schneefink

I forgot where I saw the rec, but I just finished watching all four seasons of "Natsume's Book of Friends", or "Natsume Yuujinchou." I loved it. It's about a boy who can see spirits, or youkai. He's moved in with a new foster family and is very lonely at first, but he acquires a youkai "bodyguard" and slowly makes human and youkai friends and becomes closer with his new family and it's all beautiful to see. There are a lot of "youkai of the week" storylines, and he eventually meets other people who know about youkai too. He also received a heavy legacy from his grandmother: a book with many youkais' true names, which he could use to control them, but instead he gives the names back.
The anime feels a bit slow at times (maybe just because I'm sometimes impatient), but it's very warm and nice.

Natsume is so kind! He deliberately tries to be, it's lovely. I did occasionally think that it would be useful if he learned at least some self-defense, his ability to deal with random youkai attacking him seems to fluctuate and despite knowing the dangers he's neither physically strong nor seems to pursue knowledge in sealing and similar techniques. He's very lucky he has Nyanko-sensei! Also very lucky to survive as long as he did.
It's so so nice to see him open up more eventually. At first he doesn't tell the Fujiwaras about his ability to see youkai because he's afraid they'll turn him away, later he knows they won't and only doesn't tell them because he doesn't want them to worry. He hung pictures of his friends in his closet, and he's always the first to run into danger to protect others, even people he doesn't even know. No wonder Nyanko-sensei is so exasperated.

I really like Nyanko-sensei too, or Madara. No, he and Natsume are not friends, definitely not, it's just a business arrangement, sure, and the times you both risked death for each other were just a coincidence, mhm. (I wonder what exactly Reiko was to Madara, that he's so concerned with her legacy.)

Tanuma is also wonderful. He has the biggest crush on Natsume *g* When Natsume introduced him to Taki Tanuma barely showed up in the next adventure, must have been jealousy, clearly. I love how aware Tanuma is of his limitations, especially in regards to Natsume, and how much he still wants to protect him and help him, how both of them want to keep the other from harm and find this frustrating. After Omibashira, when Tanuma realized that while trying to help he might have made things harder, he really needed a hug – he did help too! And he does help Natsume, even with smaller things like telling him not to lie about trivial stuff. Both of them don't have a lot of experience with friendships, but they're so good for each other, it's so nice.

I also like Taki: she perceives youkai even less, she too is unhappy she can't help more, but she's smart and she does help whenever she can.

At first I wasn't sure, but I came to like Natori. His relationship with Natsume is interesting too, he grows to admire him a lot. (I want both the gen mentorship and the explicit seduction fic.) I also like Natori and Hiiragi together.

The other exorcists… the Matobas are interesting, at least, and they make for good adversaries. Pretty powerful too.

All exorcists seem to have servant spirits. Natsume has Madara accompanying him, but if he really needed a show of force he could appear with Madara, Misuzu, Hinoe… I don't actually know how powerful Hinoe is, but she'd appear. And Misuzu is powerful. Not sure exactly how much in relation to Madara, for example, but both are way above average. I like Misuzu and Hinoe a lot. They played shadow tag with Natsume *g*

I like the little fox too. I wish more youkai had shown up again, like the Tatsumi dragon Tama, or Kai. Kai especially: Tama might show up again in a few years, but Kai ran way after a stupid misunderstanding. Natsume and Taki did mention visiting him one day, I really hope they do.
Tama, Kai, the little fox – Natsume does seem to get along with kids, it's adorable.

The Fujiwaras are great with kids. Well, kid singular, but they took a boy that had been handed from foster family to foster family and gave him a home and love and security. They're amazing.
They must know by now that some things are unusual about Natsume - no way Shigeru missed the parallels between what happened with "that odd girl" and Natsume, for example - but they'll let him open up at his own pace, always making sure he knows they are here for him.

Shigeru was even friends with Reiko! Well, a boy she favored, but close enough. Reiko is fascinating. Whimsical, a bit cruel at times, but basically good-hearted. Eventually she had a daughter, and then she died, and we don't know anything more about her. (Except that her daughter's husband apparently took her last name, which seemed surprising to me?, but maybe it's not in Japan. I wonder if he knew her, if he knew about what Reiko could see, if Reiko's daughter had her sight as well. Natsume could have grown up in a family where his ability was understood…) She made a big impression on a lot of youkai, not even those who only saw her once and it was the most exciting thing to happen to them in decades, but youkai like Madara and Misuzu, and Hinoe who was in love with her. Reiko didn't like anyone, but she did have friends in all but name.

I'm going to request this fandom for Yuletide, I already have fic prompts to use.

Season five comes out soon! I'm very much looking forward to it :)