Natsume Week: On Feeling Alone

natsume

This is a great week to be blogging with Scott from Mechanical Anime Reviews having organised a week for us to write about, explore and celebrate the beauty that is the Natsume Yuujinchou anime. And I’m really, really glad because I don’t get to talk about this anime enough, though my current read through the manga has given me another excuse to make Natsume themed posts.

If you want the schedule we have:

  • Monday = Scott
  • Tuesday = Keiko
  • Wednesday = Me
  • Thursday = Irina
  • Friday = Arthifis
  • Saturday = Biblionyan
Natsume Season1a

On Feeling Alone

For anyone who has watched Natsume Yuujinchou the theme of loneliness and isolation is one that you will be very familiar with. However, unlike so many other shows that isolate their protagonist, Natsume isn’t trying to be edgy or to sensationalise an issue. Instead, Natsume seeks to explore the many reasons people (and yokai) feel alone and how loneliness can shape their life.

Natsume is isolated because he has walked in between worlds his whole life with no one who understands what he is going through. As a child who could see yokai that no one else around him could see, and with no parents or stable home environment, he had no immediate familial connection to ground him. Afraid of the yokai or angry with them for being the essential cause of the taunts he endured from others, Natsume couldn’t make friends with either humans (who believed him to be a liar or unhinged) or with yokai.

Natsume Season 5a
Even the light wishes to separate Natsume from others.

And again, where this becomes different from other stories is that Natsume is not bitter or resentful toward the people in his life who have isolated him. Despite knowing how he’s been treated, he speaks of past families as being ‘good people’ or ‘nice to begin with’. He blames his own actions and strangeness for their distance. He isn’t desperate to connect with other but still longs for it. He builds a wall to protect himself but he keeps hoping someone will find a way inside or that he will meet someone like him that he won’t need to keep the wall between.

Natsume Season 3a
Desperate for a friend and someone to talk to.

Because ultimately, Natsume Yuujinchou is not a story about an isolated boy feeling sorry himself or struggling to come to terms with loneliness. Natsume’s Book of Friends is a story that celebrates those new encounters that allow us to open ourselves up again, sometimes leaving ourselves open to new pain but sometimes finding new family and friends and people that will leave a lasting impression. It is also the story of a boy who understands what it means to be alone and so has empathy for others who are ostracised even if the reason for their isolation is vastly different from his own.

Fortunately, it also doesn’t become a story where everything can be beaten with teamwork and the power of friendship either. Natsume is still one of only a few characters who can even see yokai and is regularly at odds ideologically with others who see them. This means he often acts alone and is forced to overcome quite dangerous situations by himself. The bonds he makes give him a reason to not give in or be too reckless but individualism isn’t totally taken away by the idea of working with others which also makes this story feel quite unique in its take on the theme of loneliness.

NatsumeS6E8

Where the story excels is that we begin in the middle, with Natsume already having been taken in by the Fujiwaras. It is their kindness that allows Natsume to begin lowering his walls, though not yet dismantling them. We see Natsume’s childhood and incidents that have constructed his reticent personality as we meet him in the first season only in flash backs that come spaced throughout the series. And in every flash back of Natsume we see him standing alone or being isolated from others. The few times people have reached out to him in flash backs they are normally torn away again, or Natsume pushes them away, by the time the flash back ends.

Natsume Season 6
The Fujiwaras – Best anime parents ever.

However, the Fujiwaras, as lovely as they are, do not know Natsume’s secret so as much as Natsume has built a family with them, and one he wants to protect, they alone wouldn’t have been enough to lower all the walls he has constructed. It is Natsume’s encounter with Madara/Nyanko Sensei that truly allows transformation to occur. Nyanko Sensei knew Reiko, Natsume’s grandmother, and acts as a bridge between Natsume and other yokai. So the Fujiwaras and the friends Natsume make at school start drawing him back into human relationships, at the same time that Natsume and Nyanko Sensei make a pact and begin working together drawing Natsume back into yokai relationships.

NatsumeS6E7c
Though despite her protests, Reiko did still get involved in quite a few yokai problems.

The parallels drawn between Reiko and Natsume are quite deliberate. As Natsume works to return the names Reiko collected in the book of friends, Natsume learns more of her life as he sees a vision of her when he returns a name. Natsume himself has said that Reiko is always alone when he sees her. She lived a short and seemingly mostly isolated life from humans and one where her relationship with yokai was combative. She never found that middle path to walk that Natsume seems to so desperately want to find. While in season one, Natsume and Reiko were nearly mirrors of each other, it is Natsume’s kindness and willingness to get involved with others, despite past wounds, that begins to build a community around himself. By season six, Natsume can no longer be thought of as alone. While there are still scenes where he and Nyanko are apart from others, there is almost always someone or some group waiting for him.

Natsume Group
The yokai certainly learn to love him.

This is a story of hope and one of never giving up or giving in to self pity. One of doing what you can do and trying again even when it feels like it is pointless. Certainly Natsume had given up at various points in his life and it did take the catalyst of meeting those who would stand by him to get him moving again, but ultimately it is Natsume who has used those opportunities to forge lasting connections with others.

Natsume

In case you haven’t noticed, I love Natsume Yuujinchou as a story. I love how it explores this theme and so many others. I love how multilayered the idea of loneliness is as we explore it from multiple character perspectives. And I love that the scars of loneliness are still visible even six seasons even though so much character growth and progress has been made. This is an unmissable anime and one that is truly an emotional journey worth taking.

29 thoughts on “Natsume Week: On Feeling Alone

  1. This was a wonderful post! I absolutely loved your take on loneliness and I completely agree that what this show does with it is pretty different to what we see elsewhere. There’s such a minority of shows that present loneliness as it’s truly felt and we definitely get a tragically beautiful insight into it through Natsume and how he finds his place.
    Once again, wonderful piece. Thanks for sharing. 😊

    1. Really glad you liked it. Of course, writing this made me want to look at all the other characters in Natsume and how they deal with loneliness but I really liked putting this post together.

  2. It’s funny how we end up talking about completely opposite themes! Such a brilliant post! It’s really well written and I just loved it! Let’s see if I’m able to make something around this kind of quality (ofc not) since I’ll be using what you said here a lot of times while writing my post about friendship 😛

    1. I’m really looking forward to you post and I’m sure it will be great.
      I am glad you enjoyed this one. I had a lot of fun writing it and really I wish I could write even more about Natsume. It is the kind of anime that just keeps making me come back to it.

  3. I may have mentioned before but I’m still in the middle of watching it. The story is so beautiful and you really captured the the feelings. It is a great theme of not giving up and trying to understand where others who are different than you come from. I’m excited/sad to finish this anime.

    1. This is one I genuinely hope never ends. I’d love another season of this (and then another and another). That said, I’ll probably happy rewatch the existing seasons over and over.
      Really glad you enjoyed the post.

  4. I really love you analysis. Loneliness I think is a theme that anime likes to slide in without really exploring it. The way you explain the execution of loneliness as a theme in Natsume is just really excellant. I’ve been eagerly waiting for everyone’s thoughts since this project was announced and I’m glad to have read yours!

    1. Really glad you enjoyed reading it. And I agree, loneliness shows up in a lot of stories but either disappears once a character makes a friend, or its just kind of a part of the character and the causes and effects aren’t really explored. Natsume looks at loneliness in so many different ways and really looks at how it has shaped characters and I think that is part of what makes the show so incredibly relatable to people.

  5. I’m honestly going to admit here, that I can be a pretty emotional guy. I cry at movies, I cry at anime, and I can cry at things that are writen very beautifully. Especially when it’s about a theme that I can relate to very much: lonelyness. I had to blink back a tear (and yes that may sound weird, or you might not even believe it, but it’s the truth) after having read this. I have struggled with lonelyness all my life, and still do. There are days when I feel very sad about it, and definitely can delve into the chasm of selfpity. It’s hard, it’s tough and it’s been a constant struggle. But then there are things that do give hope. It can be something as simple as being here on wordpress, exchanging a comment, or it can be a day like this where I read a post that just strikes a chord.
    Thank you for writing this. This show has just moved up to the top my to watch list for anime. I already promised I would watch this along with both you and Irina, and whenever you both have time: I’m game. Because this sounds like a show that I just have to see, and can totally lift my spirits. Just like this post did.

    1. Wow, I’m really glad you liked the post. There was a lot of love put into writing this one and I’m really glad to head it struck a chord. Though it isn’t great to hear that you feel alone and I’m glad that there are things that give you hope.
      We’ll have to get schedule comparing with Irina and see when we can get this watch happening.

      1. I could definitely tell that: and it certainly showed. I love posts like these, and it truly resonated with me…a lot 😊
        Yeah…there are days when it’s tough, won’t deny that. But I am also very lucky to have my blog and be part of this community and having met so many amazing people: you of course being one of them. That certainly helps in making me feel less alone..no doubt about that 😊
        Absolutely! Very good plan! 😊😊

  6. Yay, thank you for writing such a wonderful and melancholy piece. It looks like this has collaboration has gone from strength to strength.

    Thanks for taking part.

    1. Well, you and Keiko did set the bar fairly high. That and I just had a lot of fun writing this. There’s something about Natsume that just makes me want to keep writing about it forever.

  7. This post is just such sweet melancholy all wrapped up in delicate hope. It’s very pretty and it made me happy.
    Thank you for writing it.

    1. Glad you enjoyed it. I was trying to capture Natsume and while I don’t think I really succeeded I like how this post came out in the end.

  8. Great piece, Karandi. You’ve sold me on the show for sure. It’s actually one I’ve been meaning to check out for a while, just never got the chance.

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