Hello and welcome to Anime Rants! Today, I’m reviewing the first episode of the new third season of Blue Exorcist (Ao no Futsumashi). In the future, I won’t cover each episode individually. Rather, I’ll take 2-3 episodes at a time every few weeks. To start off with, however, I felt like writing a “first impressions” post to respond to the pilot episode. Draw your swords and tuck your tails in, because it’s time to fight some demons!
Part 1: Episode Recap
Even though Rin is attending an elite academy run by exorcists, the general student body still doesn’t know about demons. Even if they believe in such things, humans usually won’t be able to see them. Rin has been seeing them a long time now, so he’s mostly adjusted to random demons in school. But one of his classmates, a normal human named Sei Godaiin, suddenly gains the ability to see demons, too. It’s extremely rough on him and he suffers several panic attacks.
To help his new friend, Rin goes to see Mephisto, hoping he has a solution that would let Godaiin stop seeing such scary things. Mephisto had asked Rin to come to his quarters anyway to discuss a different matter. Once they are seated at the table together over some ramen, Mephisto uses magic to transport their minds into the dimension of Gehenna. He finally reveals to Rin that he’s a demon – and not just any demon, but the second most powerful in Gehenna.
Rin freaks out a little and tries to attack, but Mephisto easily overpowers him by touching his tail and stealing his sword. But Mephisto isn’t trying to hurt Rin, so he takes their minds back to Assiah and returns the blade. He then tells Rin there’s a new exorcist mission to clear: banishing the evil spirits that have been hanging out near the portrait hall in the academy. In return for the exorcism, Mephisto will give Rin some eyedrops that will block the perception of demons for Godaiin.
After gathering his fellow exorcist friends, Rin goes to the portrait collection area. Mephisto tells them the core of these evil spirits is a picture titled “Family Portrait.” Mephisto points to what he thinks is the painting responsible, but strangely, it only shows an image of one woman. Regardless, Mephisto vanishes, leaving the work to Rin and his friends. Ever impulsive, Rin slices the painting in half. In response, a huge swarm of tiny, colorful demons appear.
At first, everyone is confused, because when you look at the tiny demons, they latch onto your mind and make you see the things that frighten you the most. For instance, Rin suddenly sees a lonely world where his friends reject him as the spawn of Satan. Luckily, Konekomaru pulls Rin and everyone else inside a barrier that will temporarily protect them. Koneko then explains that this type of demon is called a shapeshifter, and in order to see its real body (which controls the swarm of tiny demons), magic is needed.
With Konekomaru taking charge as the strategist, the friends get back into action. Shiemi summons a bush with magical berries that let humans see the shapeshifter’s real form. It’s a very ugly demon indeed. As the main spellcaster, Suguro concentrates on maintaining the group’s protection. Rin and Shima fend off the tiny demons that try to pass through the barrier. Meanwhile, Konekomaru instructs Izumo to use her powerful exorcism spells on the shapeshifter’s core body.
Mephisto apparently had it wrong. The “Family Portrait” was actually a collection of four paintings which each show a different family member. Rin destroyed the first one earlier. Konekomaru quickly locates the other three and shouts directions to Izumo, Shima, and Rin. Timing their attacks perfectly, these three destroy the paintings and exorcise the demon. Nobody got hurt, and the group’s teamwork has greatly improved. Best of all, Rin gets the promised eyedrops to give to Godaiin.
Far away, in the country of Yemen, Arthur August Angel is with a strange man named Lightning, fighting a demon. The Paladin easily takes down the enemy, which was called the Impure Princess. (She had connections to the Impure King from season 2.) Before dying, the Impure Princess ominously proclaims that the eyes of all humans will soon be opened. Arthur doesn’t seem concerned. He’s too busy being salty about the fact that Satan’s son exorcised the Impure King before he could. Pleasant fellow.
Back in Japan, Rin gives the eyedrops to Godaiin before rejoining his friends for a celebratory group dinner. The son of Satan feels happy and grateful to be with friends who don’t reject him. Meanwhile, Mephisto watches the city from his tower. He contemplates the fact that the border between Assiah and Gehenna is getting blurry. As the demons gain more power, an increasing number of humans will be able to see them. Chaos is about to unfold. To be continued.
Part 2: Responses and Thoughts
The pilot episode was surprisingly good. I didn’t expect it to be so engaging. In addition, it served as a recap on the personalities of Rin and his friends. The main plot seems to be that the border between the human world and the demon world is becoming thinner. This is happening due to increased demon influence in the world, which is probably where the “Shimane Illuminati” come into play. (We don’t know who they are yet.) Given how distressing it is to see demons, I expect there is going to be a lot of chaos soon.
Let me go over some production quality notes. Audio comes first. We didn’t hear the ending song yet, but the opening is “Eye’s Sentry” by Uverworld. This Japanese rock band became popular with anime fans after performing several opening songs, such as “Odd Future” for My Hero Academia. Like most of their songs, “Eye’s Sentry” mixes hard rock with electronic style plus a dose of saxophone. I enjoyed this new opening as well as the instrumental music, which was composed by Kohta Yamamoto and Hiroyuki Sawano.
(In the case the video below gets removed by YouTube, this was the OST main theme of Blue Exorcist season 3, composed by Hiroyuki Sawano. If the video is removed, just look up some Blue Exorcist OST from Hiroyuki Sawano’s YouTube channel. It’s all beautiful.)
Also for audio notes, it was really good to hear so many of my favorite Japanese voice actors come together for these old roles once again. I literally know almost every voice on this cast. All of them are amazing, so I could never pick just one or two to talk about. But while I would love to ramble about the excellent voice-acting in Blue Exorcist, that’s not really the point of my post. Plus, it would take a small essay. Let’s instead briefly discuss the visuals in this new season of Blue Exorcist.
The studio that animated the first and second seasons was A-1 Pictures. But the new third season was picked up by studio Voln. That’s why there was a slight style change in the way the characters look. I don’t yet see any evidence that this animation is distinctly worse in quality; it’s just different. So far, the lighting, animation, face expressions, and other elements have been good. We’re not talking Jujutsu Kaisen level good, but it’s more than satisfactory for a lower-budget shounen.
I’ve got one more note on the visuals. It looked like some time and effort really went into the design of the shapeshifter’s main body and its accompanying swarm of little demons. The small creatures were multi-colored and tracked paint droplets wherever they walked. That’s fitting for demons possessing a set of paintings. I loved the way these demon minions were animated. As for the shapeshifter’s main body, I don’t know what it was supposed to be. Still, it was a decent design.
This pilot episode did a great job refreshing audiences on the personalities of Rin and the other characters. We saw how Rin can be incredibly kind to others. He’s such a sweetheart despite his lack of traditional manners and his loud, impulsive nature. He’s not the brightest kid, but he’s sincere. What Rin fears most at the current time is rejection, which I think anyone can understand. When he’s reminded of how his friends care about him, Rin has the most adorable, goofy smile.
There was some good character development in this episode for Konekomaru. He saved Rin from the fear hallucination and then took charge of the group in a way he had never done before. He’s an impressive strategist. Suguro has also grown up quite a bit, standing his ground even when Rin teasingly insulted him. I know she’s not a popular character, but I like Izumo Kamiki and I love the seiyuu who plays her. So it was good to see her again. I still have no clue what’s up with Takara (bunny puppet boy). Weird.
On a final note, it’s also good to see Mephisto again. He can be a real scumbag, but somehow, he’s still one of my favorite anime characters with grey morality. I don’t know exactly what he’s plotting, but I hope it won’t involve harming humans. Anyway, that’s about all for today. As always, I appreciate your readership.
Thanks for reading~
PATREON
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