Natsume Yūjin-Chō Roku

Episode 13

Though it stars a male protagonist, it's important to remember that Natsume Yūjin-Chō is a shojo anime, based on a manga that has been running in a magazine for girls since 2005. In “A Fragment of Fantasy,” Tamami is an ordinary girl who might as well be one of the show's viewers, and she gets to spend an afternoon with Natsume and Nyanko-sensei. It's pretty self-indulgent, but what's wrong with that? It's a fun piece of escapism that allows ordinary viewers to slot themselves into the Natsume Yūjin-Chō universe.

Tamami is a sweet girl. She saves an owl who has gotten stuck in a tree, but this strange bird flies off before she can return the jeweled ring it was wearing around one leg. Soon after, she's treated to a mysterious dream (the same kind that Natsume regularly gets), which leads to an invitation to a supernatural forest. It's the chance of a lifetime to join Natsume's world, and it couldn't have happened to anyone nicer (or blander). We aren't really getting to know Tamami in this OVA, we're more imagining ourselves in her position.

It's fun to see our main pair interact with a stranger from the stranger's perspective. Nyanko-sensei is shameless as always, unconvincingly insisting that Tamami is dreaming as an excuse to talk to her so he can eat her lunch. Meanwhile, Natsume is cold and untrusting, still reticent to open up to strangers. (He's been burned in the past, and he doesn't want Tamami to get hurt.) As they traipse through the forest, Tamami keeps fantasizing that she has the starring role in Alice in Wonderland, which rings true. It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity she could never forget.

Except that's exactly what happens. When Natsume finds the forest guardian, he gives them a talking-to: “If a youkai starts talking to a normal girl, and she tells somebody, the people around her will think she's strange.” It's a reminder that what any regular person would see as a cool superpower is a heavy burden that Natsume must bear. He doesn't wish the ability to commune with yokai on anyone else. But when the guardian promises to erase Tamami's memories, Natsume's upset enough to yell, “No time, not even a single moment, can be stolen from a person without their permission!” As indicated by the bittersweet glimpses of Reiko we get when Natsume returns a name, the true currency of Natsume Yūjin-Chō is memories. Natsume's own raison d'etre is to retrieve these, so removing them seems truly cruel to him.

But at the end of the day, Tamami is simply a normal girl, destined to live a normal life. They compromise as the guardian lets her keep a glimmering fragment of the stone. In a way, this forgetfulness is more escapism, allowing any viewer to imagine that we once had the brief power to talk to yokai, even if we can't remember it. Once again, this is indulgent to the point of embarrassment, but it's nice to have one episode where viewers can see ourselves as our very own Natsume Yūjin-Chō Mary Sue.

Rating: B+

Natsume Yūjin-Chō Roku is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Lauren writes about geek careers at Otaku Journalist.