Blue Exorcist (Review)

Blue Exorcist Will Make You Thankful Your Dad Wasn’t a Jerk.

Life can be pretty rough if you’re the son on the devil. At least, that’s the premise of Blue Exorcist. Luckily for humanity, though, the devil’s kid, Rin, is much more interested in socking his old man in the face rather than joining him. So Rin goes off to follow in his adoptive father’s footsteps and becomes an exorcist with his brainy twin brother.

Blue Exorcist is produced by A-1 Pictures, with Hitoshi Okamura at the helm, which explains the beautiful animation and how much fun the series is. Despite tackling such satanic themes, the series manages to stay very lighthearted, which really evens out its tone. Rin never really lives up to his potential and struggles to pass his exorcism classes, but he proves to be an incredible asset when it comes to getting his hands dirty, thanks to his blue flames and katana.

At first, it seems like Blue Exorcist is going to be one of those series based on teams doing battles with a weekly enemy, but the series never falls into that pit. There is a lot of chemistry between the characters, especially as it becomes clearer and clearer that Rin has to keep his true father a secret. Though most of the characters take a back seat to Rin and his brother, Yukio, the others get their moments to shine as episodes take the time to reveal their inner motivations.

I really enjoyed watching Blue Exorcist, especially because of how animated the main character is. He’s hot-headed, and he always looks before he leaps, very much like Naruto Uzumaki from the series Naruto. However, Rin has a much better design and depth to him that underscores the great design of the series as a whole. I loved how much personality director Tensai Okamura packed into his characters without going over the top (after all, most of them just wear variations on a school uniform). And don’t get me started on how awesome the villains of the series look.

I will admit that the end of the series seemed rushed; it almost comes out of nowhere. While it feels like the series was working toward an end, the last five episodes or so moved at breakneck speed to get to the end, and some of the events that transpire are done in a confusing manner. On a few occasions, I had to go back and try to remember how the characters got where they were in the first place. Not only that, but the final showdown a little anticlimactic. I mean, it supposed to be the epic confrontation with Satan. There should have been more to it than there was. (And for those of you shouting “spoiler,” you see that coming from episode one.)

Everything up until the end, though, is a lot of fun to watch, and I think that if it had the ability to stretch for a little bit longer, this could have been a really incredible series. Blue Exorcist is a lot of fun. It’s the type of series you watch for the characters. However, it’s not one that was given enough time to fit everything it needed to say into the series. I’m not really sure why it was only given 25 episodes, because I definitely would have loved to see a second season. Still, the point where it ended seemed pretty appropriate and left a smile on my face. If you’re looking for a filler anime series, Blue Exorcist is an awesome one. It’s really familiar, but it still does everything right.