Natsume's Book of Friends

What it is

Takashi Natsume has always seen what others cannot, and it has cost him every home he has had. Taken in at last by distant relatives in the countryside, he inherits from his grandmother Reiko the Book of Friends: a ledger of the names of the yokai she beat in contests, each name a bond that makes its owner obey whoever holds the page. Natsume decides to give the names back. The bodyguard who wants the book for himself is Madara, a great white beast who spends his days as a fat lucky-cat and is called Nyanko-sensei. Midorikawa Yuki has drawn it for LaLa since 2003, a story or two a volume, and it has become the standard of the quiet yokai manga: spirits as neighbours, grudges that are mostly grief, and a boy learning to stay.

Yokai that appear

• Kappa 河童 — A recurring minor yokai whom Natsume rescues when it has dried out, pouring water over it.
• Kitsune 狐 — Kogitsune, the orphaned fox child who befriends Natsume and returns through the series (an early volume).

How far from the record

The ledger is the author’s invention; no record gives a human power over a yokai through its written name, though the idea that a true name binds is old and widespread. The spirits themselves are mostly hers as well. Only a few carry names from the record, a kappa who dries out when kept from water and whom Natsume rescues, a little fox who lost his parents, and the rest are described by what they look like, horse-headed, masked, one-eyed, and by what they want. That register, the unseen neighbour of a rural village rather than the catalogued monster of the Edo books, is what the author has said she grew up with, and the anime’s director has said the designs were meant to be strange and frightening first, with something funny in each. Nyanko-sensei is often filed under the cat yokai; the cat is a disguise over a beast the story never names. The forms are traditional and the names are withheld, which is its own kind of fidelity.

Where to read it

English

Natsume's Book of Friends (external link) — VIZ Media (Shojo Beat), 32 volumes by May 2026, ongoing

Spanish

No Spanish edition found

Indonesian

Natsume Yujincho (external link) — Elex Media Komputindo, at least 18 volumes published; current status unconfirmed