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Blue Exorcist would enter its second half the following week with episode 13 basically acting as Shura’s proper introduction, showing off all her assets while also testing Rin to see if he is a threat to humanity. Things continued on as normal with the True Cross students going on a camping trip an episode or two later. During this camping trip, during a fight with Amaimon, Rin’s sword is cracked and he becomes engulfed in his blue flames and becomes enraged. His secret of being the son of Satan is revealed to the rest of his classmates and with that, the anime leaves behind the source material and has gone fully into an anime-only plotline.
(Shura Kirigakure and her “assets”)
I don’t think I have ever mentioned my thoughts on anime-only stories or “filler” before. My thoughts are that I do not mind them, and I think anime original arcs or stories are fine if they are done well. For example, the 2003 Fullmetal Alchemist series, while it did adapt parts of the manga, it told its own story and was successful. I find that when done well, it can elevate the original source material and put its own personal spin or even putting unique touches belonging to the director on the material. It’s like a good movie adaptation of a book. Sure, maybe it wasn’t faithful, but it did make the media more accessible to a wider audience and is celebrated for it.
However, when material is poorly adapted, it can make the viewing experience worse when it fundamentally misses the point of that source material and its cast while also being poorly structured. Sadly, Blue Exorcist falls into that bad category, which is sad because there were some filler episodes in the first half and for the most part, they were fine. A lot of its issues boil down to the problems I mentioned previously, where a lot of the characters act way off than the way they normally would. Either characters go against their character archetype that was introduced at the beginning, or they come up with stupid conflicts that don’t make any sense.
For example, in episode nineteen, the whole episode was about setting up a surprise party for Izumo. I know I complained about her earlier, but in this episode, she’s insufferable. She’s way too mean and bitchy and when she finds out about a surprise party, a party being thrown for her, she scoffs at it. I get she’s like the tsundere character type, but having moments of levity while also adding more to her character beyond being one note could go a long way to add some personality to the anime-only content. I will say the highlight of that episode is when Rin makes a Christmas cake and both Rin and Yukio find out that it’s not the same thing as a birthday cake. That was a cute and funny joke. Outside of that, the whole episode is kind of blah. I guess it does set up the end game of where this series would originally conclude, but I find it could’ve done a better job setting that all up in either another episode or it being the main plot point for that week instead of focusing on a birthday party for a character I don’t really like.
A few episodes later we get introduced to Yukio’s grandfather, who was created specifically for this anime adaptation and doesn’t make a reappearance anywhere else in the series as far as I am aware. Technically, you see him in the first episode of the show, but he gets a proper introduction in the back half and I guess you can consider him the antagonist of this anime-only arc. He really detests Satan. So much so that he is willing to sacrifice his own grandson, Rin, in order to unlock the gates of Gahena and summon the lord of the underworld himself. He’s a detestable character, but not in the same way as a character like the priest in Disney’s Hunchback of Notre Dame was. He’s just unlikable in an ugly way. I would say he goes too far with trying to kill Rin just to get what he wants, but he is so blinded by his hatred of Satan that he goes as far to disown his own daughter who fell in love with the king of demons.
Speaking of that disownment, in a flashback episode in the back half of Blue Exorcist, we see Yukio and Rin’s mother Yuri fall in love with Satan because despite him causing havoc on Earth, deep down he isn’t a “bad” guy. Despite the fact that Satan is the literal reason why temples and villages were burned down due to his blue flames, I suppose he had his reasons. I’m not opposed to stories making Satan more than just pure evil. In Lucifer, he’s more of a slimy, rich playboy who is curious about the human world, more or less. That offers not only a charming protagonist/anti-hero, but when the series does shift more into showing his otherworldly powers, they know to never go too far over the edge with it. But with Blue Exorcist, it’s Yuri having a minute conversation with him, and concluding “You’re alright. I like you and will protect you.” What I find the worst in these flashbacks is how they handle Shirō Fujimoto, Rin and Yukio’s “dad”. In previous flashbacks, they always showed how caring he was towards demons, never going far to exterminate them but coming to terms and understanding them. But in these flashbacks, he’s very trigger-happy and unwilling to compromise to them. That’s fundamentally missing the point of this character. The reason why Rin and Yukio look up to Shiro is because of his kindness, not only to humans but demons as well. They want to make the world a better place because that’s what Shiro would have wanted. I guess they wanted to give a reason as to why he is the way he is, but I feel like the anime fundamentally missed the point.
Honestly, going back to Blue Exorcist’s second half a decade later is just funny. This series was produced at a time when anime projects that weren’t long running shonen were only greenlit for a season and would never come back. It’s in stark contrast to today where even the smallest of shows are getting more episodes produced. I think a lot of that has to do with how anime has become a global force outside of Japan, in which production committees see value in making more episodes of a series. It’s hilarious to know that these back episodes of Blue Exorcist season one would essentially be retconned out of the series when the show would eventually return in 2017 to properly adapt the actual major arc of the series, the Kyoto Saga. While Toonami itself wouldn’t get to run that arc until more recently, from the episodes I have watched of season two, it’s a return to what I loved about Blue Exorcist. The strong character moments, the amount of heart and emotional moments the series can have, and just being good fun. Maybe as a shonen series, it doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it’s a good show. That’s where I stand with Blue Exorcist as a whole. It’s a good series. The only issue I have is that the back half is an antiquated relic of a bygone era. I can only recommend watching Blue Exorcist season one, up to episode sixteen as the rest of it is just painfully mediocre. It’s hard to tell where Toonami will go from here but I do hope Blue Exorcist is here to stay and I hope where the story goes from here takes it to some interesting places.
