for-the-flail:

xparrot:

egelantier:

i’ve at some point sent a passionate email plugging natsume yuujinchou to a friend, and since i’m quite content with how it turned out, decided to post it, too. also relevant to the whole woobie topic.

as you might have guessed, i really love it; i’ve been trying for a very long time to find something even remotely similar in feelings and execution, and failed. it reminds me of mushishi, as they both deal with nature and loneliness, but when mushishi spirals outwards, this one is more about connections, i guess?

it’s a very soft, pastel-colored anime about natsume takashi, the boy who could, from very early childhood, see youkai. he’s very early orphaned, bumped around from one unwilling relative to another, labeled as a freak and compulsive liar because of what he’s able to see and interact with, most definitely emotionally abused and neglected, presumably physically abused in some households as well, and in general is very, very sad and detached.

the story starts when he’s taken in by an older couple who live in the same area his late grandmother lived (and who’re, miraculously, actually decent, loving people determined to do right by him), and at some point he finds out that his grandmother could also see youkai: not only that, but she defeated a whole bunch of them in combat (mmm, grandma reiki and her baseball bat, i love her) and wrote their names down in a ‘book of friends’, a rather powerful artifact. natsume acquires a book and a grumpy cat (only not quite) guardian to go with it, and sets about releasing the names of the youkai named in the book, finishing up what his grandmother had started.

anyway, that’s the premise: the anime toys some with monster-of-the-week format, but doesn’t hold to it for long. it’s a gentle, sad, slow story focused on healing from lifetime of emotional abuse, and learning to let people in, and the way one turns general human decency into a shield, and the way your coping mechanisms damage you as much as they save you. my favorite thing about the series is that it’s very glacially paced: there are no Special Episodes About Trusting Friends or whatever, and for each step forwards natsume takes there are two steps back, and people he interacts with – his adoptive parents, his friends (both involved and not involved in the spiritual part of the thing) all allow him his time and space. it’s very tender and slow and subtle and generous, and i’ve not seen another series like this.

on the shallower side, there’s a ton of h/c, some nice quirky humor, really lovely secondary characters, boys and girls alike, and you’ll spend a lot of time crying over youkai and people they interact with. not much actual villainy (although there’s matoba, the vaguely evil badtouch exorcist dude with dark past, and i find it to be a hilarious landmark of fandom that people generally go like: oh man, in other fandom i’d be over dubcon here like bread on butter, BUT NO NO NO LEAVE NATSUME ALONE NATSUME NEEDS TO HAVE A GENTLE LIFE).

and, of course, natsume himself, who’s one of the sweetest, gentlest, stubbornest, loveliest characters i’ve ever seen, clinging hard to kindness even when everything within and without him is against him, and unflaggingly doing his best.

Natsume Yuujinchou has an episode in which the entire plot is that while taking a walk in the woods, Natsume loses a photograph that is important to him. So his friends help him look for it. That’s the episode.

…and it’s a really sweet episode, too.

Plus the anime showcases Kamiya Hiroshi’s seiyuu skills, as Natsume is a complete 180 from Izaya and 180 on another axis from Trafalgar Law or Captain Levi.

I wanna watch this now! It looks really sweet.