Natsume's Book of Friends the Movie: Ephemeral Bond

Natsume is a schoolboy who can see spirits. He has a book left by his grandmother: years ago she fought spirits and wrote their names in it, and those names bind them. Natsume returns the names to their owners. One day he meets an old acquaintance and learns there is a matter in that family: a ritual performed years ago went wrong and a spirit is still waiting there. Takahiro Omori directs. The source is Yuki Midorikawa's comic. The film is attached to a long running television series; some characters arrive unintroduced for anyone who has not seen it, though the main narrative can be followed alone. The known register of the series is here: not fear but sadness. The spirits are not built as threats; most are forgotten beings waiting for something. The subject is loneliness. As a child Natsume was passed among relatives because nobody believed him, and his relation to the spirits comes out of that. The landscape of rural Japan takes up considerable room; the seasons and nature are the visual signature of the series. Its limit is scale; the narrative is no larger than a television episode and feels expanded for cinema. Who it is for: followers of the series and viewers who like quiet fantastical anime. Who it is not for: the context is thin for a newcomer, the pace is slow, and little happens.