It’s great to be back reviewing Natsume’s Book of Friends after a long break. The first season I reviewed for ANN was season 5 back in 2016, when we were still using letter grades to rate episodes. I still feel the same way about Natsume—it’s a gentle, heartwarming story about building a found family out of sympathetic humans and yokai alike. I’ve enjoyed watching the narrative mature into twisty multi-part mysteries with recurring allies and antagonists. But even as this long-running show has deepened and expanded its lore, Season 7 is starting off at a point where any viewer can easily catch up on the story, even if they haven’t watched since Season 6 aired in 2017, with back-to-back one-shots where Natsume helps the Yokai of the Week solve a basic problem. Even with such simple premises, these first two episodes are full of pathos. Depicting the most human of emotions through Natsume’s encounters with the supernatural is what this show has always done best.

Other shows might portray yokai as threatening or scary, but Natsume’s Book of Friends has always leaned toward depicting them as misunderstood. How else would we have two episodes in a row in which yokai interference results in Natsume doing arts and crafts? After the first episode’s adventure in sculpting, “Someday’s Garden” has Natsume in motion: digging, hammering, dusting, painting, an exhausting ’round the clock schedule of mundane labor as he builds a flowerbed for Touko by day, and refurbishes a tiny mansion in a box by night. What we love about Natsume is also his biggest weakness: this good boy just can’t say no! Par for the course for Natsume’s Book of Friends, the yokai designs are rudimentary forms; one of the box house protectors even lampshades his plight—his stumpy, fabric-covered appendages aren’t as dexterous as human hands, which is why they need Natsume to take over the tiny house repairs. (The stones the yokai were stealing were being ground into a sort of whitewash to repair the screens, and thus the central connection between the flower bed and the tiny house is only tangential.) Fortunately, both of Natsume’s labors bear fruit—or flowers, as it were. A dreamlike experience brings Natsume face to face with the house’s intended resident, the goddess Shidahime, a female figure with lavender hair. Following all of the protectors’ adoring descriptions that preceded them, the goddess and her garden view reminded me that this is not the most sakuga-infused anime airing right now, but a scrappy Studio Shuka production (same as seasons 5 and 6, after they took over from Brains Base). Combined with the same familiar soundtrack from seasons past, it has the minimal composition of a Zen garden.

I want to highlight the endings of both of these episodes, since I think the second was more successful than the first. The first episode had so much build-up that it seemed as if it ran out of time; when Natsume and Madara bade farewell to Mini Sensei, the clay doll’s plight felt unfinished. It was already cracked despite Natsume’s repairs, and there was no assurance it would reach its destination. It’s a total contrast to this week, when both Natsume and the yokai completed their objectives. It’s through this process of fulfillment that Natsume makes the connection between the box house protectors’ adoration of Shidahime and his own motivation: to make his kind adoptive mother smile. It’s the show’s strongest point and what has made this show so enduringly comforting over the years: the way we can see our own humanity reflected back at us through Natsume’s eyes.

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Natsume’s Book of Friends Season 7 is currently streaming on
Crunchyroll.