If there’s anything I’ve learned after seven seasons of Natsume Yuujinchou it’s this: when they bust out “Daidaiiro no Toki”, buckle up, Buttercup. That piece of music is always accompanied by one of the series’ heavy hitters, and this episode was certainly no exception. It also happens to be my favorite piece of BGM in Natsume Yuuijinchou (which might have the best BGM in anime), and quite possibly my favorite piece of anime BGM period. It has an almost Mozartian quality to it, and that’s not a piece of praise I dish out often (or lightly).

This episode is also a reminder of why I get a bit frustrated with those exorcist episodes (though the last one was one of the better ones). Simply put, no anime does this sort of story better than Natsume (and again, that’s not praise offered lightly). This is a series that truly soars when it’s poetic, and the exorcist episodes are prose. It can do that well too, but the magic is missing. With eps like this and the Nishimura-doll episode, the show achieves that poetry. They’re so simple and elegant, so melancholic and beautiful. The trappings of traditional narrative are not present and not necessary. With them and only them does Natsume Yuujinchou slip the surly bonds of Earth and dance the skies on laughter-silvered wings.

What ties these episodes together, I think, is that they’re almost always centered on loneliness. I think of the Kogitsune eps, for example, and they certainly fit. Loneliness is a character in this cast – maybe the main character, in its way. It’s certainly at the heart of Natsume Reiko’s story, and her grandson’s too. But the difference of course is Nyanko-sensei, and that’s both sad and beautiful in its way. Reiko never had a Madara in her life, and as such she was (almost) always alone (that we know of). But it was her loneliness that caused her to start the Book of Friends, which is what brought Madara and Takashi together. And that’s rather sad and beautiful too.

I think this story asks the fundamental question of Natsume Yuujinchou. To wit, is Natsume’s ability a blessing or a curse? How would Reiko have answered that, I wonder? It opens a new world, a beautiful and mysterious one humans are almost never privileged to see. But it’s a world in which children of man don’t belong. It’s full of dangers and it drains the life force out of humans who linger too long and too close. Yet how can one look at Soranome (Tsuda Kenjirou) trying in vain to connect with Souko (Ishikawa Yui) and not mourn his inability to do so?

Those two are at the heart of this episode – them, and Natsume Reiko of course. Natsume has gone to a forest where a legendary reclusive monster has been showing itself, thinking that it might be looking to take back its name. Soranome and Natsume cross paths soon enough – he knows who this human child is, as any youkai who knew Reiko always does. Soranome asks if Takashi will return his name, and he agrees at once. When Soranome tells Natsume that he’s in fact the very first name in the book, Natsume asks the youkai to tell him a story of his grandmother, and Soranome agrees. Time is something he has plenty of.

I would say this ep filled in more blanks with Reiko than any that’s come before. Most obviously, we now know where the idea for the Book of Friends came from. It was Souko, the girl who kept showing up in Reiko’s forest – the one Reiko fled to as an escape from the gossip and whispering that was her only constant companion. Souko is everything Reiko isn’t – deferential and tentative and demure. Reiko mostly tries to get her to stay the hell out of the forest – in part for her own protection. But deferential or not, Souko has a strong will. She returns to the same stone cairn every day and reads her book, and Reiko naps next to her to protect her from the abundant local youkai.

It’s nice to see that Reiko did have at least one human friend – and that’s what these two were, there’s no denying it. Even if Reiko never told Souko her name despite repeated queries. Eventually Souko proposes a game with the answer as the stakes, starting with throwing stones at a prominent stone with a triangular carving. Reiko never loses, and she never tells Souko her name. Especially after Souko warns her about a scary girl named Natsume Reiko who roams these woods scaring people away (I thought Souko had connected the dots, but it doesn’t seem so). And all the while Soranome watches on, occasionally exchanging bemused observations with Reiko after Souko returns home.

Soranome is lonely too as it happens. He can read others’ minds (human or youkai), albeit briefly, and the barrage of emotions and thoughts is more than he cares to bear. He isolated himself in the mountains and chased other youkai away, but Reiko certainly thinks nothing of that, and her mind is closed to him. Souko is frail, and after proposing a race with Reiko on a rainy day she winds up sick and in bed. That’s the day she finally beats Reiko at a game (whether Reiko would have gone ahead and taken a dive we may never know). She doesn’t show up for a few days, and Reiko assumes she knows why and eventually gives up. But Souko does return, only for Reiko to have disappeared forever. Soranome longs to tell her, but can’t – he has to carry this knowledge with him, unshared.

It’s all a beautiful, terrible sadness. And nobody can do that like this seres can. Natsume Yuujinchou is the story of beings journeying through their lives alone, and the brief intersections with others that bring color to their existence. Like the field of blue flowers Reiko wished to share with Souko, and wound up sharing with Soranome. And, eventually with Natsume who, perhaps because of Soranome’s ability, saw them himself (and longed to show to Nyanko-sensei). Soranome will go back to being alone, but he’s whole again – and he was finally able to share what he’d carried with him for so many years. And in the process to bring Takashi a little closer to Reiko.