The 2018 feature Natsume Yujin-cho the Movie: Ephemeral Bond is based on a popular manga by Yuki Midorikawa that ran from 2005 to 2019. It’s also been adapted to a TV series that lasted six seasons and several CD dramatizations. Natsume Yujin-cho means “Natsume’s Book of Friends.”

Takashi Natsume is a orphaned teen-ager who was shuffled among family members until he ended up at the home a kind but rather oblivious couple. That they pay little attention is a good thing, as Natsume can see the supernatural creatures known as yokai. His regular companion is a powerful yokai he calls Nyanko-sensei, who takes the form of a chubby maneki-neko—the “lucky cat” seen in countless shops and restaurants. But in his proper name is Madara and his true form resembles the wolf-god in Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke.

Natsume’s grandmother, Reiko Natsume, also commanded formidable extrasensory powers, and she left him the Book of Friends. Each page contains the signature of a yokai whom Reiko overcame, forcing them to pledge to serve her. Natsume has been wandering through rural Japan freeing benign yokai returning their names.

Complications arise when Natsume meets Yorie Tsumura, woman who knew his grandmother when they were girls. (She found Reiko both intimidating and awesome.) This gentle woman practices the art of cut-paper pictures, and lives quietly with her klutzy son Mukuo. They welcome Natsume into their home, but things don’t quite add up.

Natsume’s friends at school suffer curious memory lapses. When Nyanko-sensei goes hunting for pastries, he inadvertently brings back a seed that grows overnight into a magical tree—only Natsume can see it in the middle of the front yard. Ever hungry, Nyanko-sensei eats the fruit off the tree—and splits into three kitten versions of himself. This transformation upsets Natsume and sends ripples through the yokai world.

Not suprisingly, it takes a while to get things sorted out. Natsume learns that Mukuo is really a yokai who given the ability to appear as a human—as punishment for earlier misdeeds. He’s welcomed wherever he goes, but as soon as he leaves, people lose all memory of him. Weary of his lonely existence, he hid in a hollow tree near shrine where he stayed until he heard Yorie mourning the death of her son. For eight years, the yokai has assumed the role of Mukuo, comforting the aging woman. But the time has come for him to leave: Natsume finds the correct page in the Book of Friends and frees the spirit in a melancholy but fitting ending.

The device of an itinerant hero using supernatural powers to solve local problems may remind some viewers of Mushi-Shi (2005). Natsume lacks Ginko’s amazing talents, and the problems he faces and the solutions he finds lack the poetry of that series. But Ephemeral Bond offers a pleasant introduction to an engaging continuity.

Natsume Yujin-cho the Movie: Ephemeral Bond
Aniplex: $39.98 one disc, Blu-ray plus illustration cards

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Charles Solomon

Internationally known animation historian and critic, Charles Solomon has written over 15 books books including Enchanted Drawings: The History Of Animation, The Art of Disney's Frozen,The Making of Peanuts Animation, and Tale as Old as Time: The Art and Making of Disney Beauty and the Beast .

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