Takashi Natsume

Takashi Natsume is the main protagonist from the Natsume's Book of Friends anime and manga.

Along with his self-proclaimed bodyguard, Nyanko-Sensei. Like Reiko Natsume, his late grandmother, Takashi has strong spiritual power which allows him to see Youkai. After inheriting the Book of Friends from his late grandmother, Natsume made it his mission to return all the names within the book back to their original owner.

Appearance
Takashi has dusty-blonde hair (silver colored in the manga), golden-brown eyes with slit irises (green eyes in the manga), and usually seen with a soft smile (noted on several to occasionally be fake). He is currently around 167 cm in height.

He is often mistaken for his grandmother, Reiko Natsume, by youkai, making him a constant target of youkai who had a history with Reiko. Similarly, Takashi has also been considered to be a bishounen a.k.a beautiful by many and has multiple fan girls in his school. He, however, seems to be oblivious to his appearance and his admirers, much to Kitamoto and Nishimura's disbelief.

It was revealed in the Official Fanbook that Takashi has a complex about his feminine appearance and consciously makes an effort to be masculine by using manly language (Natsume uses "ore", the masculine version of "I" in Japanese, instead of "boku" or "watashi", which is more polite).

Personality
Unlike his grandmother, Reiko Natsume, Takashi is kind towards both humans and youkai, to the point that he is easily fooled by them as mentioned by Tsubame. Prior to the beginning of the series, he was originally reserved and soft-spoken because of his troubled past and used to greatly dislike having the ability to see youkai because of the trouble it's given him. Because of his reservedness he's had trouble interacting with other humans.

Thanks to the kindness of the Fujiwaras, Kitamoto Atsushi, Nishimura Satoru, and his friendship with Madara, he slowly opens up to both humans and youkai. He does, however, occasionally suffer slight trauma from his past, often in a dream or when he sees humans (usually exorcists) acting despicable. One of his wish as a child was to grow up and live independently, away from everyone else.

Takashi does not reveal his ability of seeing youkai to the Fujiwara couple, nor his friends, Kitamoto and Nishimura, because he's worries that they would stop being normal for constantly worrying about him. He also tries to hide what he sees from Tanuma Kaname because he is worried that he may drag him into his problems.

Though Takashi has seen youkai all his life, he has little tolerance for their antics. When angered or pushed, he lashes out in a punch or a kick of resistance, which has enough spiritual energy to knock even the highest level of youkai out in a second.

However, his fighting abilities only extend to youkai; his punches, as noted by Madara, do not work on humans. Takashi is very agile and good at climbing trees because he was always running away from youkai. He has short stamina (constantly mentioned by Nishimura) and is very susceptible to heat.

Abilities

 * Returning Names: Being Reiko's descendant, Takashi can return the names inscribed in the Book of Friends, thus freeing the youkai his grandmother originally bounded. He does this by first picturing the youkai in his mind, which the book reacts to by flipping to the page the name is written on. Takashi then rips out the page and places it in his mouth, as the ritual requires either the blood or saliva of the owner. He then claps his hands and exhales. The cost of releasing the name, however, drains him of a lot of energy in the process, and he often becomes very tired afterwards.
 * Dream/Memory Reader: If a youkai becomes emotionally unstable in the same space as a sleeping Takashi, its dreams may flow into Takashi's. On the other hand, most of the youkai let Takashi see their memories so that he can understand their situation better. Takashi can also see their memories when he releases a youkai's name.


 * Spiritual Power/Fighting Ability: Due to being directly related to Reiko, he has strong spiritual power, which allows him to see and hear youkai that are normally intangible and invisible to other humans. He can also interact with youkai, and vice versa. Takashi's strong spiritual power are also significantly effective, as shown when he punches Madara and other youkai, and often knocks them unconscious. His incredibly strong ability in spiritual magic and strength causes him to smell delicious to man-eating youkai, according to Madara, and draws in unwanted attention from hostile youkai. However, Takeshi does not use his powers for any other use than returning names, even though he hits and hurts youkai with some of his power. In later episodes, he develops the ability to sense the presence of nearby youkai when he is given enough time to focus.
 * Sealing/Spells: In episode 38, Natsume has had minor experience with sealing spells before as seen in his younger years. Natori had also expressed intrigue at Takashi's spiritual ability, being impressed that Takashi could animate a paper doll to find a youkai on his first try so quickly.

Trivia

 * He seems to be the only human (besides Reiko), to be able to read the names in Book of Friends. (However, both Natori and Matoba have not tried to read and the guide book states that anyone with spiritual power could read it.)
 * In the manga, Natsume has silver hair and green eyes. In the anime, however, his eyes were changed to golden brown. In the anime he is less irritable than in the manga; he is more relaxed.
 * He appears to have some sewing skills, as shown when he sewed clothes for the baby chick Tatsumi. However, later on during the school festival, Natsume was tasked with being the cashier for the class bazaar and Natsume seemed to have some difficulty sewing up the pink ribbon onto his apron.
 * He has a complex of being weak and having a feminine face, so he consciously tries to act masculine and use tough language.
 * Although he always sleeps in class and is frequently absent, he is quite popular with the girls at school.
 * He is bad with children (due to his own troubled childhood).
 * He is only the human member of The Dog's Circle.
 * He dislikes parsley.
 * As stated in the manga, Natsume likes street punk clothes despite normally wearing his school uniform of collared shirts in the Summer.