[lifes-pinata]

There is something about Natsume's relationship with Reiko, or the lack of it.

Natsume cares about Reiko. He never met her. She's his age. She was dead before he was born. She is one of the most prominent characters in the series, second to only Natsume himself. Her choices drive the plot. We know next to nothing about her.

Nearly every yokai Natsume meets was deeply impacted by Reiko. She helped me, she hurt me, she held my name (my soul) in her hands and left it to rot. They are still waiting for her. In valleys and forests and bus stops.

But yet...

The Book of Friends is the result of one of Reiko's most painful experiences. The physical manifestation of her choice to keep people at arm's length, to push people away before they could do it to her.

And it saved Natsume.

Even after settling with the Fujiwaras, Natsume felt so adrift. At the beginning of the series, he may have actually agreed with Reiko's philosophy. "It's better to be alone than to risk getting hurt." His trauma left him disconnected from everybody. The Fujiwaras, his classmates, the yokai. Natsume had no past he could reconcile, no future he could imagine, and even his present he walked through like a dream; doing everything in his power to leave no trace.

The book forced him to make connections. More than that it forced him to reflect on his own relationships. As Natsume continues to return names, he understands Reiko and her lonliness more and more... And he realizes that she was wrong.

Through the Book of Friends, Reiko tethers Natsume to his past, grounds him in his present. Makes him reach out to others in ways she couldn't. Allows him to imagine a future so much brighter than he could have envisioned for himself, even just a few years earlier.

But while Natsume has grown, Reiko has remained stagnant. This girl who only exists in memories of decades past, this woman who died before he was born.

So of course Natsume is trying to find out what happened to her. Hoping that somehow, Reiko found something for herself too. That at least for a while, she was happy.

[ruanbaijie]

THE CLEANERS @animangacreators challenge 48 ✧ fall 2025

[phantomrose96]

"This 14-year-old is the most powerful person in the WORLD but really... he just wants to be a normal middle schooler...!" is absolutely not new to anime but USUALLY it's all a power-fantasy. It's humble-bragging. It's an awkward marriage of relatability and bus-window-day-dreaming. "Oh MAN, I just SAVED the WORLD 😱😏🌍💥but I still have a MATH TEST tomorrow 📏✖️AND I have a CRUSH 😊 (who doesn't know I'm the coolest badass in the world because that's a secret!! 😜)"

Which is all to say once again that no one is doing it like Mob Psycho 100. Because Mob is unambiguously the most powerful entity in the world and he goes "Okay but that's not very interesting. Being powerful isn't a personality. I'm gonna try to improve myself in ways that matter."

The evil spirit on his shoulder spends all series going "PLEASE IM BEGGING YOU TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD!" and Mob says, "No thank you. Do you want to help me with my math homework?" and the second most powerful person in the world comes up to say, "We are a supreme species of super-human better than everyone else!" and Mob says, "You sound stunted as a person. Maybe try working a customer service job?" and a classmate will go, "Why not use your powers to be popular?" and Mob says, "Psychic powers don't make you popular. Do you want to see me lift this 10kg dumbbell? I've been working on that."

[phantomrose96]

And it's not a joke or a bit. And it's not the narrative giving a wink-wink-nudge-nudge to the audience like 'Sure Mob SAYS he's not more important than anyone else but WE know how secretly cool epic he is for his powers 😏'

Like Mob or Reigen or whoever it is in the moment says, "Maybe you'll learn something about yourself working a customer service job" and the narrative turns to the audience and says, 'You too might learn something from a customer service job. Just a thought.'

[phantomrose96]

Mob Psycho is a power fantasy for young teens about how if you apply yourself earnestly and put yourself out there and value everyone equally and stick to your compassionate principles, then you too can foster a healthy and growing support network of people who care about you and who will help guide you as you figure out the kind of person you want to become. The psychic powers parts are just in service to that narrative.

[pekoyama]

redraw of an old piece

[fedaneas]

[daily4taro]

x

[highdio]

STEEL BALL RUN ANIME TEASER PV!!

[animenu]

milky subway my beloved. the whole thing is less than an hour long and it's all i can think about

[haddockkkk]

drawing my favorite jojo villains #5: dio brando

[3-aem]

he knows you’re watching

[seaemberthesecond]

We don't talk enough about how Kakashi successfully ran Orochimaru off after the prelims when he was sealing Sasuke's curse mark. He really said, if you take another step towards Sasuke, one of us is going to die here, and Orochimaru laughs like it's the funniest thing he's ever heard, but he leaves.

Orochimaru plays it off like he never intended to abduct Sasuke there and then but at most an HOUR later, he's telling Kabuto they need to kidnap Sasuke NOW while the curse mark is still influencing him, which indicates he very much was there to take Sasuke and got thwarted by Kakashi.

I'm not saying Kakashi would've won against Orochimaru but I do think there's something to be said about him making that threat anyway, and Orochimaru finding it credible enough that he backs down.

[panharmonium]

THIS! I remember pointing out this exact same thing when I watched for the first time, re: what Orochimaru says to Kabuto. I agree that Kakashi wouldn't win against Orochimaru at this point in his development, but I do think he's capable of dealing enough damage on the way out to create annoying problems for Orochimaru's future plans. And either way, the fact remains: when he and Orochimaru get into a standoff, Orochimaru is the one who blinks.

(It's kind of interesting for me to think about this moment alongside the knowledge that Kakashi's father was one of Orochimaru's contemporaries, particularly since we have the canon acknowledgment that "even the legendary sannin paled in comparison" to him (hello?????!!! WHAT was sakumo out here doing?). Orochimaru explicitly states that he hasn't seen Kakashi since he was a child, but now Orochimaru is being stared down by an adult who looks EXACTLY like Hatake Sakumo and who is quite possibly the person who comes closest to approximating the breadth of Orochimaru's unparalleled knowledge of ninjutsu (one thousand jutsu? ONE THOUSAND???) and who is in fact at this moment performing a jutsu that Orochimaru doesn't know and who also possesses the sharingan, which Orochimaru doesn't have. And Orochimaru doesn't know exactly what Kakashi is capable of at this point. So he's standing there debating the wisdom of getting into it with the living incarnation of that one guy who used to decimate Orochimaru's old team in 0.2 seconds flat while infant!Kakashi was strapped to his back in a ninja baby bjorn. And ultimately Orochimaru is like "You know what :) This can wait, actually :)"

Like. I do think it is a little bit impressive for Kakashi to have a guy who is functionally immortal look at him and go "nope, too risky."

[skykashi]

[exhausted-undead]

tried out apothecary diaries the other day, got inspired to do a study, redrew jinmao as Gustav Klimt's "The Kiss", died

ive been sick for a while so excuse the messiness

[jezyan]

miscellaneous heishin wips and doodles from 2023 that i won’t be finishing anymore, but wanted to share anyway ^^

[detshin]

Desperate Revival Shinichi Kudo and Last Wizard of the Century Heiji Hattori you will always be famous.

[animenu]

so so so insane to me that heishin is a rarepair actually. are we watching the same show

[ankle-beez]

I genuinely think this is one of the most important scenes I've ever seen in any media

[cowboy]

All male polycule constantly chainsmoking wearing sunglasses and only contacting each other through payphones and when they do they speak in incomprehensible syntax and talk about situations completely unrelated to what the other is talking about