Natsume Yujin-cho Episode Rating Graph

The story of why Touko and Shigeru adopted Natsume.

Summer has arrived for Natsume and his friends in the school. After exams, Natsume, Sasada, Nishimura and Kitamoto go on a trip to an art museum. Upon his return, Touko reminisces about an old friend that she felt she'd wronged, this makes Natsume think back to his own turbulent childhood. In the present day, a youkai living in the branches of a tree thinks back to Natsume. She had been bored because no one could see her, and when she found out that Natsume could see youkai, she often scared him to be noticed. Both of them parted ways on bad terms. The story returns to Natsume in the present day, who makes a stop at his old neighborhood to visit the youkai. The youkai, who had isolated herself from humans, is relieved to see that Natsume is okay and has found a reason to smile. The episode ends with Natsume's thoughts, "If there is somebody that you wish to meet, then you are not alone anymore."

When a dangerous youkai from Natsume's past finds his current home, he comes down with a fever and dreams about his life right before moving in with the Fujiwaras.

A yokai known as "The Days Eater," turns Natsume back to a young child. Nyanko-sensei enlists the aid of Tanuma and Taki.

Natsume goes to a hot spring for a school trip, with an errand from Shigeru to pick up teacups from a near by pottery. While there he meets and helps a little fox spirit, who quickly grows attached to him.

Natsume sees strange writing on the chalk board in the Earth Science classroom. Taki tells Natsume of the hairy yokai she helped leave her home. Natsume comes to Taki's home and learns that three yokai had been trapped there -- two "rabbit" yokai and a hairy white one. The hairy yokai is enchanted by Taki and helps find the rabbit yokai in Taki's home. Natsume learns the hairy yokai was the one who wrote on the school chalkboard and goes back to read the yokai's feelings on it.

Natsume, possessed by the youkai, thinks of an painful incident from his childhood involving the family he was living with at the time. The youkai offers to eat all his memories, so that he will no longer have to relive his pain.

Natsume meets a spirit who used to be friends with a man who could also see spirits, but one day lost this ability.

On a rainy day, Natsume meets a young girl youkai. Her name isn't in the Book of Friends, but she wants his help anyway: she wants him to find a man she met once. The man couldn't see youkai normally, but a mischievous trick of the weather let him see her for just one day. For the next fifty years she visited him, hoping he'd see her one more time, but he never did. Now he's vanished. Can Natsume find him for her?

Natsume spends time playing games with youkai he has befriended. He remembers games he was left out of as a child.

Natsume encounters a spirit who was enslaved by his grandmother Reiko 50 years ago by writing his name on a torn page from the Book of Friends, and tying it to a tree in a forest. Can Natsume help locate the torn page? What was Reiko's intention of tying it to a tree? (Source: Wikipedia)

Natsume is invited to go to a pottery classroom with Shigeru. It's being held in an inn where he once stayed. When he goes there, he meets an old friend: the young fox child he once saved.

Natori tells Natsume of a well near the mansion that holds a group of Oni. They are calling out to any Youkai. He also learns that Kai came down from the mountains to free the Oni. While looking for Kai, Natsume sets off one of Natori's traps in the mansion. Kai saves Natsume and heads off to kill Natori. Natsume follows him,to save Natori from getting killed. After he encounters him, he is forced to make an important decision: Which ones are more important to him? Humans or Youkai? (Source: Wikipedia)

Strange things start happening at Natsume's home, like Toukou's plants get destroyed, and a strange Youkai starts wandering around his house. Natsume then learns more about Reiko and her life in this town. He also learns how to get rid of the Youkai who's wandering around the house. (Source: Wikipedia)

Natsume is possessed by a swallow spirit, who wishes to meet a human who once helped her. Natsume agrees to help her and the two grow attached. When Swallow finds the human, Natsume feels bad that she can't actually meet him, but when he hears of a kimono that can turn a spirit into a human for a day, he looks for it.

Natsume is cursed by an evil spirit which is sealed to a tree. Not wanting to trouble his adoptive family, he decided to run away from home.

Natsume continues to spend his days giving youkai back their names from the Book of Friends. One day, as he's heading home, he finds himself chased by a giant, rolling pot. The youkai in the pot insists that his grandmother Reiko stole a doll from her. When she threatens to hurt his family, however, he's forced to go out and find it. But would his kind, smiling grandmother Reiko really steal a doll from someone?

Natsume is trapped in a bottle by a youkai to be offered to another named Omibashira. Nyanko-sensei transforms into Natsume and goes around his school to ask his friends about Omibashira, but gets Tanuma involved. Tanuma is attacked by one of the youkai that trapped Natsume and loses him, but as he runs through the forest looking for Natsume he finds a mansion behind the school. When Tanuma is suddenly able to see the youkai walking up the steps to the mansion, he is found out by a youkai with a bag over its head.

Yobiko, a youkai that can imitate the voices of others, sneaks into Natsumes' house and asks him to call out another youkai named Karikami. Long ago, Yobiko had been watching over a woman named Youko who was meeting with a man at a nearby shrine. One day the man stopped coming, due to an arranged marriage to another woman, so Yobiko decided to use his talent to talk to the girl. Eventually, he told her the truth about the man and ran away. When he came back to the shrine many years later, he found an old letter that had been sealed shut and wrinkled. Natsume and Yobiko later meet Karikami and after returning his name, Karikami restores the letter. Unable to read human letters, Yobiko asks Natsume to read it to him. Instead of a hateful message he was expecting, it is actually a letter of thanks for telling her the truth.

Natsume is dragged off into the cave of the evil spirit that is after Taki. He temporarily loses the ability to see youkai after being poisoned by the spirit. Will he be able to stop the youkai from eating Taki without his sight? (Source: Wikipedia)

Natsume takes care of an abandoned egg from a nest, not considering it could be a Youkai. After it hatches, it turns out it is a rare baby spirit called Tatsumi, who thinks that Natsume is its parent. Natsume can't help but get attached to the little spirit even as Tatsumi grows tired and sick. But as Natsume takes care of Tatsumi, a mysterious spirit comes and wants to take away Tatsumi for his master-who wants to eat him. (Source: Wikipedia)

In the town Natsume used to live in, a girl recalls Natsume. She remembers his strange actions and wanted to understand him. Meanwhile, Natsume encounters a small Youkai which reminds him of the same girl and town.

Tanuma invites his friends to an inn run by his relatives. While sweeping outside, Tanuma is greeted by an old woman named Ito-san. Natsume learns that Ito-san is a yokai that serves the Mizunagi shrine by protecting the mountain festival. Ito-san has come into the inn because another yokai has stolen the festival's white mask and has disguised itself as an inn guest. Natsume finds the yokai who stole the mask for the festival's power, and Ito-san exorcises her. Ito-san warns Natsume to keep her identity a secret until after the festival is over so she can complete the festival. Natsume says he will tell no one she is a yokai so she can stay in this town as long as possible.

An event in the forest causes Tanuma to avoid Natsume the following days, which he becomes concerned about. Mirrors are mysteriously breaking around the school and one day Natsume catches Tanuma acting weirdly. It turns out that Tanuma has been possessed by a youkai looking for her mirror, which had been broken into pieces during a storm a few days before. Using him as a vessel until she reclaims her mirror, Natsume has no choice but to help her. The youkai warns that there may be others seeking the mirror.

Nyanko-sensei falls into a well and discovers that there is a barrier inside it, as well as Nanase, Matoba's assistant. She is looking for a certain stone with a youkai she had sealed in it, and tells Nyanko-sensei the story of how she met the youkai to pass the time.

After a flood occurs on Four Mask Hill during Natsume's summer school session, a mask randomly appearing in the school worries Natsume.

Natsume is chased by two yokai who cast a voice-sealing spell on him. A large bird yokai saves him and brings him to a valley before Nyanko-sensei finds him. Natsume regains his voice after the group of yokai attack him in his room, and then returns the bird yokai's name.

Natsume meets Tsukiko, a daughter of an exorcist named Takuma Yousuke who has recently lost his ability to see or hear youkai. Because she lacks the ability to see youkai, she asked Natori to check around the house because she feels something is wrong and a youkai may be out to hurt her father.

Natsume is surprised when a youkai comes to seek Reiko in gratitude. Years ago, the youkai's to-be-bride received freedom from her help, and now is about to be wed. They invite Natsume to the wedding.

Because of his possession, Tanuma is able to see the youkai around him and thus better understand how Natsume lives.

An episode depicting the story of Natori Shuuichi and Matoba Seiji when they were young. This episode shows Natori's family and his childhood of being able to see youkai, getting hated by his family and becoming an exorcist.

Natsume befriends a small fluffball youkai.

This episode shows how Natsume first befriended Nishimura and Kitamoto, along with a better look at their family lives and point of view.

Natsume comes across an old ticket in Reiko's belongings and decides to go to the abandoned train station to see why she kept it. There, he meets a slow witted spirit named Santo, who was waiting for Reiko the entire time to go Kiriganuma, to see and make up with his friend, Mikuri, but the trip isn't as easy as it first seems...

Natsume's old classmate Shibata (from "False Friend" / "Itsuwari no Yūjin" (偽りの友人)) calls. Natsume visit Shibata together with Tanuma, where Shibata tells them about the "Doll Mansion of Sotogi". A youkai from the mansion later attacks them.

Natsume finds out who's been stealing the youkai blood: the exorcist Matoba Seiji. He investigates with the help of Natori, but is captured by Matoba's servant youkai. Matoba is willing to sacrifice any number of youkai for his own ambitions. He tells Natsume why he's gathering blood: to release the seal on a powerful youkai. Natsume learns that there are people who treat Youkai in a totally different way than he or even Natori.

Natsume finds a letter addressed to him from Matoba. Walking in the forest, he loses it when an amateur exorcist seals a yokai in a pot. Noticing the weak seal, Natsume and Nyanko-sensei take it to Natori's condo to re-seal it. When Natsume returns home he sees Matoba and learns the letter was a request for Natsume to attend a meeting of strong exorcists to weed out the person who has been targeting exorcists.

Natsume discovers that the heirloom "Book of Friends" that his grandmother, Reiko, gave him possesses the names of the spirits she defeated and bound to her will. Assisted by a cat whom Natsume addresses as Nyanko-Sensei (lit. Master Little Meow), Natsume aims to return all of the names to their rightful owners.

A competition is opened to search for a famous researcher's sealed room. The prize are his research books, and many exorcists are gathered. Natori is invited, Natsume wants to help as this might mean finding something that might let him find information about the Book of Friends.

Natori is tasked with the job of finding and breaking the seal of Houzukigami, a god that was to participate in the Moon-Splitting Festival done every 10 years against Fuzukigami, another god. The festival is used by the youkai around the mountains to determine whether the harvest would be bountiful that year or not. Without Houzukigami, the match would end in a default win for Fuzukigami, causing the land to become barren. Natori tries to find the seal but is surprised to find Natsume at the festival disguised as Houzukigami, having been asked by Houzukigami's servants to stand in for their god. The match to be the winner is to catch a beast that was released from a pot. Houzukigami's servants tell Natsume to look for the real Houzukigami while they track down the beast. Joined by Natori, Hiiragi, Nyanko-sensei, and one of the servants, they look in a building by a waterfall. The beast suddenly appears and Natsume and Hiiragi are knocked off the deck of the building. After recuperating from being dragged down the river, they try to run back to the building but are caught in a trap by Fuzukigami's servants which was meant for the beast. While unconscious, one of the servants is able to pick up a human scent from "Houzukigami", making them wonder if it's truly the god or not.

Natsume encounters some strange, monkey-mask wearing demons while out in a forest. They want the book of friends, and start physically threatening him until Natsume is saved by Nyanko-Sensei. Later on, Natsume encounters the demons again and is captured by them, and brought to their forest. Meanwhile, Nyanko-sensei learns some interesting things about the forest the monkey mask demons live in. Running away from the demons, Natsume and Nyanko-sensei are unintentionally saved by an exorcist - Matoba! Not wanting to confront him, Natsume runs again but gets lost in the woods, and stumbles upon a house... belonging to the Matoba. Both he and Nyanko-sensei are captured, but manages to escape and find each other, though being lost in the house. The episode ends with Matoba finding Natsume saying, "It's been a long time, Natsume Takashi-kun.

Matoba brings Natsume to one of the Matoba clan villas to attend the exorcist meeting. Natsume learns that a mask yokai called "Magatsumen" is controlling people and disguises himself as a shiki in order to test attendees if they have been possessed. By following a strange spring sound, Natsume finds the culprit behind the mask possessions and drives the yokai out. Matoba shoots the yokai with an arrow to exorcise it.

Natsume and Natori discover that the youkai shiki (demon servants and friends) of Takuma Yusuke have been trying to bring misfortune into the house.

Natsume and Matoba talk, but when the conversation doesn't go the way he wants, Matoba orders Natsume to be put in a cell. Natsume escapes with the help of Nyanko-sensei. Along with his other demon companions, Natsume helps the monkey-masked demons living in the forest.