Zoku Natsume Yuujinchou
Natsume's Book of Friends Season 2
続 夏目友人帳
As with its prequel, Zoku Natsume Yuujinchou is about Takashi Natsume, a boy who has had the ability to see youkai since he was young, and his bodyguard youkai Madara, nicknamed Nyanko-sensei. Natsume attempts to return names written in his "Book of Friends" (which he inherited from his grandmother Reiko) to youkai in his village. Throughout these adventures, he meets some youkai that are friendly, some that want to steal the Book, and some that want to kill him, as Natsume learns about himself and his relationship with these mysterious beings along the way. [Written by MAL Rewrite]
Synopsis
As with its prequel, Zoku Natsume Yuujinchou is about Takashi Natsume, a boy who has had the ability to see youkai since he was young, and his bodyguard youkai Madara, nicknamed Nyanko-sensei. Natsume attempts to return names written in his "Book of Friends" (which he inherited from his grandmother Reiko) to youkai in his village. Throughout these adventures, he meets some youkai that are friendly, some that want to steal the Book, and some that want to kill him, as Natsume learns about himself and his relationship with these mysterious beings along the way. [Written by MAL Rewrite]
Characters
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Trailer
Recommendations
Reviews(20)
makoa69
June 25, 2012
Allow me to create a sub-genre of anime in which this particular one fits right in. I'd like to put this anime into the Zoo genre of anime. The Zoo genre is an anime which has some special monster or some unique creature within the show. Each episode introduces and focuses on one particular type of that creature. Shows like Mushishi, Fruits Basket, and Panty and Stocking all qualify for this genre of anime. In Natsume Yuujinchou's case, the monster is the Youkai, the demon-like beings which only Natsume, the main hero, can see. These animes tend to lack any core plot dictating the entireshow, and usually consists of episodic exhibits of the monsters. Each episode is good depending on how interesting the featured monster is. Natsume Yuujinchou has a lot of monsters, and usually they're very interesting. This part of the anime is superb, and exactly the kind of thing I wanted to see after having watched Mushishi, which is probably my favorite anime ever. Natsume Yuujinchou has a recurring pattern in its episodes. The episodes fall under two different types: either A) the monster is really nice and has some problem and Natsume helps out or B) the monster is really evil and the main character gets in a pinch, usually life threatening. Yuujinchou works best when it's telling an A-type story. This story really fits with the tone of the show, and really brings out the best episodes. It's during A-type episodes where Yuujinchou shows off its great animation through fantastic visuals such as gorgeous scenery or wondrous images such as a colorful dream. The B-type episodes are also good, but certain reoccurring situations really start to get dry after a while. In every single episode of this type, there's a scene in which Natsume is being chased by the monster, he trips and falls down, and then he gets rescued by somebody. It really starts to get boring watching these episodes when pretty much the same scene happens every single time. These episodes were kind of out of place as well, since most of the time the anime tends to be very peaceful and slow, while these episodes were usually very tense and exciting. This anime is very pretty, and it sounds great as well. Both of the opening songs are really good at setting the tone for the episode to come. The ending songs are both very relaxing, and give good closure for each story. I really like the voice of Madara, the cat sidekick. Natsume's voice is perfect for the show and really helps express the relaxing tone. The anime is really quite good, so why did I only give it an 8 instead of a 10? Well, I had a problem with Natsume, the main character, several times. Natsume is a nice guy who had a bad childhood. He spends his time helping others and generally puts the well being of others over himself. He keeps his own troubles to himself because he doesn't want to burden the people he cares about. He is quite timid and doesn't speak much. Usually I like this type of character. He's very similar to Honda Tohru from Fruits Basket, Furude Rika from Higurashi, or Nunnaly from Code Geass. The problem is that this anime has those B-type episodes I mentioned earlier and they require that Natsume grow stronger both mentally and physically. What I mean by this is that Natsume doesn't seem to learn anything from his B-type experiences. He'll get tricked by a monster in one episode, and then in the next episode he'll get tricked by another. He gets caught up in so many dangerous situations where he almost dies and he never reflects upon what mistakes he made to get into those situations. He is actually too selfless, to the point where he doesn't even care whether he dies or not. In a particular episode, a Youkai object is absorbing Natsume's life force and gradually making him sicker. Instead of taking any action at all to save his own life, he allows the object to continue to absorb him, all because the object is important to the monster of that episode. the episode reaches a point where it seems that Natsume might actually die. Now come on, doesn't this guy fear death, like every average human being does? Why is he so willing to throw it away for NOTHING AT ALL? These B-type episodes really start to get boring because of this. Why should I care about whether Natsume gets hurt or not if he himself doesn't care? I thought I would enjoy this anime just as much as I did Mushishi, but I didn't. After all the danger that went through these two seasons, Natsume should really be dead already, but he isn't. It really isn't fun watching him get rescued so many times when he puts zero effort in to keep himself safe. Every time he gets attacked I half hope that he loses an eye or something so that he'll finally reflect upon his poor actions and finally start defending himself. It really is a shame that the whole entire show isn't the A-type episodes, as Natsume isn't cut out for the B-type ones. Don't get me wrong though, this is a really good show, and I'm sure I'll enjoy seasons three and four, which I'll be watching very soon. However, I'll be really disappointed if those seasons continue to have more danger episodes with a main character that never learns from his mistakes.
