Natsume's Book of Friends: Season 4 Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		4.0

Natsume's Book of Friends: Season 4 Blu-ray Movie Review

A book worth reading.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 17, 2013

Takashi Natsume sees dead people. Well, kind of. Natsume actually sees yōkai, the whimsical and often pretty bizarre creatures from the dim mists of time which have informed Japanese folklore for untold centuries. Natsume’s Book of Friends is a frequently charming anime series which follows Natsume’s adventures as he deals with these spectral entities, many of whom are “bound” to Natsume courtesy of the titular “book of friends”, a tome Natsume inherited from his similarly gifted grandmother, a woman who had battled various yōkai, defeating them and demanding their servitude courtesy of contracts which are contained in the book. Natsume therefore has a perhaps unwanted legacy. He is continually approached by various yōkai who are desirous of attaining their freedom, but Natsume himself yearns for a different kind of liberation—namely the ability to blend in with more “normal” humans, something his “sixth sense” doesn’t easily allow him to do. As I mentioned in the Natsume's Book of Friends: Season 3 Blu-ray review, there’s a kind of dreamlike quality to much of this series, where Natsume’s everyday life seems to intersect with something almost Jungian at times. This quality tends to be redolent of some of the iconic works of Hayao Miyazaki, pieces which similarly mine the worlds of Japanese folklore and tend to exploit the interrelationship between the relatively mundane confines of the conscious mind with the more mystical aspects hidden in the deeper recesses of the subconscious. The fourth season of Natsume’s Book of Friends continues along much the same path as the third season (NIS America has only released the two latest seasons on Blu-ray, but the first two seasons are available from them on DVD). There’s a bit more conflict in this fourth season, giving the series perhaps more edge than the third, but the same qualities that made the third season so enjoyable are certainly still here in abundance.

Natsume’s Book of Friends’ theme music’s lyric spends an inordinate amount of time talking about suffering, which is kind of strange for such a generally gentle series of this. But this points out one of the more subtle aspects of the show —Natsume, while becoming more at ease with his relationship with the various yōkai, is still a young man in transition. As the fourth season makes clear, Natsume is still learning to trust his human friends while continuing to try to deal with the various spirits who don’t always have his best interests at heart.

Natsume is a sweet boy who obviously has good intentions, as is repeatedly made clear throughout this series. He’s actually more than willing to return any given yōkai’s name to the spirit (his grandmother Reiki made yōkai subservient by “taking” their names and inscribing them in her Book of Friends). Natsume goes through an interesting ritual whenever this situation comes up, where he gets the Book of Friends to magically turn to the page with that particular yōkai’s name. He rips that page out of the book, curls it up in his mouth, and blows, which in turn sends the name back to its “owner”. This very ritual occurs again and again throughout the series, including in the fourth season’s opening episode, when Natsume is approached by a strange looking character who seems to be an old man asking for help (though of course we—and Natsume himself—know better).

That in turn gets Natsume involved in one of the mini-arcs that dot this particular season. It turns out the “old man” was only part of a larger ruse which was meant to draw Natsume into a magical forest. Once Natsume is there, he encounters a coterie of weird and malevolent spirits who wear huge monkey masks. Natsume has had repeated run ins with yōkai of various stripes, including some who aren’t especially friendly, but these particular entities seem almost violent, surrounding Natsume and demanding his Book of Friends. Only his trusty sidekick, the bizarre erstwhile god now in cat form Nyanko-Sensei, is able to save him. Natsume and his feline soon discover that their old nemesis Matoba may be behind all of the intrigue. This particular arc plays out over the next couple of episodes, a gambit that Natsume’s Book of Friends continues to exploit for the rest of the season, with stories tending to ebb and flow over at least two episodes’ running time quite often.

One recurring theme which seems to inform this particular season is the idea of identity. Natsume has spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out who exactly he is. Can he ever be “one of the guys”, a more or less regular teenager able to interact with his peers without the constant harassment from various yōkai? But Natsume’s Book of Friends takes this general idea to new levels in the fourth season. Natsume himself has several identity crises throughout this season, including coming to terms with various painful elements in his past. But the season ends with Natsume in the throes of a sort of possession, with some ominous forebodings that his very life may be in danger.

The series continues to be rather sweet and whimsical quite a bit of the time, while also toeing a fine line between melancholy and humor. The mystical aspect is extremely well handled, and Natsume’s genial if sometimes troubled responses to life’s (and death’s) various intrigues gives the show a solidly upbeat ambience. There’s more than meets the eye in this show, which tends to very subtly remind the viewer that “outsiders” are often more like ostensible insiders than most insiders ever realize. The ironic thing about this is that those without any ability to see dead people often look right through the living people standing right next to them.

Natsume's Book of Friends: Season 4 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Natsume's Book of Friends: Season 4 is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of NIS America with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. The fourth season continues the excellent video quality of the third season and in fact has less of the (perhaps intentional) softness that was part of the third season. Colors continue to be nicely lush and well saturated, and line detail is very sharp and well detailed. Occasionally the animators seem to take a kind of lackadaisical approach, with little nuance to faces in group scenes and the like, but that's more than offset by the often superb renditions of the yōkai.

Natsume's Book of Friends: Season 4 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

As with Natsume's Book of Friends's third season, this fourth season again offers the original Japanese language track presented via an LPCM 2.0 mix. The show continues to mine a nice array of ambient environmental sounds that really augment the atmosphere of many episodes. Dialogue is cleanly and clearly presented as well. There's not a huge amount of dynamic range here, but fidelity is excellent. Subtitles are encoded into the video and cannot be removed.

Natsume's Book of Friends: Season 4 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This is another so-called Premium Edition from NIS America, a label which has specialized in these deluxe packaged affairs. Once again two slimline cases are enclosed in a sturdy slipcase that also houses a very nice, glossily illustrated hardback book. The actual on-disc supplements include:

• Clean Opening (1080p; 1:31)


• Clean Endings (1080p; 3:02)


• Japanese Commercials (1080i; 00:52)


• Trailers for other NIS America Releases

Natsume's Book of Friends: Season 4 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Natsume's Book of Friends continues to be a rather winning anime, with a sweetly accessible main character and a really fun assortment of supporting folks, both yōkai and human. This fourth season starts to turn a bit more serious as it goes along, exploring issues of identity and self in some rather interesting ways. That said, there's also a sort of whimsical quality to the series that keeps it from ever seeming too heavy handed. This Blu-ray set is handsomely packaged in the usual NIS America style, and comes with excellent video and audio. Recommended.