Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Natsume Yūjin-Chō Roku
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11405 |
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I suspect the main reason for Lauren's disappointment was that she apparently didn't recognize Takuma or Tsukiko, making the whole episode seem more mysterious than intended with these new "strangers" Natsume was getting involved with. So she interpreted as "clues" the ordinary visuals and sfx that Natsume almost always uses to tie its episodes together. There was certainly suspense in the first half, just as there has been in many other episodes, but nothing so out of the ordinary as she seemed to be expecting.
It was sad that the locked-out familiars were changed by their pain to where they could no longer stay at his side if allowed in. Otherwise, they would all have probably been happy to stick around and protect him, even if he couldn't see or hear them anymore. (it's interesting that the two seem connected. If you can't see them, you usually can't hear them either) I think the biggest question I had after this episode was what made Tsukiko feel that she had to start warding the house in the first place? If she'd always known about the existence of the familiars, why would she suddenly chalk up sensing them nearby as being malevolent just because her father could no longer see them? If they weren't angry until they were excluded, would they have been making noises different from what they'd been up to while she was growing up? I don't remember if it's been addressed, but I wonder if receiving a bit of the youkai's memories while exorcising them is unique to Natsume (maybe an artifact of the Book) or if that always happens. I'd think that if it's normal, exorcists would become more sympathetic to youkai than ones like the Matoba clan seem to be. @ Northlander: it's probably a similar idea to spirit photography and EVPs, where supposedly sounds and visuals no one sees or hears in the moment still get recorded. Except here, you still need to be able to see youkai to see what got recorded. 
Also perhaps akin to the belief that photographs capture your spirit? Not your entire spirit, but some portion of the supernatural energy being emitted during the recording. I guess first you need to explain how some people can see youkai at all, and most can't. 
Btw, thank you for resisting the urge to go all "you've got it wrong, because manga" on us. I much prefer to be disappointed by the anime than to be told I'm on the wrong track by "helpful" source readers.
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ryonomiko
 SubscriberPosts: 94 Location: Canada |
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"After everything is done and dusted, Natori has a very interesting line when he directs his familiar to figure out what Natsume is hiding: “Perhaps it's something that gentle, reckless Natsume can't be allowed to possess.” There's something sinister in this comment. There's always been something slippery and unknowable about Natori, even after all of these seasons, and it looks like this subplot is going to show us what he's really made of."
I take exception to this. Plus the line came out bit differently than translated in the manga (Vol15), "something he shouldn't have". It was pointed out clearly in this story that Natori becomes aware of the Book of Friends, without knowing what it is, but he was obviously aware of its significance given the way the ayakashi AND Natsume's behaved, to which Natori KNOWS Natsume can't/won't speak of YET (he said so to Natsume (and both know they have secrets and with good reasons). Natori also noted Natsume going pale about forbidden spells (both the Book of Friends and Taki's circle). Matoba is the sinister one. Nyanko-sensei well aware of that as is Natsume. You really think Natsume would call Natori a friend? Nyanko-sensei been blunt and clear about his opinion of Natori but don't see him trying to keep Natsume from not interacting with him. Natori knows Natsume too well, and he should look into it, because he as an exorcist could know better than Natsume may (not the case here) about this item which seems "dangerous". If your friend might be putting themselves in harm's way unknowingly, should you not help? With S6 only being 11 episodes (on TV) I very much doubt (sadly) the manga story that next picks up on this thread will be animated. |
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Alan45
 Village Elder Posts: 9857 Location: Virginia |
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Gina Szanboti wrote:
What Natsume is doing is not exorcism. He is simply returning the youkai's name, a completely different procedure. What I get from the story is that exorcism either seals, or in many cases, destroys the youkai. Returning their name simply allows them to go about their business without fear of interference from someone who can command them. If he was exorcising them, they wouldn't be requesting the procedure. I think what he sees is Reiko's memories sealed in the book with the name. |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11405 |
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I wasn't talking about what he does with the Book's pages with his own saliva when he gives back names. In this episode they drew a circle and performed the Ritual of Release (with Takuma's blood) to set them free, but he still got that memory side effect. That's a ritual known to exorcists, so I was wondering if they also received memories when they did this or if it's unique to Natsume because of the Book of Friends or just because he's so powerful.
I was mistaken to call the ritual an exorcism, even though they both use similar circles and incantations, and maybe it's not one that's performed much (on benign youkai at that), so I guess it wouldn't change their general attitude even if they did experience the same effect. Still, it seems more closely related to an exorcism than returning a name, given that it knocked him for a loop, which is often his reaction to exorcisms, while returning names just tires him out. |
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Merida
 Posts: 1945 |
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The poor youkai that so desperately tried to get Takuma's attention and just wanted to be useful in order to be able to be with him again, really broke my heart. 
I also doubt that Natori's got any sinister motives but i could imagine that he might try to take the Book of Friends away from Natsume out of worry if he found out about it... |
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Northlander
 Posts: 901 |
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Well... if I had written anything, I'd put the entire thing in a spoiler box anyway. I just didn't really find any reason to, since you'd get to see the ending anyway. Besides, at the time I wrote the first post, I hadn't watched the actual episode yet. I purposefully waited, since the episode review told me it was a double episode. (And then, when I sat down to watch the two of them, my PS4 decided to not let me access Crunchy after the first episode was done, so so much for waiting to avoid having to endure a cliffhanger ending.  )
If anyone is curious, and since I don't know if they'll go into this in the anime: spoiler[Natsume does at some point eventually tell Natori about the book of friends, and Natori doesn't take it away from him, even though yes, the book is probably a very dangerous tool in the hands of an exorcist. He seem to respect the book or doesn't want to be the bad guy in this, but it might also be some kind of "Galadriel and the One Ring" moment too.] |
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crosswithyou
 Posts: 2892 Location: California |
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At the Natsume event a couple weeks ago, Suganuma (Kitamoto) and Kimura (Nishimura) were going on about how happy that finally the two have an episode focused on them. One of them (Kimura, iirc) mentioned that their character's lines are generally made up of "good morning, Natsume" at the beginning, "where'd Natsume go?" in the middle, and "there he is" at the end, LOL. (I might have mis-remembered the last one, but it was something along those lines.)
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Merida
Posts: 1945 |
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That sounds more or less accurate. 
It was nice to learn a bit more about Kitamoto and Nishimura beyond that they are Natsume's only friends who don't know he can see youkai. To them he must look like a pretty weird kid a lot of the time, but they still genuinely consider him their friend which always made me like them.
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crosswithyou
Posts: 2892 Location: California |
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It drew quite a few laugh from the audience. =) Also Inoue Kazuhiko is HI-LA-RI-OUS. For his opening greeting, he said in Nyanko Sensei's voice, "I'm Nyanko Sensei, the voice of Inoue Kazuhiko."  Then for the final greeting, he said in Madara's voice, "I'm Madara--" and got cut off by the rest of the cast. I really hope they include the event as a disc bonus some time. I hadn't laughed this much in so long.
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11405 |
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Episode 7
Any episode that sheds any light on Reiko is great by me. I'm still not sure what I think of her. I get why she's so insular, but her utter lack of consideration for the youkai has always bothered me (all the ones she dueled or made promises to and then just forgot about), like they're merely her entertainment since she doesn't have any human connections to keep her occupied. On the other hand, she does still have a sense of justice, and isn't cruel by intent (much). I wish we could learn more about her, so I could decide if I like her or not.
On a different subject, I've been watching the series from the start and I can't figure out how Natori doesn't know about the Book of Friends. In the first episode where they met, a demon comes looking for it and while talking with Natori, Natsume hears it call to him about the Book. How did Natori not hear it too? He was clearly aware of it and was prepared to stop it when it attacked. And then in that hilariously sketchy episode where he takes Natsume to the hot springs (S2:E3), he actually witnesses Natsume giving back a name! I realize stuff happened right after that, but how could he not ask him about it later? Others have already wondered how he hasn't heard rumors of it from youkai, but I guess that could be a case of don't ask, don't tell. But the Book should have been out and in Natsume's lap, unless he stopped to put it away first.
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A Mystery
 Posts: 1887 Location: Netherlands |
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I don't think Youkai would tell Natori any details. He is sorta like a possible villain to them, or at least someone you shouldn't trust too much. Natori already knows Natsume is hiding something, but apparently didn't prioritize it. He might not have thought of Natsume as someone who'd be practicing forbidden techniques.
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chaccide
Posts: 295 |
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This show makes me cry almost Every. Single. Time. And it's not like it's overly maudlin or I'm PMSing all the time, it just knows how to touch hearts, including mine, with a perfect balance of sweet and sad.
Re yokai gender, I mostly assume they wear gender like clothes and don't care about it. Who's to say what genders the couple were, and who cares? It's a sweet expression of love. |
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Northlander
Posts: 901 |
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From all the stuff I've read (and watched) so far, I'm... sort of liking her, I guess? (I have disinherited episode 5 of the first season, since it's a filler episode that makes less and less sense the more about her I read.) Yeah, she seems kind of aloof about her treatment of the yokai at first glance, but we've only really seen her as a teenager, and unlike Takashi, there was no Fujiwara family around for her. Who can tell how Takashi would have turned out had Touko and Shigeru not been around to let him into their homes? That, and as the intro chapter for Hinoe (I think) showed us, people weren't just avoiding Reiko and calling her weird; they were actually physically assaulting her on top of that. Yet despite this [sarcasm]wonderful showing of humanity[/sarcasm], she still finds the time to do actual nice things for some of the yokai she meets, and even spoiler[a young Shigeru at some point when HE was a kid.] The only negative thing I can say is that I have to wonder why she went and created the book, because it's a mortifyingly terrible instrument in the wrong hands, especially for the yokai whose names is in that book. Did she realize this when she got started in making it? I actually had to look up Natsume's name, since I'm so used to refer to him as Natsume, even though that's his family name. ^^;; Anyway, I'm curious as hell about how she actually moved on enough to have a child -- I mean, spoiler[one of the parents in the storyline about Natsume's (inherited) house is basically her son or daughter; I don't remember which. I THINK it was the father, but I'm not entirely sure. ^^;;]. The manga/anime can get kind of dark at times, but I'm hoping that they don't go with a storyline where spoiler[she's raped, but decides to keep the child resulting from said rape], because.... well, that would be uncharacteristically dark, even for this one. I'm sure she also met her fair share of people spoiler[(in addition to Shigeru)] who would be willing to look beyond her more oddball behavior, like the girl who showed up in one of the flashback chapters/episodes and showed a surprisingly quick mind and a sense of justice, so I'm keeping an optimistic mind for this one. |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11405 |
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I'm kinda liking her too, sort of, but I still have lots of reservations at this point. I guess I feel bad about all the youkai (and there's been more than a couple) who were distressed that she never called on them. And it doesn't feel like that was because she didn't want to abuse her power, but that she just forgot about them because they were just passing amusements.
I do love that episode about Shigeru though. Natsume's room is literally exploded and when Shigeru asks "My god, what happened here?" Natsume says, "Um, nothing." And he doesn't even get grounded for it!
Which is why I'm sure the series would never go that dark. It's so innocent that no one bats an eye at movie star Natori running off with a teenage boy to a hot springs inn. 
@ A Mystery: I think his servants would tell if they knew, and I don't know how they can't have heard about the Book over the decades, just as everyone and their brother, human and youkai alike, has heard about Reiko. And again, it's not just knowing he's hiding something, he's seen him give back a name. Yet it doesn't seem to have even piqued his interest. That's out of character, and feels like a plot hole (or serious oversight). |
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Northlander
Posts: 901 |
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And with an incredibly handsome man, no less. Touko must be a yaoi fangirl or something.
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