It really got deep to me.

The story of when Natsume met Touko was incredibly bittersweet. This episode was incredibly powerful to me, especially because it showed how different Natsume has become throughout the series. Out of all the episodes of the series, this one did it best, by going so far into the past, and using an actual youkai that he himself met, rather than who ran into his grandmother (very clever by the way: when that youkai first came, I really thought that it was another youkai who Reiko messed with in the past). To think that he actually nearly was turned into the pet of that thing.

And seriously, after so many hints, it was amazing to actually see the point where Natsume got saved from his life style. And it’s not like the families who took him in were all evil. The son of the family he was in was actually quite nice, and his foster parents were mostly cold to him because they didn’t know him well (because he just kept hopping homes), his strange behavior, and that he was a burden on them to have to also look after.

This episode was perfect, and really came at the perfect moment. It made the entire third season for me.
Rating: **** (Fantastic)

and once again Natsume gets closer to the people around him. Seriously, are the creators really planning to keep this up for the entire season? There are two episodes left at this point (yes, this series has been confirmed for 13 episodes), and I’m eagerly anticipating what they will end up delivering.

Looking back, Brains Base really has been dominating this season. My two favourite shows that premiered back in July come from them, and heck: their third series Kamisama Dolls is currently fighting with No.6 and Kami-Sama no Memo-Chou for my third place. It’s been a while since the company with the most releases of a season actually delivered so well.

I already thought that Tatsunoko last season did well if you ignore Pretty Rythm. Studio Deen of Winter 2010 meanwhile was a complete disaster, while JC Staff delivered an impressive batch of four series, albeit it was flawed by both Bakuman and Index II dragging on for too long. Meanwhile AIC of Summer 2010 failed to deliver on every single series they came out with. I think it’s not until Autumn of 2008 when I can recall a single studio dominating an entire season more, bakc when Madhouse was on fire with six new series in one entire season, including the classics of Mouryou no Hako and Casshern Sins. Next season will have three studios with three or more series: Sunrise (4), JC Staff (3) and AIC (3). All of them are really looking out to be mixed bags, unfortunately: AIC has one very promising series, next to their usual moe shows again. Sunrise meanwhile has Phi Brain, next to the questionable Gundam Age, next to the even more questionable Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon, next to another kiddie show. JC Staff meanwhile has Bakuman, whose first season while impressive does seem to lack something, Kimi to Boku, which I really fear is going to be overshadowed by Tamayura, and… more Kugimiya Rie with Shana. To be honest, I really doubt that they can get anywhere near the level that Brains Base are currently delivering.

Anyway, I’m digress. The youkai in this episode was nice, but what really made this episode was Takeda getting a taste of what it’s like to be Natsume, and being able to understand him a bit more. By actually being able to see Youkai, he finally could relate to him in the same way that we have been for the past thirtysomething episodes. It was a great little premise for an episode.

For the final two episodes, I really hope that they make use of this development. I know that the story is still going on and that the manga is nowhere near finished and all, but that would be the perfect time for a great climax.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

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)

Another amazing episode. At this point, things have to go really weird if the third season isn’t going to end up as better than the second one. It even has the potential to still surpass the first one. I haven’t seen an episode that beat the Hotaru episode, but apart from that the new season has just about everything running in its favor, and it has two very important things that the first season didn’t have: consistency and development.

Natume’s development really is THE major selling point of this third season. And heck, this episode added even more of it. I mean, the power of friendship is cheesy and all, but this show completely nailed it. Natsume’s concerns for his friends, and their concerns for him were incredibly heart-warming. It’s a wonderful way to show how much the cast has grown since the start of the series: back in the first season, the characters were still way too distant for this episode to have happened.

School festival episodes are overused, but thankfully not the biggest cliches out there. Those go to the hot spring episode, the beach episode and the pool episode, simply because everybody always does the bloody same there. Of course there are the bad festival episodes that are just there to waste time, but the good ones manage to show the cast in a different light, allow the characters to show themselves off, or highlight development. The best ones re the ones who want to make points that could not have been made without the choice to go with a school festival (so, no cheesy “let’s wait until the festival to confess to each other or something). Here, so much stuff gets thrown at Natsume, and he finally gets the chance to show himself off in the center of the attention by being the store clerk. The festival was a perfect chance for that.
Rating: *** (Awesome)