Finally, after two long years of waiting, Natsume Yuujin-Chou continued into its third season. And how! It probably even surpassed itself!

The reason why this series sets itself apart is simple. The first season consisted out of all sorts of stories around youkai. They were the ones who stood in the center. The second season’s focus was on intrigue; it explored themes as humans versus youkai. The third season is about Natsume himself. Yes, this entire season is dedicated to the character development of just one character.

This season goes back to the more episodic nature of the series, with only two arcs that last two episodes. They tell all kinds of stories about Natsume encountering all sorts of youkai, but every single one of them contributes to his character, and is meant to either show how far he has grown, how he is growing, or how he will grow. The creators always manage to find fresh ways to do it, and make excellent use of the side cast of characters in the process.

And don’t think that the side characters get ignored for the sake of Natsume himself: every story in this series focuses on a different one of them, and every story ends up contributing to them to. This series still has excellent characterization, it is still wonderfully told, with a calm and relaxing atmosphere, a wonderful sense of build-up and a great sense of conclusion.

Now, not every episode is as good as the other: there are some that work better than the others, and in particular the two-episode arcs take up a tad too much space in the series while not having the same charm as the short but sweet other episodes. But even then, I’d say that its consistency is even better than the first season. Really, Natsume Yuujin-Chou was second to only Mawaru Penguin Drum this Summmer Season.

Suggestions:
- Windy Tales
- Sarai-Ya Goyou
- Mushishi

I’m not going to say that this was the best ending of the season for two reasons. The first is that this show hasn’t actually ended yet (the Winter season can’t come soon enough). The second is that this ending was completely different from any other ending this season.

But still: if this would have been the ending of Natsume Yuujinchou, I would not have complained at all.

This episode was so different from your usual ending, and yet it was the perfect way to end the third season. This was by far the episode with the most positive outlook of the entire third season. There was no evil youkai to take care of, and instead the creators chose this to just show a bunch of youkai having fun (playing hide and seek, or Kakurenbou with Youkai; ah, the irony). It was a wonderfully fun and heart-warming episode that showed the cast just having fun, while at the end it also had a powerful message when Natsume’s friends arrived: he’s not alone. Neither in the world of youkai, and the world of humans.

I also want to yet again applaud Brains Base for understanding the importance of an ending. Here is the interesting thing: final episodes often have a lot of budget, meaning a lot of animators are put on them. That’s nice, but also constraining: because of that you hardly ever see final episodes with interesting direction, animation, or plot progression, like what you sometimes see when a particularly talented team is behind just one episode. This episode instead brought together a bunch of excellent animators, who really got to do as they pleased during the hide and seek game. This brought the characters even more to life than they already were.

I would love to say that Brains Base’s endings this season are awesome, however Kamisama Dolls doesn’t seem to fit in that picture. Instead though, I do have to praise Sadayuki Murai for adapting this story, and getting the best out of it. This wasn’t just animating a bunch of random chapters. Every single episode was dedicated to Natsume’s development, and the final two episodes were just the perfect ending. He also seems to be doing the fourth season, which is yet another reason to look forward to it.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Oh my god, I’ve found it: after years of waiting, I’ve found the episode to rival the Hotaru episode of the first season. This episode was the single best episode of the third and second season combined, and very likely also the first. This also was the single most emotional episode I have watched in the entire summer season. It really got deep to me.

The story of when Natsume met Touko was incredibly bittersweet. This episode was incredibly powerful to me, especially because it showed how different Natsume has become throughout the series. Out of all the episodes of the series, this one did it best, by going so far into the past, and using an actual youkai that he himself met, rather than who ran into his grandmother (very clever by the way: when that youkai first came, I really thought that it was another youkai who Reiko messed with in the past). To think that he actually nearly was turned into the pet of that thing.

And seriously, after so many hints, it was amazing to actually see the point where Natsume got saved from his life style. And it’s not like the families who took him in were all evil. The son of the family he was in was actually quite nice, and his foster parents were mostly cold to him because they didn’t know him well (because he just kept hopping homes), his strange behavior, and that he was a burden on them to have to also look after.

This episode was perfect, and really came at the perfect moment. It made the entire third season for me.
Rating: **** (Fantastic)

and once again Natsume gets closer to the people around him. Seriously, are the creators really planning to keep this up for the entire season? There are two episodes left at this point (yes, this series has been confirmed for 13 episodes), and I’m eagerly anticipating what they will end up delivering.

Looking back, Brains Base really has been dominating this season. My two favourite shows that premiered back in July come from them, and heck: their third series Kamisama Dolls is currently fighting with No.6 and Kami-Sama no Memo-Chou for my third place. It’s been a while since the company with the most releases of a season actually delivered so well.

I already thought that Tatsunoko last season did well if you ignore Pretty Rythm. Studio Deen of Winter 2010 meanwhile was a complete disaster, while JC Staff delivered an impressive batch of four series, albeit it was flawed by both Bakuman and Index II dragging on for too long. Meanwhile AIC of Summer 2010 failed to deliver on every single series they came out with. I think it’s not until Autumn of 2008 when I can recall a single studio dominating an entire season more, bakc when Madhouse was on fire with six new series in one entire season, including the classics of Mouryou no Hako and Casshern Sins. Next season will have three studios with three or more series: Sunrise (4), JC Staff (3) and AIC (3). All of them are really looking out to be mixed bags, unfortunately: AIC has one very promising series, next to their usual moe shows again. Sunrise meanwhile has Phi Brain, next to the questionable Gundam Age, next to the even more questionable Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon, next to another kiddie show. JC Staff meanwhile has Bakuman, whose first season while impressive does seem to lack something, Kimi to Boku, which I really fear is going to be overshadowed by Tamayura, and… more Kugimiya Rie with Shana. To be honest, I really doubt that they can get anywhere near the level that Brains Base are currently delivering.

Anyway, I’m digress. The youkai in this episode was nice, but what really made this episode was Takeda getting a taste of what it’s like to be Natsume, and being able to understand him a bit more. By actually being able to see Youkai, he finally could relate to him in the same way that we have been for the past thirtysomething episodes. It was a great little premise for an episode.

For the final two episodes, I really hope that they make use of this development. I know that the story is still going on and that the manga is nowhere near finished and all, but that would be the perfect time for a great climax.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Here’s an interesting one: this is another two-episode arc, but this time it is not connected to the plot of youkai politics or anything. Instead, it again is about Natsume and his friends. Once again, this season is really dedicated to character development, character development, and more character development.

The thing also is, that it’s been entirely dedicated to Natsume. Every single episode was focused on him. If an episode happened to develop a different character at the same time, then this always was in order to also give extra depth to Natsume himself. This lead to the strange effect that Nyanko-Sensei is rather left behind: he really feels like a side-character now, and not the second main character that he was in the first two seasons. He’s still pretty fun to watch, but that’s pretty much it. There’s nothing of the charming stories like that time when he walked around as a giant cat for a while.

Beyond the obvious things as his friendship and finally getting the confidence to confide in the people he trusts, I also love how the creators portray Natsume’s worries. He still has them, though they’re completely different from what they used to be. At this point, most of the youkai who want their names back have already gotten them. Instead though, the huge amount of hostile youkai have made a great impact on him, to the point where he unconsciously tries to blame everything on them. If Tanuma would have caught a real cold, he probably would have thought the same.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Another amazing episode. At this point, things have to go really weird if the third season isn’t going to end up as better than the second one. It even has the potential to still surpass the first one. I haven’t seen an episode that beat the Hotaru episode, but apart from that the new season has just about everything running in its favor, and it has two very important things that the first season didn’t have: consistency and development.

Natume’s development really is THE major selling point of this third season. And heck, this episode added even more of it. I mean, the power of friendship is cheesy and all, but this show completely nailed it. Natsume’s concerns for his friends, and their concerns for him were incredibly heart-warming. It’s a wonderful way to show how much the cast has grown since the start of the series: back in the first season, the characters were still way too distant for this episode to have happened.

School festival episodes are overused, but thankfully not the biggest cliches out there. Those go to the hot spring episode, the beach episode and the pool episode, simply because everybody always does the bloody same there. Of course there are the bad festival episodes that are just there to waste time, but the good ones manage to show the cast in a different light, allow the characters to show themselves off, or highlight development. The best ones re the ones who want to make points that could not have been made without the choice to go with a school festival (so, no cheesy “let’s wait until the festival to confess to each other or something). Here, so much stuff gets thrown at Natsume, and he finally gets the chance to show himself off in the center of the attention by being the store clerk. The festival was a perfect chance for that.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Yeah, with this I remember again why I found the episodic episodes of Natsume Yuujinchou to be better than the arcs. It wasn’t that the arcs were flawed or anything. But the episodic stories were just that good. The drama is written so wonderfully in a way that only very few series can match. They’re so tranquil, yet incredibly heart-warming, and this episode yet again improved on it, and quite possibly was the most heart-warming episode of the third season so far.

I loved it that the fox spirit returned. And even there, the creators handled it wonderfully, just having Natsume meet him for a small, but very emotional moment. The rest of the episode was dedicated to show how he’s changed (it’s been a year since!), and to establish how he’s still longing to see Natsume again. The concept of time for youkai was really big here again, where they live for huge amounts of time, yet their lives consists out of long bursts of silence, with several short moments of activity inbetween. The watch was a great way to symbolize things.

On top of that though, I also love the things that the characters did in the slice of life part of this episode. For Natsume to go on a weekend trip with his foster father for a pottery master class. That’s really creative, and it really feels like a new experience for Natsume. Madara was also wonderful in trying to rest while waiting for his wounds to heal: he really looked in pain and disabled, rather than what you usually see where people can just walk around perfectly fine with a few bandages on.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

This episode started a little clumsily (Natsume escapes, gets pulled down a hole in a well hidden place, is about to be attacked, and WHAM! Nyanko-sensei appears from out of nowhere. Didn’t expect Deus ex Machina from this series), but as it went on it once again was an excellent episode. This arc was very different from the other episodes, but the pay-off was just wonderful.

Also, with this episode I also realized something else: anime tends to abuse fast healing. I was really surprised when the wounds that were inflicted on Natsume and Nyanko-sensei… actually hurt. Especially the way Nyanko-Sensei got animated along the way was wonderfully done: it wasn’t life-threatening, but he really felt weak after having an arrow lodged inside of him. Overall I can understand why anime makes their characters very fast healers and all, but it’s much more satisfying to watch someone get hurt… and actually get hurt.

The big strength of this episode, and this series overall by the way, is that it has really good endings that throw a subtle twist and give an extra dimension to the characters involved. Here too, where that Matoba guy threw that anti-climax and it all turned out that he came for nothing. The storytelling also really came together at the end.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

From what I remember of the first two seasons, it’s that Natsume Yuujinchou was one of those series where the episodic episodes were actually better than the arcs. The biggest reason for that was that it was just wonderful in writing self-contained stories, and the arcs, while very good, couldn’t match those. Let’s see whether the third season can bring in a difference here.

This arc was very different from the previous episodes, due to the inclusion of someone who can count as an actual villain. /at the moment, he’s not that interesting yet, compared to some of the bad youkai that Natsume met so far. He still needs something, and I hope that the next episode can deliver it.

And again, Nyanko-sensei sleeves Natsume alone unguarded, but in this episode it does make sense: he had no way of knowing that the bad guy was right onto Natsume, and that he’d be particularly interested to get the book of friends (otherwise I can’t see why he’d send six of his subordinates, including himself, after Natsume).
Rating: * (Good)

Hmm, I don’t see what’s so particularly bad about this episode. Sure, it indeed wasn’t as good as last week, but it still was a very interesting story with a ton of character development for Natsume and two of his friends, alongside some pretty good background on one of their families.

I do agree that the pacing was a bit more jumpy than usual, and this episode indeed wasn’t of the soothing kind that we’ve gotten used to. Instead, this episode was full of character. Taki’s grandfather’s story was particularly interesting, in the way that he unknowingly set up a bunch of random things and seals, and it also explains how Taki got that seal that shows Youkai.

I also really liked the ending of this episode: with these two, Natsume has finally met two people who understand him, and in this episode he definitely got closer to them, up to the point where he can actually tell them about the youkai he encountered. I mean, he’s still very shy: the scene in which they were just randomly sitting around the table chatting: we get the big impression that Natsume was mostly sitting there and the other two were mostly talking about random classmates. This is like, the fifth episode in a row that contributes in some way to Natsume’s development.
Rating: ** (Excellent)