Natsume Yūjin-Chō Go

Episode 7

After last week's repackaged OVA, this episode marks a return to the meat of Natsume Yūjin-Chō Go. That is to say, choo choo! All aboard the Feelings Train! “Distant Festival Lights” is as much Natsume's story as it is his friend Tanuma's. Tanuma is a fascinating character in Natsume's world, because he exists in the liminal space between the clear-cut human and yokai spheres of Natsume's life—Tanuma can sense yokai, but he can't quite see them. It's a unique viewpoint that forces Natsume to weigh his allegiances to both spheres. As usual, this story of trust and decision-making is told with several emotional punches to the gut.

“If somebody you thought was a person turned out to be a yokai, that would be kind of sad.” Wow Tanuma, you have no idea what kind of painful truth you just dropped with that. Natsume's knowing look in this scene says it all. Remember “False Friend,” where one of Natsume's classmates fell in love with a yokai? Remember in “The Name of a Monster” when Reiko thought she had made her first human friend, only to learn that the kindly old lady was a spirit? Little does Tanuma know, this exact brand of yokai-driven melancholy is about to hit his own life hard. Natsume and Tanuma, along with the two normals—as I tend to think of Natsume's spiritually-challenged school friends—are helping out at Tanuma's relative's inn in exchange for free dips in the hot springs and a local festival. Tanuma had always been affected by the yokai he can't exactly see, triggering headaches and other ailments, and when that happened, his dad would bring him to this inn to be cared for. Ironically, it turns out that one of those caretakers might have been exacerbating the situation—being a yokai herself.

Tanuma's friends and family keep stopping to greet him and call him “Kaname-chan,” and not even Natsume is above teasing him about it. With a smirk that looks more suited to Nyanko-sensei, Natsume joshes Tanuma for being so popular. "This trip has been relaxing enough to forget the slight uneasiness I feel,” Natsume says at the beginning of the episode, reminding us that “unease” is Natsume's default mode of existence. He's an orphan who feels that he's undeservedly lucked into his current life, which could be snatched away at any moment. But in this moment of heckling his friend, we see a sly and joking Natsume. It gives you a glimpse of the playful teen Natsume might have been if he didn't have the double weight of his supernatural abilities and the veil of melancholy that shroud his life. It's interesting to see how Tanuma thinks Natsume's life is kind of cool, and worries he's getting in his way, when really, Natsume is a bit envious of Tanuma, whose comparable ignorance is bliss.

I was actually pretty shocked by the reveal that Ito-san was a yokai. There was a lot of emphasis on the fact that five, no six, guests are staying at the inn, and it has the air of a detective story, a locked room whodunnit where one of the people in this very hotel has to be the culprit, with unique emotional consequences for both Ito and Tanuma. It's not until the end of the episode, painted in warm sunset tones, that Tanuma reveals his hypothesis to Natsume, and we learn that this episode wasn't about the mundane mystery of a missing mask, but the mysteries of the human heart. Tanuma is lucky to never have his theories confirmed, leaving it to Natsume—and the viewer—to witness the truth. Tanuma's liminal space contrasts what might have been against the pain of what actually is, for yet another perfectly heartstring-tugging episode of Natsume Yūjin-Chō Go.

Rating: A

Natsume Yūjin-Chō Go is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Lauren writes about geek careers at Otaku Journalist