The BEST episodes of Natsume's Book of Friends
Every episode of Natsume's Book of Friends ever, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of Natsume's Book of Friends!
Natsume Takashi has the ability to see spirits, which he has long kept secret. However, once he inherits a strange book that belonged to his deceased grandmother, Reiko, he discovers the reason why spirits surround him. Containing the names of these spirits, a binding contract was formed between the spirits and the owner of the book. Now, Natsume is determined to free the spirits and dissolve the contracts. With the help of a spirit cat, his days are filled trying to return the names to these spirits.
#1 - Touko and Shigeru
Season 5 - Episode 10 - Aired 12/14/2016
Touko and Shigeru are the kind elderly couple who took in Natsume when no one else would. But what were they like before they let Natsume move in?
#2 - Young Days
Season 3 - Episode 4 - Aired 7/26/2011
Midterms are over, and Natsume leaves on a trip with Nishimura, Kitamoto, and Sasada. He realizes that the scenery he's viewing from the train is from one of the places he grew up in, when he was passed around from one family to the next. He'd thought he didn't have any good memories of the time, but then he remembers what happened when he lived there...
#3 - A Place to Go Home To
Season 3 - Episode 12 - Aired 9/20/2011
A youkai from Natsume past has found him and memories of living with relatives before the Fujiwaras are explored.
#4 - The Stolen Book of Friends
Season 2 - Episode 1 - Aired 1/5/2009
While outside during school Natsume is hit with a ball while reading. He goes to retrieve the ball and ends up breaking a Youkai's seal (much like he had with Nyanko-sensei). Later that night Natsume and Nyanko-sensei discover a look-a-like of Nyanko, only to have him steal the Book Of Friends!
#5 - Melting into Spring
Season 2 - Episode 2 - Aired 1/12/2009
While fooling around in the snow, Natsume and Nyanko-sensei run in to Gen, a forest guardian who lives inside a statue. Gen tries to take over Natsume's body, but instead takes over a snow rabbit that Natsume had made. Gen pleads Natsume to help him find an evil spirit who destroyed Sui, his guardian partner, and Natsume agrees. But it seems Gen isn't telling everything he should...
#6 - The Days Eater
Season 6 - Episode 1 - Aired 4/12/2017
Natsume helps a youkai out of a pot, and as a "reward", is made young again. But Natsume is already young, and making him younger just confuses him and addles his memories. When he doesn't know who to trust, will he have the strength to know who his real friends are?
#7 - It Must Not Be Bound
Season 5 - Episode 5 - Aired 11/2/2016
Natsume's friend Taki lives in a house filled with traps and mazes for youkai. She can't see the youkai herself without the aid of a special circle, but she can hear them when they're trapped in her house. She saves one of them, but it refuses to leave her home. Natsume suspects that there may be danger involved, and visits her to make sure that everything is okay.
#8 - Natsume's Book of Play
Season 3 - Episode 13 - Aired 9/27/2011
The youkai hold a party to celebrate Natsume. Things get out of hand when they ask Natsume for a human game, and he suggests Shadow Tag. When Nyanko-sensei becomes "it", he starts stomping youkai left and right. And then Misuzu-sama, the 100 foot tall youkai, shows up...
#9 - Long Way Home
Season 4 - Episode 13 - Aired 3/27/2012
Natsume is possessed by a spirit. Obsessed with returning home, he remembers the events that occured just after his father's death.
#10 - Other Side of the Glass
Season 4 - Episode 6 - Aired 2/7/2012
Natsume overhears whispers that a powerful youkai is reviving, later that evening he is trapped in a bottle as an offering. Humans can’t see or hear him, so Nyanko-sensei decides to help the “best” way he can…
#11 - Mischievous Rain
Season 5 - Episode 2 - Aired 10/12/2016
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?
#12 - The Fox Child's Watch
Season 3 - Episode 8 - Aired 8/23/2011
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.
#13 - To You, From Bygone Days
Season 4 - Episode 5 - Aired 1/31/2012
An old classmate Yuriko, remembers her time watching Natsume and how he was a little weird. A clingbug from Natsume’s past reminds him of the time he spent running from a youkai with a grudge.
#14 - Stand-In
Season 4 - Episode 4 - Aired 1/24/2012
Natsume is at home early one evening when he hears a knock on the door. He sees Tohko outside, asking to be let in. But when he opens the door, there's nobody there, and a gust of wind rushes past. Another Youkai is after the book of friends!
#15 - That Which Is Not Human
Season 3 - Episode 6 - Aired 8/9/2011
There is something killing Youkai and draining them of their blood. Natsume can’t help but investigate and runs into old friends.
#16 - The Door of Memories
Season 4 - Episode 12 - Aired 3/20/2012
Natsume is going home for the last time, but first he must stop by his relative’s house to get the key. But he is cautious, as inside is a youkai that tormented Natsume, and a girl that has always resented him.
#17 - A Day That Will Someday Come
Season 6 - Episode 8 - Aired 5/31/2017
Natsume is on his way home when he finds a letter on the ground. The letter seems to belong to a nearby man, who asks Natsume to take him to his school. The man is actually a youkai, who was once deeply involved with a human girl. He cut the relationship off, but the girl isn't ready to give up...
#18 - Tree of Promise
Season 2 - Episode 5 - Aired 2/2/2009
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?
#19 - The Little Fox's Hat
Season 1 - Episode 7 - Aired 8/18/2008
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.
#20 - Temporary Home
Season 2 - Episode 10 - Aired 3/10/2009
Mysterious footprints and markings are left on the gate of the Fujiwara house. Strange things start going on inside the house and Shigeru verifies with Natsume that the cause of this activity involves the husband and wife who used to live there. And so Shigeru tells story of those two but in a unusually childlike manner...
#21 - Through the Autumn Wind
Season 3 - Episode 9 - Aired 8/30/2011
Without Sensei to protect him, Natsume has to remain constantly on guard. But the pressure of keeping secrets from his friends is causing Natsume to break.
#22 - Unchanging Form
Season 5 - Episode 1 - Aired 10/5/2016
Natsume continues to spend his days giving back Youkai 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?
#23 - A Single Photo
Season 4 - Episode 11 - Aired 3/13/2012
Natsume gets a call from a relative: his parents home is being sold. He tells himself that it doesn't matter, and that he's forgotten his past. But he's not nearly as over it as he thinks...
#24 - The God, Enshrined
Season 4 - Episode 10 - Aired 3/6/2012
While being swept down the river, Natsume managed to feel the presences of Hudzuki-gami. Natori must make the choice to follow Natsume instincts or seal Fudzuki-gami.
#25 - The Bound Ones
Season 6 - Episode 5 - Aired 5/10/2017
Natsume finds that Tsukiko's home is haunted by not one, but three separate youkai, each with its own motivations. One wants to protect Tsukiko's father, and the other two... Natori wants to exorcise them and protect Tsukiko, but Natsume wants to find some way to protect them. Is there a peaceful solution?