I'm starting to pick up the pace again so keep checking in.
90. Konosuba
With all the most recent fantasy epics relying on hyper competent heroes it's a refreshing change of pace to see a series with pathetic excuses for heroes particularly Aqua who steals the show in pathetic.
89. Angelic Layer
Clamp's only real shonen title makes brilliant work of fight choreography that can compete with the best of that genre, all of that from a show about dolls.
88. 08th Mobile Suit Team
Gundam has it's fair share of takes on war but when it came to making it more realistic the first to conquer realism closer to real life feelings of war is the 8th Mobile Suit Team, a desperate band of mercenaries trying to prevent the Gundam being discovered.
87. Blue Exorcist
If you're the son of the dark lord of all evil and you become a target of unfair hatred then what do you do? Become an Exorcist and declare war on Satan. An anime that really teaches you to stand up for yourself.
86. Excel Saga
The parody series that put anime comedy on the map, if it existed before year 2000 it was made fun of, all through the eyes of an evil dictators bonkers minions wait a minute. Excel, Minion oh god Minions ripped off Excel Saga.
So having reviewed the series Blue Exorcist time to look at the movie.
The story begins with a storybook as a flashback sees Fujimoto read a story about a demon who got everyone to stop working and have fun leading to the demise of the village until an exorcist drove the demon away, from then every 11 years a festival celebrates this event and guess what, that's happening in this movie.
Before the festivities can begin, Rin Shiemi and Yukio are after a sinister Demon Train but a series of events cause part of the city to collapse releasing a rabbit demon child from a shrine.
As the barrier is being restored demon attacks start becoming more common while Rin is forced to look after the demon child having taken blame for screwing up the mission but while Rin and the rabbit demon bond it becomes more apparant that the rabbit demon is causing these problems.
The story was careful not to play the same card that it's been playing the whole series which is of course, demon bad, must kill, while it technically still does, it tries not to make it too much about that and focus more on the humanity and bonding between Rin and the Demon Rabbit Child, however while I like the direction and risk that it took to not play the obvious Shonen mistake and just make a giant battle, it did take up it's entire budget showing off how much it can fit on screen and not look like a giant graphic mess, don't get me wrong, it's impressive but it's just distracting.
Dub feels more polished this time and I don't appreciate the baiting in making me read the manga by introducing characters not due to appear yet. Yes I am aware that there is a season 2 airing at writing time, I write that in the sense that it hadn't been announced yet and it was still 2012.
Final Verdict: A nice change of pace from the boring overused Shonen movie plotline but spoiled a bit by it's ambition to try and make a graphical masterpiece.
Previously on this review channel, I lost faith in anime following Magic Kyun Renaissance and I wanted to find an anime to restore my faith, to test it, I chose Blue Exorcist.
One night during an exorcism, blue flames consumed the many priests during the ceremony, this was the work of Satan himself. 15 years pass and Rin Okumura, a delinquent discovers he is the son of Satan following a tragic night that sees his adoptive father Fujimoto die in the same blue flames of Satan.
After calling on a charismatic demon named Mephisto, Rin declares that he will kick Satan's ass; amused, Mephisto agrees to take in the spawn of Satan but a thorny path awaits Rin on his journey in becoming an Exorcist, especially when his younger twin brother is his teacher.
So having gone into this series blind I wasn't sure what to expect but what I saw was actually quite enjoyable, the pacing was good, the comedy was refreshing, it's really good at tugging at the heart strings and rather than make Rin a complete delinquent they gave him a good skill to not make him look like every other character of his type. Mephisto is the most intriguing character since Xellos Metallium, Shura comes in completely left field but the show benefits from it, heck Yukio despite being a killjoy is a lot more welcoming than other characters of his type.
But there's a glaring elephant in the room and quite a large one, it can't seem to stray from it's most basic premise, which of course is Rin is the spawn of Satan, line up to try and kill him and it took 26 episodes to break free of it, which is lazy writing when you leave so many unanswered questions from so many other characters.
What is Mephisto's real goal?
Why does Shiemi's power come so easy to her?
What's the deal with Izumo's past?
Who is the kid with the Puppet?
Is Shura human or demon?
While most of these questions are simple to answer and I dare say the Kyoto arc currently airing will help but the big one of course is Mephisto himself and his goal, I want to know but it keeps getting slapped away by the story reminding me that Rin is the Spawn of Satan someone wants to kill him. YES I KNOW!!!!! Give me a proper story damn it.
Dub is comfortable but can be a little weak in places
So has this restored my faith in anime? Yes, a little bit but the jury is still out on the subject for now and at the very least I want to continue watching this series to see if it gets better.
Final Verdict: If Blue Exorcist can resolve it's overly basic plot then it can achieve a much higher standing among other anime and with season 2 airing, there's time to improve.
