I glanced at some comments in the shoutbox that this episode was supposed to be amazing. Now that I watched this episode, I agree. The episodes of the third season have been continuously one-upping each other. And we’re only at episode four.

My memory could be wrong, but I think that this was the first episode where Natsume didn’t play the part of main character. Instead, we got to see everything from the point of view of a Youkai he once met as a child. And the way in which it did this was just sublime. It was full of those small encounters, and it really seemed to come from the mind of a youkai whose sense of time is different from ordinary humans.

The way in which the creators portrayed this youkai was just brilliant. Due to the nature of this episode, consisting out of a ton of small encounters, they were really able to nail her development and make her change gradually over time. Her inner monologues were also delightful to watch. It was nothing short of adorable.

It also seems that the creators are shuffling around chapters this time. That’s also the reason why I was so ecstatic when I learned who was going to be behind the series composition of this series: Sadayuki Murai. He pretty much was the best guy that they could have possibly gotten in terms of adaptations. For those too lazy to click the link: this is the guy who adapted the story for Boogiepop Phantom, Kino’s Journey and Mouryou no Hako, on top of writing the scripts for Millennium Actress and Perfect Blue. This guy is a GOD amongst scriptwriters. Natsume Yuujinchou San still is one of the most normal things he’s done, but even here it’s great to see how well the chapters to be animated have been chosen so far. This episode once again delivers a ton of development for Natsume and it falls perfectly in line with the previous three episodes. Heck, this episode’s message about Natsume growing up, changing and appreciating the things that he once found scary was really strong here. I’m really interested in what he can do with the rest of this series.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

This really was a wonderful episode. The best of the third season so far. It’s focused on Natsume’s past, interestingly, and on the kids who used to bully him. They changed too over the years, and this episode focuses on one who came in contact with a youkai.

Again things are much different from what they seem at first. The guy seems the same jerk at first, but gets much more rounded as the episode goes on, the youkai goes from a cute girl to a monster to a weak cute girl again. It’s great character development, not to mention how confronting this was for Natsume: throughout the entire series he has been trying to leave his past behind him, and here it comes back to him. For the first time we actually got to see Natsume really uncomfortable. The creators handled it really nicely.

Three episodes in, and I have to say that the creators really nailed the consistency so far. Right now, the third season is somewhere in between the first and the second season in terms of how much I like it. What it needs now, is the kinds of episodes that make it stand out: the really well written and heart-warming ones, like the Hotaru-episode. There still is plenty of time to do that, so I really hope that the creators are going to make use of that. In any case this season has the big advantage of character-development.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

The first series I’m going to blog this season… is a pretty obvious one. I blogged the first two seasons back in 2008 and 2009, and I really liked them, so it’s awesome to see a third season appear. This is one of the three series of which I was 100% sure that I was going to blog this season.

This episode really reminded why I originally fell in love with this series. When this episode aired, I felt completely refreshed. It had this completely refreshing atmosphere that I haven’t felt in a long time. This was a simple, yet wonderfully paced story about another youkai that crosses Natsume’s path. I really liked how nothing was really what it seemed: this episode dealt a lot with superstition and rumours.

Normally in anime, you can guess pretty accurately who are the good guys and the bad guys, whenever it’s not being morally ambiguous, of course. Here though, you’ll never know whether or not a youkai bears ill feelings until it starts to attack. This episode showed a dangerous looking, but well minded youkai, but then again this series did have plenty of scary youkai who did attack.

What’s especially awesome about this third season is that we’re seeing more of Reiko than ever. The previous episode already showed a lot of her, but this episode went even further. This series just kept hinting at how huge her powers were, and yet in this episode she used Rock Paper Scissors to get the name of the demon. Did she use this same trick everywhere? I mean, there have been enough youkai who unwillingly gave up their own names.

The village scene felt a bit out of place, but it was definitely an interesting representation of the mythical village: to have it be exactly like how it was painted in the past. It’s also something new in this installment of the series.

Overall, I do wonder whether this series is going to surpass itself or not. I really like this series, but I also have to admit that the second season was not as good as the first. The biggest reason for that was that it was incomplete: the episodes that built up the main storyline built up for something that wasn’t in that season, whereas the individual stories (of which the first season entirely consisted) really focused on delivering good standalone stories,. The past two episodes were in the same vein, and really wonderful to just sit back and relax at. I really wonder whether we’re going to see the build-up of the second season pay off at a point now.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Natsume Yuujin-chou San

Short Synopsis: Our lead character can see youkai.
Oh, it’s wonderful to see this one back again. It still has the dreamy atmosphere it always had, and the way this episode started off with another episodic story was great to get back into it again. It’s a basic, but very charming story about another youkai who met Natsume’s grandmother a long time ago, and this episode once again did a great job of showing her story while keeping things simple. It may not have been the best episode so far, but it had a lot to like. The animation still is really good, and this episode also stressed some of the character development that Natsume went through in the first two seasons. It’s a very relaxed episode that did its job really well. Oh, and it also was great to see Nyanko-sensei again.
OP: Well built up song with a good use of instruments, though the visuals are a bit unremarkable.
ED: Simple and relaxing, fitting this series perfectly.
Potential: 90%

Yuriyuri

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a random junior high school girl.
Well, here we go again. Here’s the thing: this first episode of Yuruyuri wasn’t half bad. It’s an episode of a bunch of random junior high schoolers goofing off, but it had a number of good jokes, it made sure that its characters, while annoying, weren’t at least one-sided stereotypes and this pretty much was the best animation we’ve ever seen from Dogakobo. It could have been much worse, but the thing is: this remains a show in which nothing happens beyond the antics of a bunch of cute girls. I’m not saying that that on its own is bad, but those series tend to have one really, really big disadvantage: they get incredibly repetitive. Take A-Channel: it could have been decent but devolved into an onslaught of boob jokes and characters repeating their quirks over and over. Denpa Ona? Nice coming of age drama until the characters just kept repeating themselves and the horny aunt just kept hitting on the male lead. Astarotte no Omocha? Heartfelt until it couldn’t stop talking about panties and generic romance cliches. And the thing is: the first episode of Yuruyuri has yet to show any hint that it won’t follow the same path. It only had a few bad fanservice jokes, but you can bet your hat that once they run out of jokes they’ll start groping boobs on a daily basis. On top of that, the main character is a complete airhead. And while she was far from the most annoying airhead out there, there really is little what you can do with such a character in the long run.
OP: The usual generically upbeat j-pop song that will get annoying really fast.
ED: This just feels like the second part of the OP song…
Potential: 45%

Ikoku Meiro no Croisée

Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets to take care of a young Japanese girl.
Oh my god. That was almost too adorable. This was once again an unbelievable first episode. This time in the incredible undeniable charm that this episode has. This goes beyond being just cute: just about everything about the lead female is just ridiculously charming. The animation isn’t trying to be anything big, but it is really consistent and does a great job of bringing the cast alive, plus you can also see the amount of detail that has been put into the background art. The lead character isn’t just an ordinary character: he’s a blacksmith. His shop is full of all kinds of interesting designs and furniture and a lot of attention was put into making the art as authentic as possible. Heck, the creators even got a number of fluent French voice actors as the narrator and vocalists. I really have to say that Satelight are making brilliant use of their French roots and connections here. Overall: Sato Junichi did it again. This once again was brilliant characterization. Although I do have to say that it is very dramatic. It needs to take care not to devolve into melodrama as the show goes on.
OP: A bit of a mundane OP, but quite well animated.
ED: Adorable. Just… adorable.
Potential: 90%

The first season of Natsume Yuujin-chou was basically a string of random stories about the lead character, Natsume, meeting a bunch of Youkai. The second season forms much more of a unity as Natsume’s development starts kicking in. The random stories are more connected to each other, and instead of an episodic series, we’re suddenly treated to a character-study of a boy who grew up with being able to see youkai.

The production-values are as solid as ever: backgrounds are rich and detailed, the animation is crisp and the different designs for the youkai are very solid. The music is also very enjoyable again, with especially the ending theme standing out as a great song.

Unfortunately, despite this it did lose some of the charms of the first season this way. For me, the show has lost its novelty by now, and I don’t think that it’s really succeeded in making up for it, even though many people seem to disagree with this. For me, the height of Natsume Yuujin-chou still is the Hotaru-episode, and the second season did nothing to change that.

I think that one of the reasons for why the second season has made less impact is that it ends at a point where it’s simply still building up. There’s a huge part of the manga left to be animated, and the second season was mostly just setting the pieces correctly for those arcs. I that way, it served its purpose very well if there’s going to be a third season, but it doesn’t suffice as a finale here.

And don’t get me wrong here: Zoku Natsume Yuujin-chou is still a very enjoyable and relaxing slice of life series without any major flaws, but it just lacks the impact that the first season had, but there is still enough worth watching if you were also charmed by the first number of episodes like I was. Especially don’t miss the Tama-chapter.

Short Synopsis: Natsume finds himself having to choose between Kai and Natori.
Episode Rating: 7,5/10 (Good)
Well, the creators did it, even though they had to stuff two chapters into only one episode. It makes a lot of sense to save this story for last, because it really forms a conclusion to the development of Natsume throughout the second season: for once, he’s being forced to choose between humans and youkai.

I also liked that little scene at the end, which symbolizes how much closer Natsume has gotten to his classmates now. It’s time for the guy to grow up and stop only interacting with youkai. It was a very nice idea for an ending, and while not the best ending I’ve seen this season, it was definitely a good one; something that most other shows this season can’t boast.

Overall, the second season wasn’t exactly among my favourites, but it was nevertheless enjoyable to watch and the character-development on Natsume was very nicely done. Let’s hope that there’s going to be a third season some day.

Short Synopsis: Natsume meets a strange boy locked inside a trunk inside a strange house.
Episode Rating: 7,5/10 (Good)
I really have no idea what the creators are thinking, trying to stuff the contents of two chapters into one single episode. In fact, if the final episode of the first season would have simply been a story that we saw in the second season, then we wouldn’t have had this problem in the first place, since then the creators would have had enough time for that final arc of this series.

But yeah, I still liked this episode. It especially showed the subtle character-development. For the first time, Natsume is embarrassed in front of his friends by a stupid joke, and for the first time he gets ticked off when they’re laughing. Especially Kaname’s role in this series is quite unique and in a way pretty realistic: the two of them are good friends, but because they’re both loners and prefer being alone, you only see them together every once in a while. That doesn’t mean, however, that I’d really like to see an episode focused on getting to know his character a bit more. ^^;

In any case, about the episode, that kid intrigues me: here we have a youkai, who was sealed inside a wooden trunk for who knows how long, and yet people can see him, he doesn’t seem to notice that he’s a youkai himself, and he even seems to have friends at school who never suspected anything. The key seems to be in a promise he made with a weird axe-wielding youkai, that that kid failed to keep. My guess would be that he wanted to get a human body, but at the cost of a very high price. But then again, I doubt that such a relatively weak-looking youkai would be able to do such a thing.

Short Synopsis: Natori returns and needs Natsume’s powers once again.
Episode Rating: 7,5/10 (Good)
Okay, so while this series hasn’t been my favourite of the past season, I’d love to see a third season introduced one of these days. The second season was also announced around this time in the first season, so let’s hope that the creators aren’t planning to end this just yet with only 26 episodes. There’s lots of potential left in this one, although on the other hand, it’s also going to be interesting to see what Brains Base can do when they start working on a completely new and different series. It’s a shame that these small yet very good companies as Brains Base, Manglobe and Bee-Train (well, at least I consider them very good) can only release one or two series every year, because it’s always interesting to see what they can come up with next.

One thing I didn’t like in this episode was how Natsume turns out to have huge mysterious powers. I’d hoped that this series would avoid this cliche, but I guess that it’s going to be important for later story arcs, if they ever get to be animated. The subject of this episode was an interesting one, though. Natsume finally gets the chance to attend a sort-of “people who can see youkai”-convention. In this, he hopes to see other people who are the same as him, but that really was the wrong kind of place he should have tried to look for.

Most of the people in the convention were simply looking for business, and came from close-knit families in which it was normal to see and use youkai. It really seems that seeing Youkai runs down your family. These families have mostly strong values of traditions, and so their values are easily passed down from generation to generation, without much influence from outsiders who can’t see them. It actually turns out that Natsume is a minority in his suffering because he grew up alone, thanks to Reiko who most likely never wanted to have to do anything with those pesky family values, despite having huge powers. My guess would be that she was the daughter of a powerful and influential family of people who can see youkai, which fell apart at some point.

The final two episodes seem to belong to a big arc, which finally does resemble a real climax, rather than the unconventional yet anticlimactic ending of the first season. Let’s hope that the creators do succeed in combining three chapters in only two episodes, but a bit of a clever cut-job should be able to do it.

Short Synopsis: Natsume’s foster father tells him about Reiko.
Episode Rating: 8,5/10 (Awesome)
Okay, so I’ve had my share of problems with the second season so far, but this episode was without a doubt the best episode of Zoku Natsume Yuujinchou, and not just because of the strange change in animation style (which did help, though). This episode really was everything that makes this such a good series, and FINALLY we get some more background on Reiko!

I think that one of the reasons why we’ve seen so little of Natsume’s friends and family is that he hardly ever hangs out with them. This episode felt like the first time he spent some quality time with his foster father (or however that’s called, I think his name was Shigire), and after all this time, he’s still having trouble to fit in. When at the end of the episode, he destroys his own room, seeing Shigire accept everything that happened, including Natsume’s very bad attempt at lying, it felt like Natsume had grown much, much closer to his family.

And I’m not sure who exactly was responsible for the animation in this episode, but it looked really good. At the expense of a bit of detail, there was lots of movement, and this worked especially well with the Youkai that appeared in this episode, especially when it tried to eat Natsume. That one would have failed completely if it was just handled with the regular animation of this series.

It also was very interesting to see Reiko from the perspective of someone who can’t see Youkai. When Shigire met her, she really looked like a strange girl who talked to trees, instead of the manipulative yet good-hearted girl that we’ve come to know her as. The choice for the boy’s voice actor also was a strange one: he nearly continuously screaming, but I guess that that’s where the realism comes in: real boys his age also tend to scream and yell when they get worked up.

Short Synopsis: Natsume buys a picture and wakes up next to flower blossoms.
Episode Rating: 8/10 (Excellent)
Aha! I finally see the big difference in how I’ve been enjoying the first season when compared to the second season. Those who have read my past entries probably know that for some reason, the second season didn’t hit me as hard as the first season did. My guess that the novelty of the storytelling started to wear off, while the first season had me especially in its first half at the edge of my seat, I didn’t experience this with the second one, but now I realize that its episode in exchange felt really satisfying when they ended. Especially this episode: throughout the episode it didn’t feel like anything special, but in the end it felt like everything came together perfectly.

And seriously, Natsume is just TOO nice at times. He buys a picture, it starts sucking the life out of him and yet he refuses to have it removed because it supposedly contains a special person to a youkai he just met days before. As it turns out, the youkai and that person had met centuries ago. At one point, the guy stopped showing up (probably because he died since his health was weak), and instead of waiting for a quarter of an eternity like most Youkai would, Mai (the youkai) instead starts looking for him, and eventually seems to have found him inside that picture. Ever since, she’s been travelling with that picture, even though the guy could never say anything back, or even confirm that he indeed was the one that she made friends with.

And this episode shows again the meaning of masks in this series: breaking them seems to signify being able to move forward and change. In this case, Mai’s hard patience finally paid off when she could meet her loved one again. And I guess that that all happened because of the sacrifice Natsume made for him, but god, he could easily have died if he chose the wrong painting to be nice to.

This episode also had a very short bit about Natsume and his mother. It established that Natsume still has trouble to fully trust his mother, simply because he has a secret that she’s never going to believe him for. It was mostly building up in this episode, but I wonder if the chapters in which this building up is used can still make it within the series.