×
  • remind me tomorrow
  • remind me next week
  • never remind me
Subscribe to the ANN Newsletter • Wake up every Sunday to a curated list of ANN's most interesting posts of the week. read more

The Fall 2016 Anime Preview Guide
Natsume Yujin-cho Go

How would you rate episode 1 of
Natsume Yūjin-Chō Go (TV 5) ?
Community score: 4.5



What is this?

Takashi Natsume is a high school boy with a secret—he can see yokai, the Japanese mythological creatures that most people think only exist in folklore. It sounds like an amazing superpower, but it's actually made Natsume's life very difficult. When he was a child, everyone thought the orphaned boy was lying, so he was passed around from relative to relative. Finally, he was placed with his current foster parents, the kind Shigeru and gentle Touko, but trouble always manages to find Natsume. He's inherited a book of yokai names from his grandmother, Reiko, who could also see spirits, so now yokai won't leave him alone! Accompanied by his self-appointed bodyguard Madara, a chubby feline yokai who is much more than meets the eye, Natsume gets swept up in the small dramas and daily life of yokai and can't resist trying to help. As he starts to make human friends at school too, Natsume is caught between the secular and spirit worlds. Will Natsume be able to come out of his shell and open up to his friends? Will he be able to glean enough of the truth from fickle and unreliable yokai to learn who his grandmother Reiko really was? Perhaps all in good time. This warm storybook show takes an ambling pace as slow and pretty as the changing seasons. Natsume Yūjin-Chō Go is based on a manga and can be found streaming on Crunchyroll, Tuesdays at 3:00 PM EST.


How was the first episode?

Lauren Orsini

Rating: 4.5

Natsume Yūjin-Chō, also known as Natsume's Book of Friends, has already strolled through four gentle, dreamlike seasons, but it isn't about to run out of content anytime soon. This first episode of the long-awaited fifth season makes that clear right away with the acknowledgement that we still don't know how Natsume came to be. Every time we see his grandmother, Reiko, it's as a smiling girl in an old-fashioned uniform. We never see Reiko after high school, or as a mother. This episode cuts to the quick of Natsume's deepest anxieties—that Reiko was the bad person his relatives seem to claim she was.

Natsume's idyllic present, shown here in sylvan forests and small town Japan life, in watercolor backdrops complete with visibly textured paper, contrasts so strongly with Reiko's life—always depicted in sepia brown and tinged with Reiko's inability to connect with others. Nearly every episode of Natsume Yūjin-Chō has a happy ending and this premiere is no exception. However, activities in both the secular and spiritual world collide to bring the tragedy of Natsume's past to the forefront. First, after a brief reunion, Natsume's unkind unnamed relative is visibly relieved to not have to talk to that weirdo grandson of Reiko's anymore. Second, a childish, selfish yokai begins to plague Natsume with allegations about “Reiko the thief.” Natsume's unique ability helps him to eventually unravel the truth, or at least part of it, in a bittersweet story that unites Reiko's misfortune and Natsume's blossoming support group in sharp distinction.

It's a powerful portrait of Reiko shown through multiple perspectives that illustrates the weaknesses of human judgement, and how you can be a perfectly good person and still get somebody else completely wrong. It's the kind of sad, sweet tale of humanity that I've come to savor from Natsume Yūjin-Chō. My one complaint is that the pacing seems off today, with Natsume literally running from one place to another to ensure all the action happens in time. It's tonally off from the gentle opening sequence, the pressed flower ending, and the muted, pastoral setting of Natsume's life. Natsume Yūjin-Chō is my chill-out anime, and I'd much prefer the two-parters that it relied on heavily in season four than any more rushing.


discuss this in the forum (568 posts) |
bookmark/share with: short url

back to The Fall 2016 Anime Preview Guide
Season Preview Guide homepage / archives