A new, potentially-recurring character who might be human? Now, that makes for an unusual episode of Natsume’s Book of Friends. Over the previous past six seasons, at the same time that Natsume has pared down his Book of Friends, he has also grown his social circle at an exponential rate. Though the meat of “Tookanya” is about the titular game between human and yokai, the part of the episode that I’ll surely refer back to in the future involves Yorishima, the misanthropic human who has beef with Natori and obvious ties to the yokai world. This episode may have been a one shot, but it set the stage for future episodes in the subtle style that has become synonymous to me with Natsume’s Book of Friends as a whole.
Have you noticed that whenever the characters in this show say “ayakashi,” the subtitles translate this word to “yokai?” It’s an interesting quirk, the way that the loan word “yokai” has become standard parlance for supernatural creatures, but “ayakashi” is more obscure. Just like we have ghosts, ghouls, and spirits in English, different types of apparitions have different names in Japanese. It’s a reminder that Natsume’s Book of Friends depicts many types of yokai. This week, the yokai in question have an unusual provenance—scarecrows that have been given life with forbidden magic, albeit unintentionally. Sound familiar? If not, Natsume hits the viewer on the head with it a couple of times: his grandmother Reiko, while creating the Book of Friends, had no idea that her game was binding yokai to eternal servitude. She was just having fun. Still, the damage is done and the scarecrows are here. In an established game of yokai vs. man, ten scarecrows have targeted a mansion surrounded by rice fields—the very same kind that these scarecrows once protected. But instead of scaring birds, these barely sentient scarecrows are attempting to scare away the home’s human owner.
Natsume’s carefully honed instinct for the supernatural led him to investigate, but his longtime friend, the actor and exorcist Natori, was already there by invitation. Natori is never one to turn down Natsume’s considerable strength when it comes to spiritual concerns, and Natsume soon joins the investigation. When the pair follows the scarecrows’ path into the mountains, where they seem to be retreating between nightly frights, they encounter Yorishima—much to Yorishima’s chagrin. I’ve never quite trusted the slippery Natori, so I find Yorishima’s deductions to be spot-on. He doesn’t like Natori, and he suspects Natsume is very strong, not to mention somehow familiar. After that pair of observations, there’s no reason not to believe he’s a reliable narrator. Since Natori notes that Yorishima is much older than he appears to be, the episode seems to hint heavily that Yorishima knew Reiko, and that’s why Natsume seems familiar to him. How well did he know Reiko? Are we looking at Natsume’s grandfather in the flesh?
This episode served its purpose as a vehicle to introduce us to the enigmatic Yorishima, but otherwise it was just so-so. Since the scarecrows were merely trying to frighten the house’s resident as part of a game, there was nothing like life-and-death stakes. Nor were there the usual comforting vibes I normally get from this show. The scarecrows were straw men (literally) without any human-like qualities beyond their unusual attempt at finding a home. They weren’t like last week’s box protector yokai, who adored their goddess with obvious love, nor the first episode’s bird statue turned mini-Sensei, who longed to be reunited with its human owner. Natsume’s Book of Friends is most impactful when it features supernatural goings-on that remind us of our humanity. I’m looking forward to next week’s library intrigue, which seems to star several recurring characters I care about more than these straw men.
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Natsume’s Book of Friends Season 7 is currently streaming on
Crunchyroll.
Lauren writes about model kits at Gunpla 101. She spends her days teaching her two small Newtypes to bring peace to the space colonies.
