Seiji Matoba's Past: Inside the High School Rift That Broke Natori

When Seiji Matoba walks into a room in Natsume's Book of Friends, tension follows immediately. Draped in black haori, armed with a lacquered longbow, and bearing a spell-inscribed talisman over his right eye, the current head of the Matoba Clan represents cold political pragmatism. He views spirits as expendable weapons or pests requiring extermination. Yet Yuki Midorikawa manga canon caught fans off guard when it pulled back the curtain on his teenage years.

During the Eastern Forest flashback arc, readers met a younger Seiji who lacked both the infamous eye bandage and his adult cynicism. That glimpse ignited a decade of debate across the manga community. Fans questioned what truly transpired during his student years, why his fragile dynamic with Shuichi Natori shattered, and whether his family legacy doomed him from the start.

📌 Key Takeaways:

• The Timeline: In Yuki Midorikawa's canonical flashback (Manga Volume 19, Anime Season 6), a high-school-aged Shuichi Natori crosses paths with a slightly younger Seiji Matoba at an exorcist gathering, exposing the ideological fault line that ended their tentative alliance.
• The Eye Patch Origin: Seiji's talisman bandage is not an injury from a teenage brawl with Natori; it shields his eye from an ancestral blood pact with a demon seeking retribution against clan leaders.
• The Broken Alliance: Their fallout stemmed from incompatible moral philosophies, Natori refused to view spirits purely as disposable tools, while Matoba surrendered personal sentiment to secure clan survival.

The Eastern Forest Gathering: When Matoba Met an Isolated Natori

The origin of the exorcist rivalry traces directly to the "Eastern Forest" narrative arc spanning Chapters 75 and 76 of the manga. At the time, Shuichi Natori was a sixteen-year-old high school student drowning in alienation. Unlike traditional exorcist bloodlines that fostered generational technique, the Natori household had long lost the ability to perceive spirits. Shuichi’s sudden manifestation of spiritual vision triggered hostility and paranoia from his relatives, who viewed him as a disturbed anomaly.

Desperate for answers, Natori crashed a clandestine gathering of independent exorcists hosted in the Eastern Forest. That night, he encountered Seiji Matoba. While Natori was an unguided amateur risking his life in ordinary high school clothes, Seiji already carried the distinct aura of Matoba Clan leadership.

Seiji was younger than Natori during this initial meeting, yet he operated with an unsettling level of composure. Free from the talisman that later defined his silhouette, teenage Matoba possessed two functioning, visible eyes and a frank demeanor. He offered Natori rare, blunt counsel about the hazards of their invisible world. For a fleeting window, the exchange resembled the seed of a genuine Natori and Matoba friendship. Both boys were isolated by supernatural perception; both were trying to carve out a foothold in a dangerous, fractured exorcism society.

The Brutal Pressures Behind Matoba Clan Succession

Matoba’s hardening was not an accidental character shift. It was the calculated byproduct of family survival. In Natsume's Book of Friends lore, the Matoba Clan occupies the apex of exorcism society politics through sheer, unbending enforcement. Unlike the decaying Natori house, the Matoba estate commands respect because its leaders deliver absolute, merciless results.

Archival chapters show that Seiji was groomed from early childhood to assume command. While normal teenagers balanced school entrance exams and social circles, Seiji studied advanced ayakashi sealing techniques, lethal archery, and political manipulation. Weakness in the Matoba family meant total extinction. Rival families watched for any slip in spiritual prowess, and hostile ayakashi constantly probed their perimeter defenses.

The young Seiji seen during the high school flashback had already accepted a grim reality. He understood that compassion toward spirits routinely kills the human exorcist. Where the teenage Natori saw tragic creatures worthy of occasional sympathy, Seiji saw volatile forces of nature. To survive his impending role as clan head, Matoba stripped away his hesitations before he even reached legal adulthood.

Narrative Dimension	Shuichi Natori (High School Era)	Seiji Matoba (High School Era)
Clan Status	Estranged heir of a collapsed, blind lineage	Active heir apparent to the most feared clan in Japan
Spiritual Arsenal	Improvised paper circles, raw sight, no permanent familiars	Bow-and-arrow wards, paper shiki familiars, blood seals
View on Ayakashi	Fearful yet empathetic; searches for mutual coexistence	Utilitarian tools; disposable assets for human protection
Right Eye Status	Unaffected (carries lizard mark across his body)	Unbandaged; curse has not yet manifested or been sealed
Ultimate Trajectory	Independent contractor masking pain through acting	Ruthless political operator managing national networks

Unmasking the Right Eye: Ancestral Curse or Battle Scar?

One pervasive myth among casual viewers claims Natori blinded Matoba during an unresolved teenage feud. Manga canon disproves this entirely.

The Matoba eye patch mystery stems from an ancestral sin that predates both boys by several generations. A previous Matoba clan head struck a deal with a colossal, ancient ayakashi to secure victory in an exorcism conflict. The agreed price was steep: the demon would receive the clan head's right eye upon completion of the task.

The ancestor reneged on the contract. He drove the spirit away using specialized barriers and sealing wards rather than surrendering his flesh.

Enraged by the betrayal, the demon laid a generational curse upon the lineage. It vowed to stalk every successive Matoba leader and take their right eye as payment. Because Seiji inherited the spiritual power and the official title of family head, that target shifted squarely to him.

The bandage Seiji wears in the present timeline is not a medical dressing for an empty socket. It is a protective, ward-inscribed seal designed to hide his eye from the demon's sight. In the high school flashback, Seiji had not yet formally assumed the headship, meaning the demon’s predatory hunt had not yet zeroed in on his face. The subsequent addition of the eye talisman marks the exact moment his youth ended and his life as a hunted, defensive clan leader began.

Paper Shiki and Bloodpacts: How Their Philosophies Collided

The tactical separation between Natori and Matoba solidified when they began contracting spirits. During the flashback arc, Natori risks his life trying to save spirits from reckless exorcists. He eventually contracts his three loyal paper shiki familiars, Sasago, Urifime, and Hiiragi, treating them as partners bound by mutual respect and shared danger.

Matoba’s tactical doctrine rejected sentimental bonds entirely. The Matoba methodology utilizes mass-produced paper shiki, controlling them through binding formulas and blood sacrifices. When a Matoba familiar is torn apart in battle, Seiji sheds no tears. He simply folds another sheet of paper.

When Natori witnessed Matoba's readiness to sacrifice lower-tier spirits to capture more dangerous entities, their communication collapsed. Natori realized that Matoba did not harbor malice toward spirits; worse, he felt complete indifference. Matoba viewed exorcism as corporate risk management. That realization horrified Natori, driving him out of the traditional exorcist social circles and into an independent career masked behind his celebrity actor persona.

How Takashi Natsume Reopened the Unresolved Feud

Decades after their teenage paths diverged, the unresolved clash between Natori and Matoba found an unexpected battleground: Takashi Natsume.

Takashi embodies the exact middle ground both men failed to locate during their youth. He possesses immense spiritual strength that exceeds Matoba’s family line, paired with an innate empathy that rivals Natori's cautious kindness. When Matoba attempts to recruit Natsume into the clan's web, Natori repeatedly steps in as a protective shield.

Natori sees his own teenage vulnerability reflected in Natsume. He remembers how close he came to falling into Matoba's cold, calculated worldview when he had no one else to guide him. Conversely, Matoba views Natsume through the same pragmatic lens he developed in high school: an undisciplined prodigy who will either learn to command spirits through absolute dominance or be consumed by them.

The tension between Natori and Matoba never healed because neither man was entirely incorrect within their harsh universe. Matoba’s ruthless precautions keep his compound and clients alive against vengeful monsters. Natori’s guarded warmth prevents him from turning into a monster himself. Their high school encounters did not spark a simple schoolyard grudge. They established two competing models for surviving in an unforgiving spiritual landscape.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Q1: Did Seiji Matoba lose his eye in a fight against Shuichi Natori?

A1: No. Canon material confirms Natori never injured Matoba's eye. The talisman over Seiji’s right eye is an occult barrier that conceals his eye from an ancestral demon demanding payment for a broken deal made by a past Matoba leader.

Q2: Why was Matoba friendly toward Natori during the high school flashback?

A2: Matoba was not necessarily seeking friendship; he recognized genuine spiritual sight in Natori at a time when the Natori clan was considered spiritually dead. Matoba treated him with practical respect and attempted to introduce him to the harsh realities of the exorcist world before Natori chose an independent path.

Q3: Which manga chapters cover Seiji Matoba and Shuichi Natori's youth?

A3: The flashback appears in Volume 19 of Yuki Midorikawa's manga, specifically Chapters 75 and 76 ("Eastern Forest"). In the anime adaptation, the storyline is covered in Season 6 (Natsume Yuujinchou Roku), Episodes 8 and 9.

The Lasting Legacy of the Matoba-Natori Schism

The enduring appeal of Seiji Matoba’s adolescent backstory lies in its moral complexity. Yuki Midorikawa avoided painting Matoba as a one-dimensional villain who woke up one morning and decided to terrorize spirits. Instead, the narrative presents a clear, tragic portrait of an adolescent forced to trade his humanity for the preservation of an ancient family.

Matoba did not change after his student days out of malice. He changed because the rules of his bloodline left no room for sentimentality. When he strapped the talisman over his right eye and took command of the clan, he buried the inquisitive youth who once spoke plainly in the Eastern Forest.

Natori chose an isolated, messy path toward compassion, while Matoba chose survival through absolute control. Every time the two cross paths in the modern timeline, that choice hangs between them, unyielding and permanent.