Natsume Yuujinchou Shichi Episode 11 Discussion

This episode adapts chapters 88 and 89 of the manga (I read them recently, that's why I know).

It's an important and unexpected (and sweet) story: the "birth" of the Book of Friends. I never thought we would actually be shown how and why Reiko started it.

Looks like the last episode will bring everyone together. It's certainly going to be a nice farewell.

@Turambar5 bro help me understand how is it that the manga started almost quarter of a century ago and only have 110 or so chapters. Even bigger question how do we have seven seasons from just that many chapters?

Best episode of the season, man I was hoping that Natsume would try to look up if Souko was still alive to at least give a little closure between Reiko and her.

@Turambar5 bro help me understand how is it that the manga started almost quarter of a century ago and only have 110 or so chapters. Even bigger question how do we have seven seasons from just that many chapters?

@airgaming15 if you think on it, this is going to be problematic. looking at Reiko when she saved Mr. Fujiwara from a yokai that 'invaded' his family home (same one Takashi and the Fujiwaras live in now)... he was in elementary school... and Reiko was in high school... same uniform and everything we saw here in this episode. if Souko is exactly as old as Reiko? ... she's going to be quite old... another girl Tsumura Yorie that knew Reiko presumably sometime around this episode in the movie 'Utsusemi ni Musubu' aka 'Ephemeral Bond' but in an entirely different town than the Fujiwaras live in... Reiko was wearing a completely different uniform back then as well. Ms. Tsumura was in junior high when Reiko was in high school, and Ms. T has a 20-30 something year old son. then you have to consider Takashi's mom and dad and factor in that one of them is Reiko's child. unless she was an unwed teen mother? Reiko had to be at least 10 years older than Mr. Fujiwara... at a minimum. plus, he's getting up there, if i remember right he is a family home architect... designing houses as such... not businesses or skyscrapers etc. he works a great deal at home and daily commutes somewheres. so, he isn't quite to the retirement age, and i'm guessing in his late 40's through his middle to late 50's... maybe Souko would be as old as 70? at the most? and possibly name change etc. with marriage... the yokai had no idea where Souko was from... finding somebody with no set date, and no set town in and around that date? and no photograph(s)? and how is Takashi going to explain EVERYTHING to a private detective? have Natori-san do it since he is rich, famous, and knows how to 'translate' yokai stuffs into real-world stuffs?

so far, other than Mr. Fujiwara's few interactions with Reiko... Ms. Tsumura's memories of barely ever talking with Reiko... and a few 'Natsume family rumors' Takashi has heard? yokai stories and 'shared memories' Takashi has experienced are the best clues the boy has. i SERIOUSLY doubt Reiko's parents were alive when we've seen her! otherwise, why all the random roaming and moving from school to school over the FEW YEARS we've seen of Reiko's life?

the mangaka just loves keeping things under their hat. :D

@tokomata ya want one that will really blow your mind? 'Oh! My Goddess'. this seinen manga ran from September 1988 to April 2014 and ended up being compiled into 48 tankobon volumes. most reviewers consider this the seminal manga using 'living together as adults in a relationship' and the 'under one roof' ROMCOM settings.

awesome anime... except for one entry... i'll get to that a little later. studio AIC started the anime work on this franchise back in the OVA Disk-Only/VHS Tape era when the Japanese used their VCRs to tape anime, or official Tape Sets were sold (of TV series shockingly enough); and VERY FEW shows had DVD releases. that 'set' was sold in Japan from 1993-4, only had 5 episodes and each was 30 minutes long. i bought the 2001 AnimEigo US DVD 2 Box Sets with the original English cast, still sealed in their original shrink-wrap, in a second-hand music store not long after they were first sold.

the next anime work was on TV in Japan and also quite goofy, studio OLM created 'Adventures of Mini-Goddesses' 1998-9 with 48 standard length episodes. this one is where the girls were shrunk to just a few inches tall (smaller than a rat). i have watched several of those episodes online... it turned a sweet romance, fantastical, action packed once in a while story into a slapstick STICOM. but i won't be looking too hard for Geneon Entertainment's US release.

after that TV series studio AIC retook the entire franchise and kept a tight hold on it. even using the original 1990's OVA director Goda Hiroaki until the last anime was produced. the first 'new' entry from AIC was an original theatrical release movie created in 2000, 'Ah! My Goddess: The Movie'. i do have Geneon's English DVD of this one, some cast members were replaced from the Mini-Goddesses and original OVA casts. awesome upgrade from the 1990's techniques in animation and easily shows how the industry in Japan improved over time.

next anime is a reboot of the entire story, restarting it from the beginning of the manga. this is the one most US audiences are familiar with. 'Ah! My Goddess' (2005) with 24 episodes and 2 OVAs, and 'AMG: Flights of Fancy' (2006) also 24 episodes but didn't have any OVAs. these two continuous run TV series are just chock full of DAAAHMMN! awesome work. if you want to know what TV anime looked like in the second half of the 2000's? watch those seasons. MediaBlasters, Crunchyroll, Funimation etc. has worked on these creating DVDs for them... but trying to find them all today? you're going to need to buy some collector's entire package of the seasons. me? oh i bought them all as fast as i could as soon as they came out. this was the problematic era of North American DVD anime sales where the packaging... was translated etc. but... multi-disk boxed-sets almost never existed. you were buying a one disk DVD pack at a time.

unfortunately, after those two long-run TV seasons... the anime just died. Goda-sensei helmed five ONAs and from what i've read, he SERIOUSLY had to lobby AIC HARD to get even those made... 'AMG: Fighting Wings' 2 episodes in 2007, and finally 'AMG: Together Forever' 3 episodes which were released from 2011-13. if you remember from my first paragraph, the manga finally ended the very next year in 2014.

to the best of my knowledge, nobody in North America has picked the ONAs up. my 'disk copies' are 'ahem ahem' those types of homemade projects that MAL frowns upon.

now the 'reboot' fandom out there has been looking for 'old titles that need more anime' and Oh! My Goddess has been thrown around several times. but it not being a shonen title does give this franchise a problem. having the male protagonist be a Sophomore in College? won't exactly catch the eye of a 'new shonen audience' in Japan... but it would make us OL' FARTS damn happy. :)

@KiliianSleipnir I wasn't aware megamisama ended as recent as 2014(still 10years ago) but 48volumes isn't too uncommon given it's popularity in it's targetted demographic. Dragonball, effing Rental Girlfriend have around that many volumes. Natsume however is "slow" by even chapter count let alone volumes. Then the fact 100 chapters spawning of 7 seasons. Gotta give it to the production for avoiding pacing slop like One Piece or SxF and maintaining quality. I wonder if every chapter of Natsume has been adapted till 89

@KiliianSleipnir You just said he was in elementary school and Reiko was in high school thats only 8-10years apart at most. Even if we assume Reiko was 18 years old during that time there's no way Mr.Fujiwara was below 8 years old.

GOD WHAT A MOVING EPISODE! Really was expecting Soko to die, death flag central! Tranquil and heart-tugging, I don't know what's more suffering, being Reiko or the Yokai in this episode.

@bboy_OatsnRice so did soko die or not? coz the abrupt pause made it seem so