Seiji Matoba (的場静司, Matoba Seiji) is the main antagonist of the anime and manga series Natsume's Book of Friends. He is the head of the Matoba clan, as well as a rival of Shuuichi Natori and Takashi Natsume's archenemy.
He is voiced by Junichi Suwabe in the Japanese version and Reagan Murdock in the English version.
Appearance[]
He have black hair and dark brown eye. There is a scar on his right eye, covered by an eyepatch with a spell on it.
Personality[]
Seiji is a cold-hearted exorcist who doesn't mind sacrificing innocent youkai to reach his goals. Although he wants stronger youkai to protect humans, he will not hesitate in hurting anyone who gets in his way. He also views the possibility of humans and youkai getting along and living peacefully alongside each other, let alone being friends, as a laughable concept, and views anyone who believes in the possibility of that like Takashi Natsume as naive. He also tends to display great confidence in his abilities to the point he can come across as arrogant at times, and is almost always calm and composed, rarely losing his temper even if something doesn't go his way.
After his first encounter with Takashi Natsume, he takes great interest in him, and even asks him to join the Matoba clan later on despite their drastically different personalities and outlooks. While Natsume repeatedly refuses, he ironically keeps finding himself helping Matoba complete certain objectives, and as this happens, Matoba shows different layers to his personality; for one thing, he's willing to do certain things on his own if it means not getting the other members of his clan involved and put in harm's way, and while Natsume still doesn't agree with him on many things, he begins to sympathize with him a little due to seeing the pressure he's under as the leader of such a highly regarded exorcist clan, as well as the many enemies he makes just by being in that position. However, Matoba rarely lets the pressure bother him and doesn't show any regret for taking the path that he has. In addition to gradually acting more friendly to Natsume, he also begins to act somewhat friendly with Natori as well despite their different approaches and attitudes to exorcism, giving them a bit of a friendly rivals dynamic.
Background[]
Matoba was born into his family as the second child after his sister. The Matobas were well-known, or rather, infamous among other exorcist clans as an exceptionally wealthy, powerful and influential one, which often earned them the fear and hatred of their peers. Seiji himself was born with extremely powerful spiritual abilities, to the extent he was superior to most other exorcists, including his own older sister, Shinobu, which led to him being chosen to be the future head of the clan, and subsequently led to Shinobu leaving the clan in resentment.
In a flashback chapter/episode, he is seen interacting with Shuichi Natori when he was young at a local meeting for different exorcists. He tests his spiritual potential by asking him what color a kimono stuck in a tree is, to which Natori replied it was dark red, confirming that while he wasn't on his level, he was still pretty gifted. He later approaches Natori regarding teaming up to take down a powerful three-headed youkai that was targeting and attacking exorcists, but Natori continued to be put off by his arrogant attitude and was determined to do it on his own both to prove himself and not be used by him like a pawn. Ultimately, Natori tries but fails to do it, at which point, Seiji manages to take it down with a single arrow. He then thanks him for his help in weakening it with his spell and even offers to share the credit with him, but Natori allows him to take sole credit for its defeat since he felt like he failed. This leads Seiji to getting even more respect and reverence from the other exorcists in the community.
Powers and Abilities[]
He is mostly seen armed with a bow and arrow, which he uses to eliminate youkai. He is able to exorcise a youkai with a single poison arrow, an example of his amazing spiritual power.
As a high-level exorcist, he possesses a wide variety of knowledge of exorcism techniques, such as sealing, purification, shikigami, sutras, spells and the ability to tame youkai and shiki servants.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- His Japanese voice actor, Junichi Suwabe, also voiced Fuuma Monou in X/199, The Undertaker in Black Butler, Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez in Bleach, Greed in Fullmetal Alchemist, Akura-Ou in Kamisama Kiss.
- His English voice actor, Reagan Murdock, also voiced Who's-Who in One Piece, Mozu in Dr. Stone and Assassin Leader in Spy × Family.
- When he was teenager, he look similar to Izaya Orihara from Durarara!!.