Natsume’s Book of Friends 2

Yuki Midorikawa – Viz – 2010 – 9+ volumes

The second volume was just as good as the first.  The story is still entirely episodic.  Apparently it ran in a bi-monthly magazine, LaLa DX, but my guess is that if it’s still running and has nine volumes, it switched over to LaLa.  That’s good, because it deserves regular serialization.  It also probably develops an ongoing plot later, too.

There are four stories in this volume, all are equally enjoyable.  Most are about Natsume’s isolation and loneliness, and the way he’s growing closer to both humans and yokai.  In the first, he goes on a “test of courage” with his classmates in a supposedy haunted school, which is of course haunted by a yokai.  One of his classmates suspects he can see things that are not there.  In the second story, he enlists the help of some of the yokai from his grandmother’s Book of Friends to help him rid himself of a mark that is slowly consuming him.  Next, he meets someone else who can see yokai for the first time, but this person is also an exorcist, something that Natsume disagrees with.  The final story is about Natsume helping out a yokai whose body has deteriorated and whose final wish is to play the lute one last time.

I think the thing I love most about this story is the skillful way it incorporates different types of yokai in each story, each more interesting than the last.  The haunted school story starts off with a kappa that Natsume helps out by dumping water over its head on his way to school.  The second story starts when he frees a tiny frog from a spider’s web.  In both cases, these creatures are one-offs and don’t have much to do with the plots of the stories.  My favorite yokai design from this volume, however, was one of the prominent characters in the last story, who carries an umbrella he can squish himself into to travel.  Natsume calls him “Mary,” after Mary Poppins.

It’s also got a very light touch.  The lessons are subtle, and while it makes no secret of its themes (be more outgoing, basically), nobody is sitting down with Natsume to explain what he’s learned at the end of every chapter, something I appreciate.  I also like that Natsume immediately tries to see the yokai’s side in every situation, even when they’re attacking, rather than assuming that they’re all evil.  It gets him into a lot of trouble, but it’s also very interesting to see the range of problems these yokai had.

I think Natsume’s Book of Friends succeeds because it has such a number of interesting twists.  Natsume and Nyanko-sensei, along with his grandmother Reiko, are so far the only recurring characters, and I love the range of completely different characters and stories that can be told with them.  And it’s pretty cool to think that at least some of them are rooted in Japanese legend (a lot of the monster designs follow Japanese yokai visual cues, and some are recognizable, but I think most are invented).  It’s very different, the stories are well-told, and it’s a joy to read.  It’s awesome.  I’m pretty excited about reading more.

This was a review copy provided by Viz.