Top 5: Anime With Demons or Devils

Posted on by Karandi
Tuesday's Top 5

There are a lot of anime that include demons and devils in their cast and I know that a list of 5 can’t even begin to cover all the great titles out there. Still, I decided to have a go at listing my 5 favourite anime with demons or devils in them. I did rule out just standard yokai anime though as I wanted this list to focus more on demons or devils as the are more often represented in the west.

Still, there are still a lot of anime out there that we could have got into and with one exception I haven’t even touched the sheer number of comedy anime that use these kinds of characters. Nor have I touched on the harem anime that go there so I’m sure there are plenty more anime that people could list and I’d love to hear your choices in the comments below.

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I will just give an honourable mention to Devilman Crybaby. I didn’t really like that anime for a number of reasons but its depiction of demons was actually pretty solid and so it deserves a space on the list.

Have you got a favourite anime demon? Give them a shout out in the comments.

Number 5: Blue Exorcist

I feel a lot of people will probably have this one higher up their lists and if I had only watched season one I probably would as well. I really enjoyed the set up to this story in the first episode where we learn the truth about who Rin’s father was and we see part of the cause for his volatile temper and violence. While this anime takes a lot of liberties with the church structure, terminology, and the basic idea of what an exorcist is, it is undeniably entertaining. The second season lacked a lot of that charm that season one brought to the table, but still, it is a solid entry in terms of an anime focused on the idea of exorcising demons.

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Number 4: Hataraku Maou-Sama

The Devil is a Part-Timer is one of those anime that just hit the right spot for me particularly in terms of its comedy. However, a lot of the enjoyment I found in the anime was in the way they portrayed the devil and his demon generals. Also, the connection between the hero and Satan was very nicely established and as the story progressed we had a bit of a look at the follies of humans and angels as well. While definitely not trying to be serious about its premise, this one is just a fun story where demons, humans and angels interact and the end results are interesting.

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Number 3: Kimetsu no Yaiba

Weird for me to include an anime that isn’t even finished yet but I must say that I’ve really been enjoying how demons are portrayed in this one. While Tanjiro certainly has sympathy for demons changed from human against their will, largely because of Nezuko’s situation, he is also aware of the destruction demons cause if left to their own devices and after the first encounter where he hesitated, he’s managed to take appropriate action even if we continue to see signs of his compassion. It’s an interesting concept and I’m looking forward to learning more about the different demons we’ve met who haven’t been instantly killed.

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Number 2: D Gray Man

I couldn’t have made this list without mentioning the Black Order of exorcists who are fighting against the Millennium Earland his Akuma army. What I particularly like about this one is that the demons aren’t just springing to life on their own. The Earl makes deals with humans in order to breed his soldiers and so the number of Akuma the order are facing is in direct correlation to the weakness of humans who, desperate to reconnect with a loved one, accept the Earl’s dubious offer and end up chaining their loved one’s soul inside an Akuma. It is horrific but for Allen it is even worse as he can see that trapped soul which causes conflict inside of him when it comes to defeating them.

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Number 1: Black Butler

Well, you all should have seen that one coming. However, when it comes to an anime that does an excellent deal with a devil storyline, Black Butler is still my undisputed favourite. Sebastian is every bit a demon and yet he covers over his monstrous nature with suave appearance and manners only allowing glimpses at the truth beneath the surface when it suits him to do so. I genuinely love this story and have really enjoyed the Book Of spin-offs even if season 2 didn’t really work for me.

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That’s my list but there are plenty of other anime out there featuring demons or devils and I’d love to know some of your favourites so leave me a comment below.

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Top 5: Anime Priests

Posted on by Karandi
Tuesday's Top 5

Very likely this list was inspired by the fact that I’m currently trying to watch Vatican Miracle Examiner, but today I’m looking at my top 5 favourite anime priests. When I say priest, I’m using a broad brush so I’m not overly concerned what sort of priest, or what religion, or even if they are actually ordained. If they dress and kind of act or are treated like a priest, I’m going with that. What put these characters on my top 5? They are a priest and I found them interesting and sometimes even useful to the story they were in. It isn’t an overly deep list this week.

Please Note – Probably a few minor spoilers this week.

Number 5: John Brown from Ghost Hunt

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It may be unfair to have John Brown at number 5 given of all the priests on the list, he’s actually the one who acts most like a priest. However, he’s held back by two things. The first is he wasn’t the protagonist of his story and was clearly strictly back up. There were almost no occasions where he was actually useful other than one or two minor exorcisms throughout the story. The second being his horrendous Australian accent in the dubbed version of Ghost Hunt. Certainly if you are looking for comedy, that accent is going to hit the mark but otherwise all it will do is make most Australians cringe.

Number 4: Shiro Fujimoto from Blue Exorcist

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Already I can hear people wondering why this anime priest isn’t higher up the list and the answer is simple: he’s dead after the introduction to the series. Yes, we get flash backs to him being awesome and to be honest, he’s probably the best character in Blue Exorcist, but none of that gets us past the fact that he’s already dead. The doting father and incredibly strong exorcist literally steals every scene he gets to appear in, there just aren’t enough of them.

Though I would love to see a prequel series about his exploits as an anime priest.

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Number 3: Frau from 07 Ghost

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This guy’s a priest? You actually do know that about him but sometimes it is very hard to remember given his flamboyant ways as well as his taste in… literature. Yet, he does his job and still manages to look pretty cool while doing it which has earned him a solid third place on my list.

And honestly it isn’t as though most anime priests actually act all that much like real priests so authenticity isn’t exactly a requirement here.

Number 2: Seishin from Shiki

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I really like Seishin’s character for a couple of reasons. The main one is that he provides a different perspective on the vampires and their invasion to his friend’s. Whereas the doctor chooses to rally people to fight the vampires, Seishin chooses to seek coexistence even when it clearly becomes impossible. It’s another valuable perspective that the story kind of needed particularly during the gory conclusion.

I wonder what the world has in store for him after the events of Shiki as this anime priest definitely made some questionable decisions along the way and his actions were noted. Still, he was a complex character and one who provided a needed alternative perspective to both the vampires and humans in the story.

Number 1: Nicholas D Wolfwood from Trigun

Wolfwood - awesome anime priest

Seriously, what is not to like about this awesome character. He and Vash are perfect as a team and Wolfwood very clearly highlights the path Vash might have taken rather than the one he chooses. Wolfwood, you will be missed.

But in the meantime you were my very favourite anime priest and quite the entertaining character before that whole tragic end thing. And, seriously, using the giant cross you lug around as a weapon is just kind of awesome.

Who is your favourite anime priest is and why?

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Top 5 Gardens in Anime Series

Posted on by Karandi
Tuesday's Top 5

We all know there are many pretty anime out there and flowers, particularly cherry blossoms, show up in a lot of stories (and usually look gorgeous). Today I’m looking at my favourite gardens in anime series (I excluded movies deliberately but still ended up with far too many options). This is definitely a list of my favourite picks so please feel free to tell me which anime gardens you love in the comments below.

What are your favourite gardens in anime?

Number 5: Blue Exorcist

Garden - Blue Exorcist

Rin first meets Shiemi when his brother takes him to visit the Garden of Amahara which ends up being important because Shiemi ends up being Rin’s first real friend in Blue Exorcist. However, the garden itself is beautiful even if it is a little bit hostile when we first arrive there.

What I love about it though is that it isn’t just decorative. The garden and plants in general play a fairly critical role in terms of exorcisms and healing throughout the story and so it seems right that this is where me meet Shiemi for the first time. That and it is really pretty.

Shiemi - Blue Exorcist

Number 4: The Eccentric Family

The Eccentric Family - Garden in Kyoto

The Eccentric Family takes place in Kyoto and a large part of it is showing the play between the human world, the natural world and the supernatural world. Needless to say we spend a lot of time outdoors and get to see some very nice looking gardens throughout the series. I love the garden that has the well in it where Yasaburo’s brother is for most of the first season transformed into a frog. However, we see a range of lovely gardens throughout the two seasons of the anime and visually this anime is worth noting.

Yasaburo visits the well - The Eccentric Family

Number 3: The World Is Still Beautiful

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I’m not entirely sure this one fits in with the rest, but I really like the layout of the garden in this anime. It is incredibly tidy and sculptured compared to the others on this list, but I remember thinking how pretty the garden was the first time I watched the anime. And, given a lot of the story involves Nike trying to convince Livius that the world is beautiful, the garden features in quite a number of episodes in a variety of weather types.

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Number 2: The Ancient Magus’ Bride

Chise - The Ancient Magus' Bride - Garden

Where do you even start with gardens in this story? The Ancient Magus’ Bride was gorgeous from start to finish and while I ultimately found the episode count a little too long and the story felt like it meandered too much, I cannot fault how beautiful they made the countryside look. Whether it is the garden Chise studies in or the rose garden where we meet the vampire character, there’s plenty of pretty sites to visit throughout the run of this anime and ever single scene is worth the effort.

Rose Garden - The Ancient Magus' Bride

Number 1: Snow White With The Red Hair

Snow White With The Red Hair - Shirayuki and Ryuu

I absolutely love the hillside garden in Snow White With The Red Hair. There are so many plants, forests, and greenhouses in this story and they are all gorgeous, but that hill covered in flowers and medicinal herbs is beautiful to look at and so many key story moments take place on or near the hill. Honestly, let’s just have an OVA that involves all the herbalists working on the hill and I’ll happily watch it. This is the garden that immediately came to mind when I started thinking about this list.

Snow White With The Red Hair - Shirayuki and the garden

And that’s my list for the week but as always I’d love to know your picks so be sure to let me know what your favourite anime garden is in the comments.

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Tuesday’s Top 5: Antagonists With Inhuman Characteristics

Posted on by Karandi
Tuesday's Top 5

Antagonists and villains are visually quite fun characters because they usually end up as fashion disasters or twisted into weird caricatures. Today I want to look at five villains and antagonists that have inhuman characteristics that I think are still pretty cool looking (or at the very least they are memorable). I’d love to know your picks so please leave me a comment below.

At some point I’ll have to look at love interests and protagonists with inhuman characteristics but those will be a lot harder to narrow down.

Please note, there will be spoilers below.

Honourable Mentions: Pretty much every villain in Sailor Moon ever.

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Number 5: The Beast Titan (Attack on Titan Season 2)

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I wasn’t the biggest fan of Attack on Titan season 2, but I did love the beast titan. I would have loved for him to be more important in the season and spend more time on screen. He was a fascinating presence in the first episode and his return later to royally mess things up for the group in the tower was fantastic. More of this character definitely would have made the viewing experience a bit better.

And then season three kind of did give us more of the beast titan. Or at least we had quite the fight sequence that he orchestrated. And it was actually really awesome to watch.

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Number 4: Amaimon (Blue Exorcist)

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Again, not an anime I’m majorly in love with but Amaimon was kind of cool. Okay, he was a jerk who likes messing with people, but the nails, the ears, his tail, and just his general playful yet cruelly malicious personality just kind of work. And they aren’t trying to make him out to be one of the good guys. He is a nasty piece of work, but he does the job well.

Number 3: Neferpitou (Hunter X Hunter)

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I still haven’t gotten to the end of Hunter x Hunter but Neferpitou is fantastic. Okay, she’s horrible, but she’s kind of supposed to be. Plus, look at that face. She’s truly adorable. Actually she reminds me entirely of my cat who will happily sleep on my pillow but try and move her and you suddenly discover she has four claws and teeth and she isn’t afraid to use them.

Number 2: The Millennium Earl (D Gray Man)

D Gray - Earl.png

I can’t help but wonder about the kind of crazy person who would agree to a deal with the Millennium Earl. I know he doesn’t always look quite that sinister, but even at his most innocuous, he’s still pretty creepy. This is the face of someone who can and will destroy the world. Not just monologuing about how bad he is, this guy is going to actively work towards his goal and he’s pretty successful at it. If this was live action that would be the stuff of nightmares.

Number 1: Little Demon (Soul Eater)

Little Demon - Soul Eater.jpg

Not so much a villain or antagonist so much as an inner demon to be faced and overcome by the central characters. The Little Demon starts out fairly small and manageable as a voice in Soul Eater’s subconscious. But as Soul and then Maka give in to madness the Little Demon grows and becomes far more menacing. One of my favourite characters from one of my favourite shows, The Little Demon is both adorable and terrifying and has great taste in music.

That’s this week’s list and as always, I’d love to know who you would have included on yours.

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Tuesday’s Top 5: Male Yokai

Posted on by Karandi
Tuesday's Top 5

Continuing on from last week where I looked at my top 5 favourite female yokai, this week we have my top 5 male yokai. I must admit, my first draft had a lot fox yokai on the list and even the revised version hasn’t really fixed that issue. Apparently I like foxes. Anyway, as always, I’d love to know who you would include on your list so please leave a comment below.

Please Note: There may be some spoilers below.

Honourable mention this week goes to Kappa from Nurarihyon.

Number 5: Yahiko from The Morose Mononokean

 

Okay, I nearly chose Fuzzy from this list but ultimately had to go with Yahiko. Seriously, this fox is so cute and his desire to play hide and seek is adorable (okay, potentially deadly but still pretty cute). Admittedly, the fact that Yahiko was introduced as a potential big bad and then quickly degenerated into the little brother type character that just wants all the attention is probably the reason Yahiko isn’t further up the list.

Number 4: Kuro from Blue Exorcist

 

Yeah, I know technically they want to say Kuro is a demon but I’m still including him as a yokai. There really isn’t much to explain with this choice. Kuro is my favourite character from Blue Exorcist. Fiercely loyal and yet definitely a cat, Kuro manages to steal pretty much every scene he is in.

Number 3: Yasaburo from The Eccentric Family

 

Our fast talking, trouble seeking tanuki, Yasaburo had to be on the list. He’s just such a great character even before you consider the fact that he is a shape changing tanuki. As the third of four brothers he is pretty content to drift through life looking for things to make his days ‘interesting’. Despite that, he’s pretty loyal to his family when it matters and most of the time he cleans up the mess he makes (mostly). I absolutely adore spending time with Yasaburo.

Number 2: Tomoe from Kamisama Kiss

 

Now, how could I overlook Tomoe, the fox who serves as a land god’s familiar. He is rude, occasionally foul mouthed, and extremely short tempered, but also incredibly loyal and ultimately a fairly lonely character seeking acceptance. Not to mention incredibly powerful and needs to be given how often his human-turned-god master Nanami gets herself into trouble.

Number 1: Miketsukami from Inu x Boku

 

So what beats a fox familiar, well a 9 Tailed Fox secret service member who uses a sword apparently. Told you there were a lot of foxes on this list. Seriously, the guy is adorable both in his normal suit and when he transforms into a yokai. If it wasn’t for his creepy stalkerish tendencies (I guess he calls that loyalty) he’s be nearly perfect. About the only thing he lacks is the ability to actually have a normal human interaction and eventually he might learn to get around that.

There is my list of my favourite male yokai characters. I’d love to know who you would have included.

Blue Exorcist Season 2 Series Review

Posted on by Karandi
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Overview:

A continuation of Blue Exorcist (reviewed here), the story picks up with pretty much everyone being scared of Rin and Yukio still stressing about everything. Someone stole the eye of the Impure King so now we’re all going to Kyoto because clearly a world threat should be handled by students and a small branch group. I reviewed this week to week so if you are interested in my episodic thoughts click here.

Review:

It’s shows like this that make me hesitate when someone asks me if I’m excited about an upcoming sequel. Sure, the original may have been fun (in the case of Blue Exorcist I liked the first season well enough though I wasn’t a die-hard fan), but do we really need that continuation? And more importantly, is the continuation doing anything other than giving us more of the same?

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In the case of Blue Exorcist a continuation was actually kind of needed. Rin’s grand goal of defeating Satan was nowhere near being in sight at the end of season 1. However, season 2 barely even acknowledges that such a goal ever existed. If season 2 had progressed towards this and Rin had substantially grown and we could see some sort of end point that maybe eventually he’d have a chance at succeeding at his lofty and impossible goal, then maybe this could have worked.

Instead we get a side story about the Impure King which essentially means after a brief and pathetic struggle our cast shift locations to Kyoto where we meet Suguro’s family and a whole bunch of new characters, sit around and talk for most the season, and finally get an overly extended fight sequence against a villain who has literally no agency in the story other than to be the villain. It’s an entirely filler filled story that could have been told in about an hour for all the content it actually delivers.

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And still they could have pulled this off. The strength of Blue Exorcist wasn’t in its amazing plot (it had a great premise but didn’t do a lot with that anyway) or even the amazing characters (given they are all pretty much one or two note sound bits). The strength of season 1 was its crazy energy and the simple fact that it would embrace the absurd. It was fun. Logic could fail within the story but it was just fun to watch.

Season 2 failed to understand the concept of fun and absurd. And while a more serious tone for a show that probably needed it given the subject matter also could have worked, you need to give us something to replace the fun times of season 1. Characters sitting around talking and having group meetings, or watching a character repeatedly train and fail, or watching a character mope and wallow in self doubt, or hearing yet another speech about friendship… none of these things replace fun.

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It isn’t even that season 2 is not as good as season 1. As a story it has so many issues.

Firstly, Todo, who was kind of the catalyst for the story starting with his theft remains a complete enigma at the end. He didn’t die in that fight, we know that, and yet where is he at the end? Why did he stir things into motion? What’s his fascination with Yukio? Is he coming back? We don’t know anything, and while loose ends are fine in their own way, not knowing his motivation for stealing the eye and any of the events that follow make most of what happens pretty pointless to watch.

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Secondly, while we’re on the subject of villains, the Impure King himself is basically a giant mushroom growing out of control. There’s no personality, no presence, and given how late in the game he actually shows up, he really is just a plot device. The grand fear that he might be unleashed hovering over the series and then the final boss that no one cares about. Yes, he needs to be defeated, but there’s no satisfaction in seeing him defeated because I didn’t actually care about him as a villain.

Thirdly, the minor inconsistencies in the story itself. You know the coats the kids wore to rescue Rin that made them invisible, that they wear for the rest of the battle and yet people interact with them just fine. So they only make you invisible when you want to be? Really? This whole thing really annoyed me during those final episodes. They are having a conversation but isn’t that person invisible? It just kept distracting me from the incredibly repetitive dialogue. This wasn’t the only inconsistency the story served up but it was the most distracting.

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Fourthly, Rin. Arguably the only point to this whole arc is watching him finally gain control of his flames so that maybe people will trust him (and you know he won’t get executed). However he just doesn’t care. He’s so happy-go-lucky that the threat of execution is kind of just dropped into the story by Yukio as a major downer every now and then and then we just kind of push that aside and get back to Rin being Rin. Even his final drawing of the sword and defeating the Impure King (flames finally controlled because of friendship) is kind of half-hearted. So yes, Rin grew over these 12 episodes, but not significantly enough to justify the rest of the viewing time.

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Finally, Yukio. Yukio, please go get some professional help for your issues and stop taking them out on your brother. preferably before you end up turning into a demon. Yukio is quite possibly my least favourite character in this show and this season just kind of emphasised why. Its odd, because normally I like the character who thinks about things as opposed to the characters who rush in, but Yukio is so boring and so contradictory that I just want to slap him most episodes. In his defense, he did get a few good moments in the fight against Todo but that hardly makes up for everything else.

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People who really enjoyed season 1 of this and really like the characters, may find enough here to enjoy. For everyone else, I just don’t see it as being worth the time it takes to watch. It is watchable, but there’s just not much point in it. So while I did have some fun with this, mostly I just kind of watched it. And as the season progressed and it became increasingly clear they were stretching out a very small amount of material, I became increasingly more critical of this. There are some good moments but overall I’m probably never watching this again.

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Blue Exorcist Episode 37

Posted on by Karandi
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Review:

I can’t help but think this entire season was just filler. Other than Rin learning to control his flames (which took way too long) and the other students finally getting over Rin being the son of Satan (though for some reason they don’t apply that same reasoning to Yukio) we’ve watched this whole season and nothing of substance has changed in either characters or plot. The few developments we’ve had could have been covered in about five minutes if they’d decided to move things along and so we’ve just had padded dialogue after overly dragged out action sequence.

However, I’ll save further complaints for the show as a whole for my whole season review and for now I’ll focus entirely on this episode, which was nothing. Other than one discussion with Mephisto where we got the very obvious hint that he’s the master mind behind pretty much everything and has some plan for Rin (which we knew forever ago), nothing happens in this episode. Unless you count Shiemi’s unintentional absolute rejection of Rin as anything other than a friend.

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And no,  I don’t count this as a point. There was a discussion between Rin and Yukio but even they acknowledge they are just rehashing the same conversation at this point so why are they making the audience listen to it again. We get it. You two have different views. And Rin’s an idiot. Great. Move on already.

So yeah, as a final episode this one left me feeling pretty flat.

Blue Exorcist is available on AnimeLab.

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Blue Exorcist Episode 36

Posted on by Karandi
blue36

Review:

The fragmented nature of this show continued this week with Yukio and Todo kind of finishing their fight (though Todo seems pretty unkillable at this point so not really sure if they are really done or not) and then Rin finally did something with his sword. This show is always at its best when we have the characters mid-action so the episode this week was actually kind of satisfying though still lacked any of the spectacle from season 1. Rin gaining some control was nice but the believe-in-yourself message just feel at odds with the overall tone of this show (though there is nothing new given it has been a persistent theme throughout). But, having not read the manga, my real question is what is the next episode going to focus on. There’s at least a half-dozen loose ends that could be dealt with but it doesn’t really have time for all of them given next week is meant to be the last episode. So either we’re hitting wait for the sequel territory or worse, read the manga.

Blue Exorcist is available on AnimeLab.

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Blue Exorcist Episode 35

Posted on by Karandi
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Review:

Blue Exorcist is a good example of why shows should just try to tell their story and wrap it up. Whether there is a bigger world or other stories that could be explored is neither here nor there because the whole point of stories is to entertain. Season 2 of Blue Exorcist has failed at almost every point to actually entertain. Once you get the initial happy that the show is back and you just look at this arc on its own merit you realise that very little good has come from the characters or the plot and in point of fact some of the characters have lost what little drive they had. Essentially, we have a cast carried over and a new problem dropped on them but no focus at all. But that’s not reviewing this episode so moving on.

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My favourite parts of this episode came from Yukio and Todo’s confrontation. I’m kind of glad that Yukio’s plan wasn’t successful in the end because it seemed too easy after Todo had been hanging around for that long. Still, that confrontation was getting close to entertaining even if Todo is now mocking the exorcists for having meetings mid-battle. Seriously, it doesn’t make the fact that you’ve made us sit through all those committee meetings better if you are self-aware of it. Fix your story telling.

My least favourite moments came watching Suguro and Rin. Mostly because everything going on up there is delay for the moment Rin draws his sword. An inevitable event from the start of this battle and really they did drag this out. A lot. And what makes it worse was that there was nothing that actually triggered the change in the end. Can’t draw it, can’t draw it, we’re talking, pep talk, can’t draw it, internal monologue, wow, it suddenly came out. It’s such a cheap plot device when used in this manner and there’s no tension in the scene because you know that either Rin’s going to draw the sword before Suguro actually gets hurt or the wonderful exorcist doctors will fix him up anyway.

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Blue Exorcist Episode 34

Posted on by Karandi
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Review:

You would think now that they’ve all got their assignments and the battle is on that the excessive group chats would have ended, but Blue Exorcist is very attached to lengthy dialogue at this point. Each pair or group have plenty of time for heart to heart conversations usually right before they get surprised by an actual attack from the enemy they are supposed to be fighting.

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That doesn’t actually make this episode bad, but it does make the pace a little choppy as we switch between groups, wait for their conversation (while they half-heartedly swat at the enemy), and wait for the inevitable life threatening danger to befall them. The shame is that some of these moments are quite revealing as characters are connecting and finally being truthful about how they feel and yet because they get just one moment before we move to fighting or a different pair, each of these moments feels squashed by a narrative that has wasted a lot of air time and now feels like its trying to compensate by having every poignant character moment in one episode.

Shiemi finally succeeding at a summoning this episode was a moment that should have got more attention than it did. Rin and Suguro needed more time to really bond, you know after fighting for over a season and a half. Not to mention, Suguro was going through the whole my father is nearly dead, I’ve been entrusted with this chant, I’m not even sure I know how to do it moment, but rather than build any tension around that he just casts the spell and we move to the next thing. Even Shima had a half-decent character moment that was utterly crushed in the rush of the episode.

Oh well, I’m not expecting anything much from this show at this point and it is still watchable so I’ll stop complaining and just wait for the next episode. And no, I’m not ignoring Yukio’s moment, but I completely ran out of words about two paragraphs ago so I’ll see what happens next week and comment then.

Blue Exorcist is available on AnimeLab.

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