First Look: Fall 2024 Anime Overview: Nina the Starry Bride and Natsume's Book of Friends Season 7 (Patreon)

Nina the Starry Bride

Premise: The princess of Fortna is supposed to be wed to the prince of a rival country to prevent a war. But before the wedding can happen, she dies. In order to prevent the war from breaking out, Prince Sett decides to keep his sister’s death a secret and instead find a lookalike to replace her for the wedding. Enter Nina, a homeless orphan who bears a resemblance to the late princess, mostly because of her rare blue eyes. Nina is forced to become the substitute princess, and has to adjust. But there’s a lot of court intrigue to deal with, and the man Nina develops feelings for is constantly dealing with assassination attempts. Can she come up with a way to save him?

Nina the Starry Bride is a testament to how much a fun, charming and brave leading lady can keep me invested in a story. Nina is a delight, facing down her obstacles head on, getting pissed at the ridiculous situation she’s put in, coming up with risky strategies and executing them well, and telling royalty “I don’t give a rat’s ass” with a cheerful smile on her face when they try to stop her from helping people. She reacts to being thrown in a dungeon with “oh cool this is actually nicer than where I used to live”. I love her.

She’s quite impulsive, which does get her in trouble and needing a rescue sometimes, but she doesn’t come off as incompetent. She navigates dangerous situations on her own with stubborn determination and good brain for solutions. She learns basic martial arts in order to defend another woman.

And boy is Nina going through it. They throw a ton of obstacles at her, the series has a lot of twists, and the first three episodes are actually just set up to the main premise of the series. Nina really has to struggle to survive all the things it throws on her. The series moves at a breakneck pace, meaning Nina enters a romance with her (first) love interest by the end of episode 3 (and he’s a sweet guy, no complaints there). It was so fast paced I wondered if it was cutting things from the manga, but I took a look at it, and nope, not cutting much at all. It just probably reads better in manga format. The animation notably struggles at times, but it mostly holds together and there are a few pretty moments—the art of the manga is much more beautiful and consistent though, so it’s likely the ideal way to experience the series.

My major gripe with the series is Sett, the mean dude Nina finds herself engaged to. I’m not against redemption arcs but the guy is so horrible he has a huge uphill climb. He’s been involved with and incited several massacres and he regularly torments his prospective fiances until they’re mentally broken. They either try to kill him or run away, which gives him an excuse to go to war with their countries. There’s also a horrible scene where Nina says she’ll do anything to become Sett’s wife (wanting to protect her country), and he makes like he’s going to rape her, throwing her down on the bed, and when she yells “no!” in terror, he’s all “see you won’t do anything. I’m not interested btw”.

However, it’s not like Nina puts up with this treatment just because—she has to keep talking to him not because she wants to, but because she wants to survive and protect her country. She does get angry at the way he treats her, and calls him out, but has to politically strategize and get in his good graces. He kisses her out of nowhere a few times, and it’s played a little too comically- not at all as if it’s okay, Nina is upset and the narratives fimly on his side, but Nina is all “bakabakabaka!” explaining what he did wrong (since apparently no one ever taught him about kissing and consent I guess).

But of course, she ends up softening him, and it happens so quickly, the sympathy and attachment she quickly gains for him feels unearned. Obviously he has an extremely tragic backstory but…girl he stabbed you. And it’s unclear if he’ll  ever actually confront the horrible things he’s done. But he is in the middle of his character arc, he only seems to care about Nina right now, so maybe that will change.

 There’s not a lot of…empathy shown to the women he’s abused in the past. Nina moves on quickly when she hears the story, not showing any horror or sorrow, and then they’re forgotten, just faceless women he disposed of, but Nina’s tougher than any of them so she can fix him. It does verge a little on “not like other girls” though it does seem more like it's more about bizarre resilience as a person (partly informed by her having a different background than the others, being from the streets). 

And don’t get me wrong, Sett’s character arc isn’t horrible, his confusion at Nina and “nihilist robot learns to feel things” can be interesting to watch week to week, and he and Nina have a bit of an entertaining dynamic but I just wish that part was handled better.

So yeah, it’s an interesting story with a fun protagonist full of dicey situations, fucked up royals, and emotional intrigue, but the pacing means it throws a lot of you at once,  the animation isn’t always the best and I wish more time was spent on going into the impact of the characters’ actions. Not a lot of shoujo get decent anime adaptations, so I definitely think you should check this one out. As for me, hopefully I’ll have time to read the manga later on, because it does seem like a good read.

Natsume's Book of Friends Season 7

Our favorite boy who can see yokai and his horrible cat are back! I've already talked at length about how this series is special--check out my series review/ Rec post for the series here. I also did a professional article titled

Our favorite boy who can see yokai and his horrible cat are back! I’ve already talked at length about how this series is special–check out my series review/ Rec post for the series here. I also did a professional article titled The Courage to Speak: Mental Illness and Recovery in Natsume’s Book of Friendsthat goes into more in-depth analysis. The story is sweet and charming and sometimes heartwrenching and very special to me.

The show’s quality is always consistent, and that’s the case for this season as well. You’d think Yuki Midorikawa would eventually run out of heartwarming, bitter sweet yokai tales that tug on your heartstrings, but she seems to have and endless supply, lucky for us.

I don’t know if we’ll ever reach the highs of season 3 and 4 (the best seasons) again. Since the show is episodic, there are definitely some weaker episodes, but there’s quite a few bangers as well. There’s the sweet catharsis of episode 6, there’s episode 8’s gorgeous, mysterious tale, and in episode 9 we have a great Reiko story where we learn the origin of the Book of Friends is doomed yuri (subtextual). Obviously I went absolutely wild over that, and it was well done. It’s also a pleasure to see how much Natsume has grown in regards to his confidence, self esteem and trust in others. Though he still has moments of anxiety, he’s accepted that he has a home he can lay down roots in, and that he belongs here. He’s gets caught off guard by yokai a lot less too. It’s some of the best slow burn character development in anime, and it extrends to other members of the cast too. Some fun new characters are introduced.

The lore of the series is slowly expanding, as we get hints to certain mysteries, learn more about how yokai function, and even see antagonistic characters be a little vulnerable. The overarching plot of Natsume moves EXTREMELY slow, but that doesn’t matter when it has so many good episodic tales going in the meantime.

I love this series, and I hope it won’t be as long a wait between s7 and s8 as there was between season six and this season. It’s definitely a comfort show, and it makes you feel accepted and warm. You can check out my series liveblog, and skip ahead to page 25 for more detailed thoughts on season 7.

If you haven’t seen Natsume’s Book of Friends, I implore you to give it a try! There’s a tender, lovely world waiting for you.