Natsume Yujincho Go Episode 11 (Final) Review: The Ephemeral Ones

Greetings everyone, I hope you had a nice week! The last episode of Natsume Yujincho Go has aired, and as we know, this is not the last Natsume Yujincho series now that the sixth season have been announced.

I have mentioned this before in my reviews, but it is really hard to pull up an anime that is as episodic as Natsume Yujincho is and have it be successful. Oh and by the way, FYI, Natsume Yujincho is not only famous abroad but has quite a large fanbase in Japan as well! This is not surprising considering the great storytelling, amazing character development, and the enchanting story.

I think that the last episode was a fitting ending for the season. We got to see most of the major characters. Pretty much all of them were present in the episode for at least a couple of seconds. I felt like this was the way of the director to say goodbye to the audience of this anime.

But well, without further ado, let’s move on!

Japanese Title: ニャンコ先生とはじめてのおつかい

Plot

The episode start with a scene where the chuu-kyuu (Mid-Rank) youkai which hang around Natsume a lot decides to go flower viewing. Apparently, there are these amazing, beautiful flowers which blossom very rarely and for a very short time. They happen to ran into Natsume and decide to take him with them. Of course the flowers are amazingly beautiful, but the weather is cold, and as we all know, Natsume is not exactly the healthiest person out there. Of course he catches a cold. Unfortunately the cold doesn’t go away for a while. The chuu-kyuu find out about Natsume’s cold and feel responsible for it. They end up doing a lot of labor work for a youkai who is said to have medicine that instantly cures colds. At the end of the day it turns out that the medicine has no effect on humans, but Natsume does get better after drinking it and seems to think that him curing is thanks to the chuu-kyuu. The rest you will have to find out yourself! 🙂

Episode Highlights

Throughout the episode we go back to Natsume’s childhood and then back to current day again. We are once more presented with his lonely, painful childhood that was filled with hardships and days of sorrow. But current Natsume is surrounded with people who care for him, be it Touko and Shigeru, his friends at his school, or even the youkai that are usually hanging out around him.

In his nightmares Natsume meets his grandmother, Reiko, and she tells him the following:

If you are alone, you don’t have to protect anyone, do you?

The words seem to get stuck in Natsume’s head, and he gets hang up on it. But Tanuma appears here, and gives Natsume an omamori (protection charm) which him and the rest of his school friends got for Natsume from a jinja (shrine). This makes Natsume rethink everything. He yet once again realises that being surrounded by people for whom he cares, and who care for him is a feeling he must cherish. He starts wondering if maybe Reiko as well might have had somebody who cared for her the same way, but she didn’t realise it, or maybe…

The episode ended with Natsume and Nyanko-sensei going to the place where the rare flowers blossom. They meet the chuu-kyuu here, who were gathering flowers to take to Natsume. Our boy thanks the two youkai for the medicine that they brought, and says that he got better thanks to it.

The last scene of this episode was beautiful to say the least. The chuu-kyuu let the flowers fly down over Natsume and say the following words. They still echo in my soul, and will do so for a long time…

We know the flowers’ petals will fall someday, and yet still, we are entranced by them…

Well.. with this our journey to the world of Natsume Yujincho is over. I dread to say forever after. It was a long journey, a great ride, it was an amazing story that made you feel, made you entranced indeed, made you laugh and even cry…

I hate to say this, but the anime is over with this episode. It was an amazing season, the eleventh episode was a splendid end to the season and to the series. It left me with the usual bittersweet feeling I get after watching Natsume Yujincho.

I hope you have enjoyed the season and loved the last episode! Thank you all so much for tagging along with me throughout the season and reading my reviews! Do not hesitate and let us here on MANGA.TOKYO know if you felt the same way about Natsume Yujincho’s 5th season. Did you laugh? Did you tear up? Will you miss Natsume and the rest of the characters? We will be waiting to hear from you! This week we will have all the reviews of the final episodes of the season, and look forward to the series reviews as well. We also have a new Winter 2017 Anime Info page!

And lastly, Merry Christmas to all those of you who celebrate it! And to the rest of you I wish happy holidays and a great New Year!