In Japan, it was first published by Hakusensha as shojo manga on October 5, 2005. In North America, it was released by Viz Media on January 5, 2010. The volume is 200 pages.
Takashi Natsume has always been aware of the supernatural world, but after he inherits a magical book from his grandmother, the supernatural world is aware of him!
Takashi Natsume can see the spirits and demons that hide from the rest of humanity. He has always been set apart from other people because of his gift, drifting from relative to relative, never fitting in. Now he's a troubled high school student who has come to live in the small town where his grandmother grew up. And there he discovers that he has inherited more than just the Sight from the mysterious Reiko.
When Reiko was Takashi's age, she bound the names of demons and spirits in her Book of Friends, enslaving them to her capricious whim. Now Takashi is the owner of the book, and the creatures will do anything to get their names back.
Takashi Natsume is an orphaned boy who have the ability to seeyokai, and because of this he's always been isolated from others, drifting from relative to relative. After moving in in a new town, he accidentally free ayokai sealed in a fortune catwho used to know his mysterious grandmother, Reiko Natsume. He explains to him that the only thing Natsume has left of her is in reality a dangerous, powerful artifact: the Book of Friends. In it, Reiko has bound the names of the many yokai she defeated, enslaving them to the owner's will — and the yokai intend to do anything to get their names back.
Now that he's decided to return the names from the Book of Friends that his grandmother Reiko Natsume collected, Takashi Natsume and his bodyguard Nyanko-sensei's lives are full of yokai coming after them. One day, one of those yokai is Tsuyukami, a god, demanding for his name to be returned, only to find that the page with his name is stuck to another paper. To return his name back, they need to search for the other yokai.
For once, two yokai come to Takashi Natsume and Nyanko-sensei with a demand that has nothing to do with returning names: a "yokai exterminator" has showed up in Yatsuhara forest and terorrize its inhabitants. They want Natsume to get rid of him, but the boy is more intrigued by the fact another human who can sees yokai could exist. Meanwhile, a mysterious boy at school seems oddly interested in Natsume, and the two incidents might actually be related.
While Takashi Natsume and his new friends, Satoru Nishimura and Atsushi Kitamoto, goes to see a dam under which a village was submerged, he gets possessed by a yokai, Tsubame. She wants to find a human who used to live in the submerged village, and asks Natsume and Nyanko-senseifor help.
Covers[]
Volume 1 Inner Cover
Chapter 1 Cover
Chapter 2 Cover
Chapter 3 Cover
Chapter 4 Cover
Afterwords[]
"Thank you for reading. How did you like it? It was my first experience working on a series that is episodic in nature, published every once in a while. I floundered on a lot of things, but I'm also happy that readers will have an easier time picking up the story. I don't know how long I'll be able to continue like this, but I write each episode with the assumption that it could be the last. Compared to any of my previous characters, Natsume is rather less perceptive and more blunt, so he's not as rewarding for me as a writer. His lack of ability to express himself when asked for his thoughts rivals mine, so I keep wondering why I made him this way. But since he springs into action to compensate, I think he fits this story well. It's a story about a boy who tries to be a kind person.
Yuki Midorikawa's afterwords illustration of Volume 1.
About Nyanko-sensei
When I was little, I received a ceramic lucky cat statue as a gift from an elderly couple who took care of me a lot. I loved it since the cat had such a charming face, but it broke. Sobbing, I glued it back together with modeling clay, and it's still sitting in my parents' house. I drew Nyanko-sensei while trying to remember its face. I thought Natsume should have a bird or a cat as his partner, and I chose a mysterious lucky cat.
Thank you so much for reading the whole thing. I'd like to go as far as I can with these characters. I'll treat it with the utmost care, so please continue with your support.
Let me hear your thoughts if possible!
Special thanks to: Tamao Ohki, Chika, Mr. Sato, my sister. Thank you so much.
I'll work hard so that you'll want to read my manga. I hope we meet again."
