Media retailer HMV reports that Yuki Midorikawa's Natsume's Book of Friends (Natsume Yūjin-Chō) manga is inspiring a new original video anime on Blu-ray Disc and DVD on February 5, 2014. The Natsume Yūjin-Chō: Itsuka Yuki no Hi ni (Natsume's Book of Friends: Sometime on a Snowy Day) anime will reunite the cast from the four television anime series, including:

Hiroshi Kamiya as Takashi Natsume

Kazuhiko Inoue as Nyanko-sensei

Sanae Kobayashi as Reiko Natsume

Akira Ishida as Shūichi Natori

Kazuma Horie as Kaname Tanuma

Miyuki Sawashiro as Jun Sasada

Ryohei Kimura as Satoru Nishimura

Hisayoshi Suganuma as Atsushi Kitamoto

Ayumi Fujimura as Takashi Natsume (young)

Miki Itou as Tōko Fujiwara

Eiji Itô as Shigeru Fujiwara

Junichi Suwabe as Seiji Matoba

Takahiro Omori is once again directing the anime at the studio Brains Base. Also returning are series script supervisor Sadayuki Murai (from the last two television series), character designer Akira Takata, monster designer Tatsuo Yamada, art director Yukihiro Shibutani, color setting artist Hiromi Miyawaki, director of photography Hitoshi Tamura, editor Kazuhiko Seki, musical composer Makoto Yoshimori, and the sponsor NAS.

The original video anime will come with a second disc with a recording of the stage production "Sound Theatre x Natsume Yūjin-Chō ~Tsudoi Ongeki no Shō~" (Sound Theatre x Natsume's Book of Friends: A Sound Theatre Gathering). This production also reunites most of the main cast with some of the television guest stars:

Hiroshi Kamiya as Takashi Natsume

Kazuhiko Inoue as Nyanko-sensei

Kazuma Horie as Kaname Tanuma

Ryohei Kimura as Satoru Nishimura

Hisayoshi Suganuma as Atsushi Kitamoto

Takashi Matsuyama as One-Eyed Yōkai

Hiroshi Shimozaki as Ox-Faced Yōkai

Houko Kuwashima as Hotaru

Kenji Hamada as Akifumi Sugino

The limited-edition release also includes a case with an exclusive illustration, a Nyako-sensei digital contents CD-ROM, a color booklet, and other extras.

The manga follows Takashi Natsume, a boy with the ability to see spirits. He inherits a strange book from his deceased grandmother containing the names of the spirits, and realizes that they are trapped by a binding contract. Natsume decides to free the spirits and dissolve the contracts.

Viz Media publishes the manga in North America, and the story has received four television anime adaptations, with the first season airing in 2008. Crunchyroll streamed the four anime seasons as they aired in Japan, and NIS America announced plans to release all four seasons on home video in North America. The manga already inspired an original anime DVD earlier this year.

Images © Yuki Midorikawa, Hakusensha/Natsume's Book of Friends Production Committee

Update: Second image and DVD info from Animate added. Thanks, GokuMew2