Many people say they enjoy watching “healing” anime, or iyashikei. But what exactly does “healing” mean? For a precise, authoritative definition of the category, one must look to books on psychology. In general, anime with a leisurely pace, quiet, refreshing stories, no absolute evil, no so-called fan service, and a broadly inspirational bent can count as “healing” anime. Such works usually bring sadness and tears, but ultimately put us at ease, leaving us calm through and through.
Among “healing” works, it would probably be fair to call Natsume’s Book of Friends the uncrowned king. Most works in this category take romance as their backbone, then convey warmth in various forms through the smaller details. So how does Natsume’s Book of Friends, which has nothing to do with romance, stand out, with its host of yōkai—supernatural beings—among so many romance-centered healing anime?
Gentleness Sheltered by the Power of Yōkai
Just as Natsume’s Book of Friends features many traditional Japanese yōkai, anime creators often draw on ancient mythologies and traditions of supernatural beings from around the world to construct their fictional worlds. Big Fish & Begonia rides forth on “In the northern sea there is a fish whose name is Kun”;1 the source of power in Attack on Titan is Ymir’s pact in Norse mythology;2 even Transformers: The Last Knight makes the presence of a descendant of the Knights of the Round Table from King Arthur’s time essential to humanity’s victory over the Decepticons.
Whether these beings form the cultural backdrop or are brought directly into the foreground as shikigami—familiar spirits—or heroic spirits, suddenly encountering gods, demons, ghosts, and monsters we recognize can send a shudder through us. These images carry the weight of ages, bridging ancient mystery and modern curiosity. There are things we cannot do, things we have never seen, and lifespans we can never hope to attain. And so these images, embodying the long river of time, can pass through our bodies, allowing us to feel a faint connection with the boundaries of time.
Compared with yōkai, human lives are far too short, and human strength far too slight. In ancient times, people first created totems to express the relationship between humanity and nature. These gradually became supreme gods ruling over all things, and later became tools of the ruling class. Today, we have scientific concepts in our heads, yet we still cannot let go of these beings. They no longer serve the ruling class, but their spiritual power has only grown stronger. To powerful, long-lived yōkai, humans always seem terribly fragile. In Natsume’s Book of Friends, when the traveling rabbit Awayuki sees the human girl Toru Taki cut her hand on an iron box, he fusses over getting it treated at once: “I’ve heard humans are astonishingly fragile.” When Natsume helps the yōkai Nanamaki search for his apprentice Azuma at night, Nanamaki says, “I’ve heard that staying up this late can ruin a human’s health.” Of course, a little rain or a minor injury is hardly enough to kill us. Still, when suffering comes, we hope for divine protection, for a shortcut that might offer some comfort as life sweeps us along.
Without Madara (Nyanko-sensei),3 even with the gentle Fujiwaras taking him in, Takashi Natsume—coveted by yōkai on all sides—would probably be unable to keep his gentleness intact and extend it to others. Takashi’s change for the better takes place under Madara’s protection; it is Madara’s strength, far surpassing that of the other yōkai, that safeguards his gentleness. Perhaps many people in this world were gentle to begin with. But life takes a file to them and ruthlessly wears them down: integrity loses to sycophancy, honest work cannot beat opportunism, and gentle people end up brutal. If we could, we too would want a powerful yōkai to protect us from harm, so that we would not have to become people we hate.
Drawing the Simple out of the Complex—This Is How Everything in the World Ought to Be
The moments when yōkai move us are often those in which they reveal their simplest thoughts and feelings. Reiko Natsume does as she pleases out of loneliness. She has more recognizably human traits, unwittingly running up many “debts to yōkai.” Her grandson Takashi Natsume, though just as lonely at first, is more inclined to act as the yōkai do: as he goes along, he does the simplest things, the things one ought to do, bringing warmth to the yōkai and freeing himself in the process.
(1) On Waiting
One thing humans excel at is forever forgetting what they have said.
Careless Reiko forgets her appointment at the station, but the yōkai Santo keeps waiting for her, through watch after watch of wind, watch after watch of snow.4 The ticket expires, the station falls into disuse, and still he does not leave. If Takashi had not happened upon the ticket and gone to investigate, Santo would probably have kept waiting. Reiko Natsume tells the yōkai Hishigaki that she has a lovely name, and Hishigaki writes it in the Book of Friends. Yōkai are lonely. When Hishigaki meets Reiko, a human who is lonely too, she begins to hope for something. “When I call, you have to come running!” Reiko tells her. Hishigaki never forgets those words. She would certainly do it; more than that, she longs to run to Reiko’s side. But the flowers bloom and fall, and Reiko never calls her name again. “If you’re never going to call, however long I wait, then give me back my name!” Hishigaki is lonelier than before. By the time she senses Reiko’s presence again, Reiko is no longer alive. Resentment? Yes. Yet when Hishigaki finally gets her name back, she still wants to know whether Reiko went on to live happily.
You said it. I heard it. I remembered it. I did it. But you didn’t. Even so, I still hope life is good to you, because we already share the same loneliness.
(2) On Repaying Kindness
“Knot grass and carry rings to repay kindness”—the principle could hardly be simpler.5 Yet how many people live up to it? To the yōkai in Natsume’s Book of Friends, however, this is surely the most natural obligation, something that must be fulfilled, even if it means staying together in life and death.
The Dew God exists through people’s faith. As time passes, the elderly Hana is the only person left in the world who still makes offerings to him. He could move elsewhere, draw on stronger faith, and remain in this world, but he refuses even Takashi’s faith: he wants to leave with Hana. Tsubame, who lives beneath the water, comes to Takashi for help because she wants to thank the person who once saved her life: “I like gentleness, and I like warmth, so I like humans.” The Days Eater is a traveler, often lodging in all sorts of places. When he leaves, he repays his hosts by making old things new; he can also restore youth. To thank Takashi for helping him remove a jar stuck on his head, he turns Takashi into a little child—he only wants to lengthen this human’s brief life. A mix-up, certainly, but the Days Eater really is a yōkai who repays every kindness.
Even if it is only a thank-you, I will make sure it reaches you.
(3) On Being the Only One
Humans encounter many people, while yōkai cherish that one encounter they have had with a human. “If humans and yōkai never came into contact in the first place, there would be nothing to grow attached to.”
A man sees a little yōkai hopping about in the rain. Mistaking her for a child and worried that she will catch a cold, he gives her a towel. When she tries to return it the next day, she discovers that he can no longer see her. She watches him like this for fifty years, until she notices he has been absent for a while. “Lord Natsume, how long do humans live? Is he still alive?” she asks. After much trouble, they find the old man in hospital, but he has no memory of anything of the kind. The little yōkai says it is enough that he is still alive.
We encounter such a bewildering array of things every day that it is hard to remember anything unless it is unique, special. The yōkai’s side of the story reminds us of this: you are my only one, while I am only one of many to you. As this simple feeling of the yōkai heals us, perhaps we too recall that one person in our hearts.
How can a mere draft through a hall unleash a mountain flood?
To some extent, the yōkai in Natsume’s Book of Friends serve as a medium that magnifies the finest human qualities. They reveal these qualities in a very simple, pure form: the things we lack most in our ever more rapidly changing commercial civilization, yet which ought to be the most fundamental. People who love Natsume’s Book of Friends must be gentle too, surely. Deep down, they long for these simple, beautiful things.
Loneliness and Gentleness: The Words That Come Up Most
Unlike those in many hot-blooded battle anime, most of the yōkai in Natsume’s Book of Friends have shed their ferocity. They may be lonely, but their dispositions tend toward gentleness and calm. Even when, in a few episodes, they hurt others, they do so out of attachment to their yōkai friends or to humans they have encountered. Tsukiko Takuma’s father used to be an exorcist, but he has grown old and lost the ability to see yōkai. The familiars with whom he once made contracts, however, have never been released. Mistakenly believing that yōkai have entered the house, Tsukiko puts talismans up everywhere, with the result that two of her father’s three familiars are shut outside. Unable to enter, the familiars believe Mr. Takuma has abandoned them and lay a curse on his household. Yet at the end, when one of them faces its former master again, we discover that it wants to prove its abilities, to show that it can still be useful, in the hope that Mr. Takuma will not cast them aside.
Perhaps this is also why we can watch the anime in a relaxed frame of mind. We know that whatever misunderstandings or disasters occur, things will end gently. Although we can foresee an ending that will put us at ease, we would never call it “clichéd.” We still wait, still look forward to it, and when it finally appears before us, our hearts fill with joy, because we still want to seek out such gentleness.
“I don’t understand human feelings, but being alone is sad. That much I know very well.” A lonely yōkai is delighted to discover that Takashi can see her. Nanamaki the stone washer asks Takashi to help find his apprentice Azuma, a lost yōkai, little more than skin and bones, whom he once took in at Fujima Village. This also reminds Natsume of the Fujiwaras, who took him in.
The yōkai who must not form bonds with humans are lonely. Reiko Natsume and Takashi Natsume, each alone in being able to see yōkai, are lonely. Aunt Toko’s life before she met Shigeru was bitter too. Fortunately, they all met gentle yōkai or gentle people who could keep them company. They were no longer lonely; the world around them grew lively.
Lonely people meet gentle people, are treated gently, become gentle themselves, and then find happiness.
Liluohudeng: Response
In plain, heartfelt prose, the author describes what makes the shared lives of humans and yōkai in Natsume’s Book of Friends distinctive within “healing” anime. Retelling several stories lets readers revisit the work’s warmth. Having read the whole essay, I have a few questions I would like to discuss with the author.
First, what is “healing” anime, and are works described this way shaped by genre conventions? On my first reading, I was a little puzzled to see the author classify Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day, 5 Centimeters per Second, and Kimi ni Todoke: From Me to You as “romance-centered healing” works, summing them up as conveying “warmth in various forms through the smaller details.” To my mind, Anohana and ReLIFE concern coming to terms with youth—a nostalgic theme that looks at the past from the present—whereas 5 Centimeters per Second and Kimi ni Todoke are closer to sketches of youth from life, an empathetic theme that looks at the present from within the present. Nor is it appropriate to place the first three together under the theme of romance: in terms of artistic form, both 5 Centimeters per Second and Kimi ni Todoke feature carefully handled transitions between shots and a slowing of linear time; in terms of emotional content, friendship and youth, alongside the central romance, are also reasons why Anohana and Kimi ni Todoke give viewers a warm experience. Both works resemble Natsume’s Book of Friends rather than stand opposed to it.
Behind these questions may lie a difference between the author’s definition of “healing” and my own. I tried looking into the term’s origins and development, but my lack of relevant knowledge meant that, apart from learning that it comes from the Japanese “癒らし”6 and discovering a few representative works, I came away empty-handed. I also approached “治愈”—“healing”—through its usage, hoping to trace the development of its metaphorical meaning and thus find how it manifests itself in particular works. In the CCL corpus, over 95 percent of occurrences of “治愈” appear in connection with illness, including social and mental illness—healing, in other words, as the soothing of emotional wounds. (In other words: I still hadn’t found anything useful, haha.) In anime, perhaps we can understand it as “sharing in other people’s happiness, as though our own pain were being diluted, and feeling our hearts cleansed by their ‘simplicity.’” In this sense, Natsume’s Book of Friends does not seem so very different from other healing works.
Then there is the author’s view that what distinguishes Natsume’s Book of Friends is the relationship between humans and yōkai. I would argue, however, that its yōkai are yōkai given human personalities. The tension in human–yōkai relations—what the author describes as serving “as a medium that magnifies the finest human qualities”—merely makes these matters easier to explore (life’s brevity and fragility, waiting, repaying kindness, mutual dependence, and so on, as the author discusses, are all human feelings projected onto yōkai), with healing ultimately achieved through reconciliation between humans and yōkai. Perhaps we should not overlook Natsume’s whole harem of men, either—I must sheepishly admit that I have only watched two seasons and am a hopeless Nyanko-sensei fan, so I cannot really speak with authority here. Perhaps the author could explain this part. Precisely because the yōkai in Natsume’s Book of Friends have human personalities, and many come from traditional Japanese tales of spirits and monsters, I personally feel that the opening of the first section need not trace cultures of gods and supernatural beings across the world: the differences between them are too great, and their relationships too difficult to untangle. Focusing solely on Japan’s yōkai tradition and the changing relationship between humans and yōkai might offer a firmer point of departure.
Ophelia: Response
If the fresh, gentle style of Natsume’s Book of Friends carries a nostalgic loneliness, this informal essay, too, seems to bring us closer to its stories through its gentle touch and unhurried narrative rhythm.
The essay observes that humans are fragile, short-lived beings. Even in a modern world informed by science, we cannot let go of our connection to the image of powerful, long-lived yōkai. Under their protection, people retain their gentle nature, untouched by the abrasive shaping of hardship. It makes me think of children displaying an innocent purity under their parents’ protection; there is something lonely about it.
The author says, “This is how everything in the world ought to be.” The protectors themselves seem quite naturally to reflect this simple essence back to us: remember what you have promised, give thanks when someone helps you, take special care of what is special to you. The thoughts illustrated in the essay are indeed simple things that ought to go without saying, yet they still surprise us. Following the gentle cadence of its retellings, we recall how it felt to watch, and after a faint, sudden sense of loss and loneliness, we seem to come closer to the work’s plain, gentle essence.