Natsume Yuujin-chou ep.10

September 27, 2008 | 6 Comments

Once again sorry for the late review but it's not until now that I can watch and review the episode. I guess all of those PSN demo downloads do take a lot of bandwidth. And then there's the constant streaming of Japanese TV to my PC. Anyway, I'm not really enthused about this episode for some reason. I thought the story was rather non-eventful. I'm just not sure about Asagi's real motivation in the story. It seems to me that she's quite content with letting Akagane deciding what she should do next. It can be argued that she can't do anything since she has no corporeal body but she doesn't seem to make an active attempt to either scold him if he do something without her permission. The music is pretty good as usual though and it's interesting to hear a Koto performance because prior to this series, I didn't even know what a Koto was.

Natsume is having drinks (non-alcoholic, it seems) with his friends when he suddenly claims that there's an umbrella floating nearby. Much to his embarrassment, his friends can't see it so he pretends that he must have imagined it. His friends shrug it off so easily. It's understandable, really. After all, people have imaginary friends or two at one point in their life? Right? Anyway, the umbrella turns out to be a youkai and to top it off, the youkai is pretty forward with Natsume, telling that Natsume's body is his. Wow, Yaoi is really hot property these days, eh? It doesn't help that Natsume goes "Nooo" while the guy goes "Give it to me". I hope this series is screened late at night because attempted rape-like scenario is probably not that big of a hit amongst parents of little kiddies. At any rate, Natsume solves the little problem by punching the guy squarely on the face. Despite this, the guy still wants to 'eat' Natsume. All of a sudden, there's a voice coming from the gourd (sake pot) that the youkai carrying. The voice calls the youkai Akagane and asks Natsume to forgive the youkai's rudeness because he does it for her. In response, Akagane asks the gourd, Asagi, not to talk or she'll get tired.

Asagi, however, already loses consciousness and falls asleep. Nyanko, who overheard the entire conversation tells Natsume that he's heard about a beautiful Koto player who used to be called Asagi. However, she became ill and unable to play the instrument anymore. Akagane tries to possess Natsume's body again but this time around Nyanko bites off his hair, causing the later to shriek, thinking that a racoon dog bit him. That night when Natsume is asleep, Akagane pays a visit to the house without his knowledge. When Natsume wakes up in the morning, he finds out that his hair and eyes turned to blue for a few seconds. When he walks to school, his friends Kitamoto slaps him in the back as usual but Natsume stays sparkly, causing said friend to be blushing. Of course the girls think that they are in some kind of shounen-ai relationship. Throughout the day, everyone else including Tanuma momentarily sees Natsume as pretty girl. This is pretty messed up. Inside the class, Akagane appears and admits that he put Asagi inside Natsume while he was asleep. Asagi apologizes for what happened but she had no control over it. Nyanko suggests that if Natsume can grant Asagi's wish, maybe she'll leave his body.

Akagane then appears but because Natsume doesn't know his name, he decides to call him "Bullseye". After more moments of shounen-ai, Natsume and Akagane decides to catch an Ayakashi called Senbiki so they can make a new Koto for Asagi. After unsuccessful attempt, Natsume decides to rest. In the process, he finds out from Asagi that Bullseye used to be umbrella holder/bodyguard for the God of the mountain, Mibu and the Koto players. However, when Asagi broke her instrument and can no longer play, she decides to leave because she doesn't want to be useless. Akagane then appears out of the river, feeling happy because he manages to find Senbiki, a fish with long silver whisker that Akagane intends on using to make the string of the koto. That night, Natsume gets a nightmare of his body turning into stone and then dust. When he wakes up, Akagane explains that Asagi has a disease which stops her finger from moving and her body to turn rigid. However, while she's in another person's body, her disease can be halted. Apparently tomorrow is full moon and the path to Isozuki will be opened. Because of this, Akagane wants Asagi to play for Mibu-sama even if it's just once.

The next day, Natsume and Akagane starting to look for a tree stump that they can turn into koto. However, after searching all day long, they can't find it. Natsume then hears a voice asking him what he's looking for and the voice points out the direction of the stump. However, the voice then turns sinister, claiming that it'll now devour Natsume because it already told him what he wants to find. Natsume decides to ignore the voice since Akagane is nearby. Akagane is happy to find the stump and begins making the Koto. While he does this, Natsume tells Asagi how much Akagane loves her. At night, Akagane wakes Natsume up and tries to take him to the path of Isozuki. In the middle of the journey, however, Natsume is being attacked by the Ayakashi who wanted to devour him. Akagane tries to defend him but ends up having the Koto knocked out of his hand. Natsume decides to jump and save the Koto and ends up unconscious. When he regains his consicousness, the Koto is okay. Asagi then decides that instead of playing for Mibu-sama, she'd rather play for Akagane. The next day, Akagane decides to take Asagi back into the gourd and returns home.

Impression

Episode 9 felt a bit flat. I guess I just wasn't sure what Akagane tried to achieve in the first place. On top of this, it's hard to figure out if Asagi agreed with his plan. Despite this, he shoved her into Natsume's body without asking for her permission and later took her back with him in the Gourd after the performance. In the end, I wasn't sure if Asagi achieved what she wanted to achieve. She didn't get well nor did she get to rest for good by passing over. Sure, she gave a performance to Akagane as a thank you for his friendship but I wonder if that's all that she wanted to achieve. Moving on, this is probably the first episode where Nyanko-sensei didn't help Natsume at all when he was attacked by the youkai. This has a nice effect of making the viewers questioning his motivation again. Him refusing being hugged by Natsume is probably the character trying to detach himself for feeling any kind of emotion for Natsume. The same thing can be said about him claiming that he doesn't need a place where he can stay forever.

© memento 2003