It’s time for the return of Blue Exorcist. This series has always been a bit of a mystery to me. On one hand, it’s a big Shonen title where the main character has to fight off his demonic urges and slay demons. It’s very much a classic king of plot but the execution is just so different. Sometimes in a good way but sometimes in a bad way. I’ve never really connected with the series as well as most other big Shonen titles and that doesn’t really change here either. It’s a good season but not great by any means. It’s not quite as interesting as it should be and the action always gets cut off way too quickly. Well, lets dive into this.

Yukio is still jealous of Rin’s abilities and now that he is getting a glimpse of his own demonic potential, he wants power. He continues to try and repress his desires but the facade is starting to crack and he doesn’t want to talk to anyone about it. There’s not much time to think about this though as the Illuminati attacks and kidnaps Kamiki. She is taken by Shima, a double agent working for this group. Naturally the Illuminati is led by Lucifer himself. Note that Lucifer is another son of Satan and brother to Mephisto. This group will be difficult to defeat especially Mephisto sandbagging as always and the Exorcist Order being generally useless. Rin and Yukio will have to take point in rescuing her but can they move on from this big betrayal?

Naturally this is a really huge deal if you have been following the series for a long time although the anime took so long to get up to this point that I wouldn’t be surprised if most people have already heard about this whole thing. It’s not exactly the biggest secret in the series, you know what I mean? The reactions to it are very odd though. The characters get over the betrayal way too easily which is a personal pet peeve of mine. This guy literally broke all of their trust and kidnapped Kamiki so she could be tortured over and over again like in the past by a group that is clearly evil.

I think this is more than a “Do better next time” kind of speech. He should be absolutely demolished, I’d expect him to be destroyed on sight the next time that he is seen. Is that harsh? Yeah maybe but I would also argue that it is absolutely deserved. The characters are constantly using kid gloves on Shima and it doesn’t really make sense. The show goes into the specifics here and throws some more twists into the mix but none of it overrides the fact that Kamiki was very close to being dead. She had her summons get destroyed and while they managed to come back later, she was consistently put in a rough spot.

It’s why undercover operations are often not a good idea. Even if it’s part of a mission, you can’t be putting your allies in danger or sitting back while others are attacked. If you let one person get murdered to save 100, then you are starting to make dangerous decisions that are in villain territory. So I never ended up liking Shima and still blame him for everything. I’m also a little upset at the other characters allowing him back in because that makes no sense to me. Definitely a massive L right there.

Rin also doesn’t look his best here. He’s going through the classic hero issue of not wanting to murder anyone so he holds back a lot but you can always knock someone out without murdering them. It also gets to be a little much when he is also nervous even when fighting mindless monsters. Just take the super slow zombies down, there’s nothing you can really do to save them at this point. It’s also an annoying part of Blue Exorcist because every time we’re primed for a big right with Rin, it either doesn’t happen or he holds back so hard that it’s not a real fight.

Realistically he should be mopping the floor with most of the characters but it just doesn’t happen. He’s also scared of his powers enough where he doesn’t train the way that he’s supposed to. How is he supposed to protect his friends when he’s holding back like this? The whole power system of the series isn’t great either. The prayer chants never seem to work and are incredibly impractical. Unless you have someone like Rin or Kamiki backing you up to buy you time, the villains are going to slam you. It just makes over half of the cast feel rather useless most of the time. Everyone should have some close quarter combat skills or at least a big summon you know?

Okay back to the characters, Yukio is super annoying here as well. Part of this isn’t his fault because the guy’s had to go through the same character arc multiple times since the anime only arc was retconned and of course I remember this from the manga. So it just gets old quick where he is messing up his priorities and becoming a liability. If he would just talk to Rin about what’s going on things would work out better. So I put all of the blame on Yukio since he’s taking himself down the wrong path. It’s not even like the villains are encouraging this, Yukio is really leading himself downhill all on his own.

As for the main heroine Shiemi, right now there’s a lot of drama going on with her. She seems to like Yukio but is starting to like Rin. Possible triangle forming there, we’ll have to see how it goes. For now Shiemi is still way too timid and I would like her to acknowledge her own strength more. Her grass summon is really not that bad and can at least buy her some time. She has no real offensive spells but at least she can play a support role.

In that way she is more balanced than Kamiki. Kamiki has her dual spirits but they don’t even listen to her half the time because they’re tremendously awful characters who refuse to honor any kind of loyalty to her despite having high respect for Kamiki’s mom and put her in big danger. Kamiki has basic spells beyond that but as I pointed out before, this never works anyway so it may as well be a pointless addition. I like Kamiki’s fiery spirit but hopefully she will work with the other heroes more next time and not try to be a loner. Being a loner only works when you have the power to back it up.

Suguro is the only one who actually gives Shima a hard time so I give him massive credit for that. He sticks up for the traitor so that he’s not executed or anything like that but still doesn’t trust him. That’s how it should be, I still don’t get how you could possibly trust him in any context after what happened. That just makes no sense to me. Suguro is really held back by the fact that he can’t fight at all without the talismans so I hope he gets something soon.

Miwa tends to be a bit of an annoying character. Kind of wishy washy and never too sure of himself. Unlike Shiemi he has no great powers to help him out so right now he’s on the lower side from the cast members. Shura doesn’t do much beyond her obligatory teasing of Yukio. She is mainly injured for most of the season and when she is conscious she is being threatened by Mephisto. Honestly she is in such a terrible spot half the time. She needs to find a way to get stronger so she can actually have some freedom.

As the big villain in the Illuminati you’d figure that Lucifer would get a lot of hype but he’s very underwhelming for now. He’s super sickly and constantly coughing up blood and running out of energy. I feel like Mephisto could wipe him out of existence with ease and is just messing around because he can. It looks like the heroes are going to wait until Lucifer finds a cure and can fight at full power before they make their move so the Exorcists are as inept as always. I’ll need to see more of Lucifer to take him seriously.

His main general was one of those fat psycho doctors which doesn’t do his group any justice. That guy was super annoying so I was glad when he was taken out. Definitely one of the worst villains in the series. The backstory for Kamiki’s family was definitely a sad one. This season sure had more of an emotional feel than the last one. No offense to Suguro but his family drama wasn’t nearly as impactful. This one hits a bit harder because of how so much of it felt inevitable with no real escape.

Finally with Mephisto, he is still a solid villain but the kind of figure who could go way down depending on how his plan goes. Right now we don’t really know what he even wants to do. He clearly has enough power to bring the world to its knees so why doesn’t he? He has deals with the shady council of Exorcists but why would he even need such weaklings? We’ll find out in time but if he ends up getting one shotted or the plan doesn’t go well then retroactively it will make him such a terrible villain. Usually the more convoluted and far out your plan is, the more things that can go wrong. So he will really have to convince me here.

In general a lot of the story is still shrouded in secrecy. In part I would say that’s because we’re seeing things from the point of view of the main characters who are out of the loop on everything. We don’t really have any characters who are on the inside to give us full coverage into what’s going on. You like to think that the Exorcists have a bunch of trump cards at their disposal but I have my doubts on this. Right now it just feels like the demons have all of the advantages and the heroes’ only chance is to trust one which is rough. Rin is their only chance.

In terms of animation, the show can look good but it can also be rough at times. It’s clear that this didn’t exactly get a massive budget. It’s a shame because none of the fights look all that amazing. The best battle in the series is probably Rin vs Shima and part of that is probably more for narrative reasons than animation. I’m glad we at least get some action but it again feels like the show could be doing so much more. In the last season the big boss was a giant monster and of course we get more of that here too.

I want the show to just embrace its Shonen roots and give us some massive action scenes. Lets get some really cool feats in here and some awesome stuff you know? At least the soundtrack is really good as always. This is one area where the show has always excelled. I thought the theme song was really catchy and I also like a lot of the individual tracks. My favorite theme from season 1 only shows up like once but the new themes are good too. There’s a solid amount of variety and I felt like this got the biggest budget in the show.

While the show may not always deliver on the action front, I do think it does pretty well on the slice of life and comedy aspects. It’s a show where we actually get to see the heroes in school quite a lot. We see them learning and everything as there tends to be a lot of downtime. The gag of Rin dressing up like Shima was absolutely top tier as well. That gag actually works really well and made for a lot of fun moments. The obligatory beach type episode was also not as fanservicey as it could have been.

In general the show doesn’t go too far into that but some of the outfits are definitely geared in that direction. The romance is on the weaker side though as it all tends to feel a bit melodramatic. I feel like it’s going in a similar direction to Seraph of the End with the characters trying to hold in their emotions and everything but Seraph of the End pulls it off so much better because of how direct it is. This one’s trying to sort of be half in and half out so the romance is more annoying than anything.

Overall, Blue Exorcist had some good fights and plot twists but it’s just hard to get into the series the way the author wants you to. It feels like its just taking too much time to move forward in the plot. The fact that all of the heroes have to work with the villains because they are too weak to oppose him is also annoying. I mean it’s interesting in a sense but there doesn’t seem to be a way for them to surpass Mephisto. The power system of this world just makes that impossible for all of them except Rin who needs to get his head straight. It’s almost like a horror film where the heroes don’t stand a chance. The only other title I can think of like this is Seraph of the End where the heroes are always super doomed but at least the power system is much more supernatural so you could easily write in massive power boosts. We’ll see where the series goes from here though, hopefully Rin can finally start fighting more. There is already an exhausting amount of world building so lets move on to the big plot developments now. Either way the show does go fast though and the characters are entertaining so that will have to do for now.

Overall 6/10