Yeah, this was pretty much the best ending of the season. In fact, out of all of the four natsume seasons, this season had the best final episode. This was definitely in my top 5 of favrotie Natsume episodes. If this turned out to be the last we’ll see of Natsume Yuujinchou, then I don’t mind this at all with such a wonderful closing episode.
This episode had a lot of parallels to that one episode of the third season, where Natsume met Touko (that one overall turned out to be my favorite Natsume Yuujinchou, out of all the 52 that were aired), but there were some huge differences here. Both were meant to show how hard Natsume’s childhood was, but that episode was about Natsume and his fears of not being able to do anything. This episode (and arc, really, it was about Natsume’s fears of responsibility. In this case, he wasinvited by a really nice family, and yet he didn’t want to cause any sort of trouble for them. You can see Natsume get a lot colder after the events of this episode when you look at the other flashbacks. Only when he met Touko he started to open up again.
The house part was kept wonderfully subtle. The creators said so much here with so little dialogue. It was incredibly heart-warming.
Overall, the fourth season: it has the best beginning and ending of all four seasons, while in the middle part it was a bit outclassed by seasons 1 and 3. Still, it had a point and purpose, and it still was really worth the watch. When I first started watching this, I really didn’t expect this to go on for 52 whopping episodes, but I’m definitely glad that it did. This was by far the best Winter 2012 series.
Rating: *** (Awesome)
I only started to watch Natsume (season 1 to 4) after reading your reviews. It is really a great series, that is worth the marathon over the weekend. This final episode is simply touching. It is heart-breaking to see Natsume trying hard to remember his happier days with his father. Natsume has grown out of his painful childhood and become what he is now, with friends (humans and youkais) and a place that he could truly call ‘home’.
You always say – ”it’s impossible that this series can stay as good as it is for so long, things would start to go stale any moment now”, and then Natsume goes and proves you wrong psgels 🙂
Definitely the best series of winter 2012, not it had much quality competition, to be fair.
Chihayafuru is the only other series that’s of the same (or higher) standard, but that one’s a 26 epper. Nisemonologue was childish self-indulgence (by the writer), Another started out well but suddenly decided to try its hand at comedy.
Oh, that Hotarubi no Mori e OVA (by same mangaka as Natsume) was pretty good.
Female mangaka seem to write better supernatural themed stories, Natsume and Mushishi being prime examples.
Now that it’s over, I feel unusually… content. Honestly, I thought I would be crying uncontrollably at the end of my most beloved series, but I’m not. The world just seems like a very nice place right now — “Move on, move on,” it seems to be saying.
The animation was wonderful, the voice acting was wonderful, and the music was wonderful. Your bottom left screenshot is one of my favorite scenes in this episode.
I don’t really have much else to say.
“The End.”
P.S. According to director Takahiro Omori, there are no definite plans for a fifth season, although they are open to suggestion (meaning “buy the merchandise, and maybe we’ll consider it”).
yy: source for the P.S.? I don’t seem to find it.
From his twitter:
https://twitter.com/#!/t0mori/status/184340986611236864
I think it’s the first time that I shed a tear because something good ended.
I know you’ve mentioned it here before, but I truly appreciate the subtle relationship between Natsume and Nyanko-sensei. It really brought tears to my eyes at the end when Natsume wanted to take another picture with Nyanko-sensei. Truly a great moment! Please bring on Season 5!
can’t believe 9 separate people said the same thing i was thinking about this show
Definitely felt like THE end. It’s a shame the current manga arcs won’t get animated, but then again I’m pleased it ended strongly and would be content if they decided to end the anime for good now.
Still bizarre for me that they ended with “Natsume Yuujinchou shi”. Seems too unlucky.