Natsume Yujincho, or translated, Natsume’s Book of Friends, is a beautiful thing amongst the common monotony of recent animation endeavors that come to mind, and has a brilliantly simple shine.
Artwork of Natsume Yujincho
To elaborate, there are no overly wrought character relations with constant flashbacks or pseudo-quasi-heavy dialog, no excessively grand plots that are dragged out to the point of tedium, and somehow a distinctive lack of the hollow character clichés that one often observes in the anime market today. The characters are simple, unassuming, deceptively deep and truly enjoyable.
The story follows protagonist Natsume Takashi, a kind hearted individual who not only can see spirits (youkai), but has come into possession of a book owned by his deceased grandmother (Natsume Reiko) that in which she sealed many of such creatures, and as the book’s owner he can control, from a particular region of Japan where he now finds himself living with kindly family friends who once knew and sheltered his grandmother.
Since Natsume’s grandmother died young, and no one else in the Natsume family possessed their ability, Takashi suffered much misunderstanding during his youth even by his own parents who both of his parents died, leaving him to be bounced about between family and friends ever since, perturbing them with his unique ability so that he has now come to hide it as best he can.
Natsume and his trusty feline spirit companion Nyanko-sensei.
Many of the demons and spirits that live in the region approach Natsume requesting, demanding, or threatening him to have their names removed from the book so they can be free. Others want to kill him so that they can use the book themselves to command all of the demons in the area. For his protection, Natsume makes a deal with a mysterious feline spirit named Madara, after accidentally setting him free, that he can have the book after Yujincho dies. Madara, nicknamed by Natsume as Nyanko-sensei (translating to something akin to Venerable Elder Mr. Kitty), accepts.
However, Natsume has taken it upon himself to release the spirits bound to him through his possession of his grandmother’s Book of Friends, and to show humanity to all the spirits as best he can.
Being able to see spirits causes Natsume, like his grandmother Reiko, many burdens and often makes him act strangely. But while his grandmother was outright bullied during her youth, Natsume was alienated by his family when he would try to show them the spirits that they could not see. He also has not given up on humans like his grandmother, who sought solace in making ‘friends’ of the spirits, but befriends people and spirits alike when they extend friendship to him.
Natsume prepares to free a youkai spirit from the Book of Friends.
To convey the story potently, Natsume Yujincho uses the supernatural to ultimately tell a tale of Humanity in the most touching of manners. Each episode tells a different story with a lesson, focusing on a particular mannerism of benevolence. To this end, the characters act as but mere machina to a particular set of ideals and reason, by which most attempts would make such two-dimensional, yet here inspiringly leaves them rich and near pure in essence.
Be prepared to be oft brought to tears or bouts of emotion, because through this story, you might find the materialization of liquid emotion from my eyes out of the simple Beauty of it; a joy of which I have scarcely ever had the privilege to experience during the period of my time in existence.
This is something awe-inspiringly refreshingly pure, something wonderfully beautiful, and something softly heroic in its benevolent way; for which I fear all words fail me in attaining a just comprehensive illustration.
Perhaps to conclude, I can at least say that I feel so charmed to claim that I which am not often so endowed as to state with unwavering earnestly:
Bravo.
Now if you would like to view this series for yourself, you can find an English subtitled version available at Crunchyroll.com
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