Natsume's Book of Friends: Volume 3

by Yuki Midorikawa, 191 pages

Natsume mistakes a goofy-looking cat for a drunken, dirty Nyanko-sensei. When the silent kitty suddenly makes off with the Book of Friends, Natsume and the real (and rather offended) Nyanko-sensei follow it into the woods, where they overhear a gathering of yokai plotting to attack the local humans for the sake of their missing king. If Natsume speaks up, they'll surely eat him; but if he doesn't, what will happen to his fellow villagers? And later, Natsume accompanies Natori-san, a famous actor who secretly moonlights as an exorcist (and is the only other person Natsume has met who can see yokai), to a conference of fellow practitioners. Can the boy trust them with his secrets?

The more he interacts with the yokai who've haunted him all his life, the more Natsume sympathizes with them (at least with the ones who aren't trying to kill him or hurt anyone else) and the more he longs to be a bridge between them and humans. Apparently, I'm a sucker for natural diplomats as much as I am for quasi-families. I also love grumbly relationships of mutual dependence between characters who gleefully let each other squirm when things get unpleasant but who don't hesitate to jump into the fray when the need is real.

The line work in this series is light, airy, and delicate and lends itself to the story's atmosphere of quiet country life and the fragile (and often permeable) boundary between the human realm and the supernatural.