Fuwa fuwa~…
A show that makes me want to sleep… in a good way!
OP
The OP wasn’t too bad, introducing characters and Ayakashi that’ll be seen in the show with some decent animation, but I could’ve done without the soft pop music.
ED
Somehow, the ED felt better, it had calmer, more natural feel/music to it and the image of Natsume sleeping on a hill was truly relaxing.
Bullet Summary:
The new transfer student Natsume is able to see Ayakashi. While being chased by two particularly hostile ones, he accidentaly frees Madara, a cat/wolf(?) who (after failing to attack him) informs him that by possesing the Book of Friends he is oin grave danger due to its power over the Ayakashi his grandmother defeated. The Ayakashi find him at his home, and while running once again,he tells Madara he wishes to return the names within the book to their rightful owners. He does so with one of the demons chasing him, and so begins his journey.
I’ll definitely be following this series, if not blogging it. Its one of the few series that didnt make me feel like making fun of its short-comings. Again, I haven’t seen many slice-of-life shows (you could classify this as such) and the genre suddenly has a lot more appeal to it. Some people have compared this to Mokke, but that bored the HELL out of me; there are the similarities with probable weekly monster appearances, but apart from that and the setting, I don’t see many similarities.
The animation was pretty average, but at the very least consistent, unlike World Destruction. I felt it took a step up at certain points with what little action there was in the show.
There were also little points of comedy that made the show more entertaining during exposition. Characters were depicted well and the concept has a chance for real variety, as can be seen in the next episode preview. I’m not exactly sure as to why Natsume wants to return the Ayakashi’s names; he did say that he wanted to finish what his grandmother started but I thought she was just collecting the names rather than returning them. I just know I’m going to love seeing the relationship between Madara and Natsume develop as well; hopefully they’ll build on that natural report they have ^_^.
Haruka Reiko Banchou
Too bad one of the good characters is already dead, but we’ll probably be seing more of her later through flashbacks.
Overall, a good first episode (there was the whole isolation thing, bur I don’t like hints of depression so I’ll just gloss over that until later) and I look forward to the next; its one of those traditional tales where two people know each other but one can’t see the other (maybe traditional in ghost stories, at least).
OH MY GOD ITS A…?
ITS GOT REALLY BIG TEETH!
GET IN THE CAR!
Grand Punk Railroad 
I was hoping someone would blog this show. I suppose I’ll have to check it out now that someone likes it a little bit. I just hope it’s not the typical shrine infested exorcist stuff these shows usually turn out to be.
FAT KITTY. That’s what clinched the deal and made me start watching. :]
Hi! We’re fairly new to the blogging too. Just saw your post on Riex’s page, and thought I’d drop by. (because I’m a stalker…)
This was okay …. and that’s it. Nothing more.
@Riex
Haven’t seen enough shows to really give a judgement on that, but htis show seems less about exorcism and more about atonement, or some such thing.
@Hoshi
Nice to meet you… *slowly backs away out of the room*
@blissmo
I can see why some people would feel like that, but I just liked the general feel of the episode so much. Eveything just felt like it fit. (And mushi-shi is apparently the best of its kind so I should really get to watching that if its like this)
I just watched this last night (and blogged it) and I found that I’m very excited about the next episode. Usually I get a little bored with shows that are paced like this but this one kept my attention the entire time. c:
That last picture of Nyanko is quite disturbing.
Though Reiko Banchou will be my superficial reason for following this show, everything else in the show so far has clicked with me and I’m glad to add this to my weekly watchlist.