The first volume of Natsume’s Book of Friends came out in January 2010 from our friends at Viz Media. The story and art is by Yuki Midorikawa and was originally released in a Shojo magazine.

The story follows Takashi Natsume who has seen spirits his whole life. A power that we learn his grandmother, Reiko, had. Takashi comes across a few spirits one day and one, Madara, stays by Natsume’s side when he discovers that Natsume has a Book of Friends that Reiko left to him.

Reiko grew up lonely and turned to making the spirits she saw her friends. But as she got more powerful, she started gathering their names in the Book of Friends. When she did this, it would make the spirits always connected or have to obey her.

Takashi finds the book and realizes that he can find the name of the spirit and it lets that spirit go.

I only have the first volume of the manga, so it is hard to judge how the entire series will be. But I do have to say that this manga was a miss for me. It could be because quite a few of the manga I have read recently have the same concept. Young male, who is always alone or made fun of by others because he is “odd”. We find out he’s odd because he can see spirits. The repeat of concept actually didn’t bother me initially, but this issue of the manga didn’t offer more than the same formula over and over again. I tend to give a title more than one volume to prove itself but if you don’t enjoy reading that plot of a character and the spirits that bother him/her then you won’t enjoy this. Overall, I give Natsume’s Book of Friends a yawn.