Natsume Yuujinchou Roku Archives

Natsume Yuujinchou Roku OVA 2

Posted on February 8, 2018February 2, 2018 by Karandi

Review:

While the first OVA didn’t really do all that much for me in terms of bringing on the usual Natsume feels, this second one kind of nails what I love about Natsume. While the focus of the story is on a girl who rescued an owl and ended up in possession of a ring that she’s now trying to return, Natsume’s encounter with her is something that is really beautiful to watch unfold.

Which of course is what makes the end of this OVA so bitter-sweet, as Natsume endings often are. But it is the journey, the growth, and the reflection along the way that makes it all worth while.

Unlike the first OVA here, this story isn’t focused on a single yokai but rather looks at a normal human who has had their life intersected by an encounter with a yokai. Something Natsume can relate to quite readily. However, other than Nyanko-Sensei, this story doesn’t bring in any of the other characters we love so much from the series so it really is a fairly independent story and quite enjoyable, though I imagine some of the impact would be lessened for those who aren’t already fairly familiar with Natsume.

All and all, this was a great story and a nice addition to season 6 of this series.

Thanks for reading.

Karandi James

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Natsume Yuujinchou Roku OVA 1

Posted on February 3, 2018February 3, 2018 by Karandi

Okay, fairly late on this one, but I finally watched the OVA. I’ll check out the second one fairly soon and review as well.

Review:

Once again Natsume comes across a yokai who asks a favour of him and Natsume complies. I kind of felt the story this time lacked much in the way of emotion compared to Natsume’s usual fare. While he helped the yokai out, he seemed fairly detached from the entire situation and didn’t quite have his usual contemplative moments.

Still, Natsume is always charming and there are plenty of moments here to enjoy such as him receiving advice from the middle-class yokai on how to deal with the memory loss and Natsume spending time with the Fujiwara’s.

Basically, if you’ve watched six seasons of Natsume, you’ll have a great time here being reunited with the cast you love. However, if you are a newcomer to the series, this is decidedly flat (for Natsume) and there are better entry points than this one. Particularly as even Nyanko’s design seemed a little off in more than one scene of this.

Not that I’m being overly critical. I had a great time watching this. It just wasn’t quite strong enough to really stand alone. Had this aired as a mid-season episode it would have sat much better.

Thanks for reading.

Karandi James

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Natsume Yuujinchou Roku Episode 6

Posted on May 19, 2017May 17, 2017 by Karandi

Review:

I can honestly say that of all the recurring characters in Natsume, Nishimura and Kitamoto were probably the two I gave the least amount of thought too. So here comes an episode that puts these generic classmate and normal human friends of Natsume in the spot light by flashing back to Natsume transferring into the class.

Normally this is a sequence you would see way back as a very first episode or at least a flash back in the first season. Anime loves the transfer student introduction scene and Natsume had never done it (although we had seen Natsume start at another school in a flashback if I remember correctly).

Anyway, while I’d never given these two characters much thought, I’d always kind of liked them, and now, in true Natsume fashion, I completely love them. Nishimura’s insight into Natsume’s fake smiles and Kitamoto’s stoic nature as he deals with his own problems but still manages to know what is going on around him were just kind of perfect. They fit with what we already knew about these two characters and made them feel incredibly real.

Great episode.

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