Xebek’s Blog

Natsume is invited to a meeting by Natori and learns about others who can see youkai.

Impressions:

I think this was an important episode for Natsume. He’s gotten a chance to see a world that was previously unknown to him. For all this time he wondered just how many people could see youkai like he could. He probably believed that they dealt with the same pain and suffering from being rejected and seeing things others couldn’t. Instead he found out that many people grew up in very different circumstances from himself. It shouldn’t be a great surprise since tales of youkai have existed for a long time. Back when it was a more common belief those who could see youkai had an important place. That ability was probably passed through families and so a child being able to see youkai wouldn’t be rejected. Instead it could be turned into a family business. Some people like Nanase just see youkai as tools of the trade and nothing more.

Natsume and Reiko are different because they weren’t accepted by society or their families. The two grew up with very different beliefs about the youkai than people like the Matoba group did. Natsume is right that those kinds of people are the ones that definitely can never know about the Book of Friends. If people like that got a hold of it they would definitely see every youkai in it as a weapon. Natori is a cut above those others, but I can’t blame Natsume for not being willing to tell him about it. What is a danger is that if those groups have heard about Reiko then they may know about the Book of Friends. If another season ever gets aired you’d think those people would be important.

Have to give points to the Natsume punch. That guy just has incredible power and if Reiko was the same its no wonder she got so many youkai names. Both have also shown some incredible talent with using techniques. If Natori spent some time showing Natsume some things he probably would become an amazing force. He just has to be shown something once and he gets it down. Another example was that technique he used the last episode that he saw in the youkai’s memory. But I agree with Natori that rushing isn’t safe. Natsume needs to decide just where he stands in all of this.

Pretty unusual to end an episode on that kind of note. Usually it moves peacefully into the ED but this time they show a dangerous looking youkai. It really is too bad that this series is just about to end. I will enjoy the last few episodes at any rate.