Short Synopsis: Natsume meets a female Youkai, who longs to see a person from her past again.
Highlights: The female youkai and her character-development in just one episode.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10
Natsume Yuujin-chou isn’t exactly my favourite show to blog. Don’t get me wrong, it’s without a doubt my favourite series this season, and I love it to bits, but because it’s so incredibly relaxing, it almost puts me to sleep, especially late at night (and for once, that’s a good thing). I don’t have much inspiration to write about after its episodes let go of me.
This episode, Natsume meets a youkai who was originally a small bird. Out of her siblings, she was the only one to survive, and after seeing her brothers and sisters die, she changed to a demon. She got changed back into a youkai by the attention of one guy, who kept bringing her food. Why he kept doing it I don’t know. He couldn’t see her in this episode anymore either, but the Youkai is still incredibly grateful for what he did.
This series is still so refreshing, that it focuses on the nice side of the youkai. Series as xxxHolic and Mokke also had occasional episodes where the youkai and spirits were moved by the niceness of people, but most of them were either evil or minding their own business. Natsume Yuujin-chou shows a different side of the spectrum: there’s your occasional evil youkai, there are also a bunch that are minding their own business, but the big focus in this series is how a bit of effort can mean a whole lot to another person. Especially youkai, who have the tendency to get much more emotionally attached to the major events in their life than most humans do.
How many episodes is this series? I haven’t read your episodic run throughs since I don’t want to spoil it too much but could you explain what it’s like? I love the artwork, and a few read throughs makes me believe this is something like an episodic supernatural slice of life mix kinda thing. Something akin to xxxholic in a way, except more positive?
If so I think I am going to really like it. I LOVE xxxholic and am watching Kei now. The first 2 episodes were just superb.
The amount of episodes isn’t known yet, and at this point I’m not sure whether the creators are going for 13 of 26 episodes. There are quite a few similarities with xxxHolic, but the big difference is that Natsume Yuujin-chou shows a more positive side of the youkai. It’s also a very relaxing series, while xxxHolic was more about tension.
I think it’ll be only 13 episodes, seeing that it took Vampire Knight’s time slot and Vampire Knight is coming back in October. I’d be happy if it were longer, though…
What a bittersweet episode. I had the feeling that Natsume was annoyed at first by being followed around by the bird-girl, but grew to like her as time wore on (maybe even romantically?).
But he realized she was already attached to the other human who saved and fed her when she was still a bird, and Natsume couldn’t really replace her human. It was nice seeing him being able to help her one last time before the village flooded again. Other than Nyanko-sensei, there’s not really any other person with whom Natume can relate his unique abilities and experiences.
I’m hoping his female classmate at school will discover his secret one day so they can share in that, but maybe that’s for another ep.
I love this episode…yes, it was bittersweet. Natsume got attached to the swallow youkai and in the end, he cried. I hope this serie runs for more than 13 episodes. It’s reminding me more of Mushishi, which I also love.^_^