Blue Exorcist: What a Demonic Anime!

Hello everybody! For this week’s anime club we have Blue Exorcist!

BLUE EXORCIST

DIRECTOR: Tensai Okamura

EPISODES: 25 + 1 OVA

GENRE: Action, Supernatural

YEAR: 2011

COUNTRY: Japan

The story revolves around Rin Okumura, a teenager possessing abnormal strength and endurance who, along with his twin brother Yukio, was raised by Father Shiro Fujimoto. One day, Rin learns that he is the son of Satan, the strongest of all demons. Witnessing Shiro dying to protect him, Rin ends up doing what his guardian asked him never to do: draw the demon-slaying blade Kurikara, which restrains his demonic powers, from its scabbard. From that moment on, Rin not only gains permanent demonic features like fangs, pointed ears, fiery “horns” and a tail, but also the power to ignite himself into blue flames that can destroy almost anything they touch.

At Fujimoto’s funeral, Rin has an encounter with Fujimoto’s friend Mephisto Pheles, who agrees with Rin’s wish to become an Exorcist like his guardian to become stronger and to defeat Satan. Rin enrolls at the prestigious True Cross Academy, which is actually the Japanese branch of an international organization dedicated to protect the human realm, Assiah, from demons and other creatures from the demon realm, Gehenna. Rin takes part in a special Exorcist course, the existence of which is known only by a few. Much to his surprise, he finds that his brother Yukio is already a veteran Exorcist and will be one of his teachers.

Blue Exorcist is an interesting anime that was recommended to me after watching D Gray-Man. The two anime have very similar themes, but are both completely different at the same time. Blue Exorcist is filled with plenty of gore and I wouldn’t have it any other way. The anime is filled with plenty of action for you action lovers, and the show isn’t over-saturated with action either. There was a nice decent blend of action and drama. I watched Blue Exorcist as an English dub, and I want to comment that the voice acting is superb. Most anime are much better viewed as English subbed but I felt it actually was better dubbed. While the supernatural genre is overused in anime, the story is still interesting enough so you will stay entertained.

Blue Exorcist suffers from just a few drawbacks, just like anything would.  Some of the characters are not very likable, I even found it difficult to like Rin. I just wanted to like him so much but it just didn’t work until the end of the show. Blue Exorcist starts of very strong in the first half of the series, but where many shows pick up it starts to dim down in the second half, very disappointing.   Without spoiling any of the show, I didn’t really enjoy the ending either. The ending didn’t work well with the rest of the show and it took a lot away from Blue Exorcist.

PROS:

• Plenty of gore.
• Voice acting.
• Interesting story.

CONS:

• Some unlikable characters.
• Disappointing ending.

SCORE: 8.0 / 10

If you have any suggestions for films/TV/Games/Music for me to review, drop me a comment! Remember: Like Media In Review @ https://www.facebook.com/MediaInReview?ref=hl Follow Media in Review @ https://twitter.com/Media_In_Review.