Manga Review: Natsume's Book of Friends Volume 8 by Yuki Midorikawa

4 of 5 Stars

Publisher: Viz Media

Goodreads Synopsis:

With friends like these, enemies are overkill. R to L (Japanese Style). 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 is 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. 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 is 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.

Review:

I've read all of the previous volumes in this series, and enjoyed them. The stories have mostly been one to two shots, a different story with a different yokai each time, although there are several yokai and people that show up again and again. It's mostly just fun, interesting stories, although because there isn't much of a moving plot, it can be a slow read. Usually I have a hard time starting the next volume but enjoy it when I do.

In this volume, it started with a school festival and some classmates of Natsume's. Tanuma and Taki help him in the first chapter as well as the two following it. I liked seeing them, and I hope they become main characters as well. I like them, and I liked seeing them all together, interacting. Natsume is very awkward with people, and he needs friends, so I hope they show up more. The first three chapters yokai isn't very memorable, except that the yokai in the second took over Tanuma and he got to see the yokai like Natsume does on a regular basis. It was interesting seeing how the both of them feel and nice that they worked it out.

The next two chapters were more background story. It showed how Natsume met the Fujiwara's before he went to live with them. They were sweet in how they went about trying to get him to live with them, and I liked seeing more of them, getting to know more of their characters and how they got where they are now.

It's always sad seeing Natsume when he was younger, because he always had trouble with the yokai and trying not to let them bother the people he was with while not letting them know anything, and how it never worked out for him. He was such a sad, lonely kid, and it's nice that he's mostly gotten over it and knows how to deal with the yokai better now.

The last little special chapter was on a yokai, Chobi. I like when Midorikawa does the little special chapters in the end with the yokai interacting with Natsume. They're entertaining, even if not all that memorable. This one was about the same as all the others.

Over all, I liked this volume, possibly more than some of the previous ones, because it got more into the characters and background story. And I like seeing Natsume with human friends. I hope there's more of that in future volumes.