Blue Exorcist is my new favorite anime on Toonami. It feels like a throwback to classic bishonen that I haven't seen in a while. I mean, the big three started that way, but they've kind of strayed, and it's refreshing to see someone get back to basics, at least for now until they go silly too. But Blue Exorcist has something the others don't, RPG character classes! But I'm getting ahead of myself, let's start at the beginning, by which I mean the first four episodes, because the first two episodes don't really really give you a good feel and episode three is all transition, so it's not until episode four that we really have any idea what's going on.
Blue Exorcist focuses on the brothers Okumara, Rin and Yukio. They are orphans raised in a monastery, twins as different as can be, total opposites, Goofus and Gallant. Yukio is preparing to attend a prestigious private school while Rin is looking to hold the same part time job for more than one day. Rin gets a job at a grocery store and struggles, failing at everything until he gives a hand with the free samples and finds his one skill seems to be cooking and he can prepare samples that keep customers happy. His boss tells him he can come back tomorrow and his family is proud of him. It's kind of sad though, that they tell Rin that they will celebrate him getting the ever-elusive second day at the same job along side Yukio getting into True Cross Academy. The only thing sadder than how obviously lower the standards are for Rin is that he is genuinely happy, not because he's too stupid to realize it's kind of an insult, but because he realizes he's the screw up and he's relieved to actually do something right for the first time in his life. Sadly this happy ending to a mundane story does not last. Rin sees a little girl complaing about being harrassed by a little monster that only she and Rin can see. Rin tries to help her by getting rid of the monster but he just ends up looking like a fool and gets fired. On the way home he is accosted by a gang, and the leader suddenly grows horns and fangs and his voice gets a deep echo, identifying himself as a demon who will bring Rin to his father Satan. Rin has absolutely no idea what's going on and his adoptive father shows up and exorcises the demon attacking Rin. Changing over to the second episode, Rin learns that he is the son of Satan and that demons will be coming for him now, and the powers he inherited have been sealed with a sword that will allow him to be an ordinary human as long as it's not drawn from it's sheath. Rin's father, Shiro, makes a mistake in how he words this information leading Rin to feel he was never loved and storms off saying "You're not my father! Stop pretending that you are!" Shiro's heart breaks hearing this and the devil takes advantage of his moment of weakness by possessing him. It turns out shiro has been holding off possession by Satan by sheer willpower to protect the brothers and hearing Rin's cruel words caused him to falter long enough to allow a demon invasion. Interestingly, all the clergy are exorcists with special powers to fight the demons. In the midst of this, Satan, speaking through Shiro, tries to get Rin to go to Gehenna, his realm. Shiro manages to get control long enough to sacrfice himself to stop Satan "Rin is my son, I won't let you have him!" are Shiro's last words. Satan desperately opens a portal hoping to drag Rin to Hell, but Rin draws the demon-slaying sword to cut the ties that bind the portal and stop the demon invasion. At Shiro's funeral, Rin calls a number that Shiro said would provide him with help. The call is answered by Mephisto Pheles who says that he and his team of exorcists are here to eliminate Rin. Rin has three options, "Kill the exorcists, be killed, or surrender." Rin replies that he wants to join the exorcists, and when asked why he says the best line ever "I'm gonna kick Satan's ass!"
In the third episode, Rin is invited to join True Cross Academy with his brother Yukio. Rin is told there is a secret school for exorcists and he will be going there. Rin has learned that while he and Yukio are in fact twin brothers, only Rin inherited Satan's power and Yukio, despit having the same parentage, has no demon traits of his own. Rin believes his brother is innocent and this is all his problem to deal with alone-until he finds out that Yukio is his first instructor at the Cram School for exorcists. There is a breif moment of tension where it could go all Inuyasha where one brother hates the other, Yukio could envy his brother's power or hate him for destroying their family, but instead they get it all out of their system while fighting goblins that Rin accidentally summoned and very quickly settle down and allow their brotherly love to overcome all. It turns out when you spend your whole life growing up with your brother, a little thing like learning one of you is Satan's heir and the other is a prodigy demon slayer and you should be mortal enemies by nature isn't enough to erase all that came before.
The next few episodes introduce the supporting cast, including Shiemi, a shy young girl who can tame plant demons, Ryuji, a rival for Rin who also wants to "kick Satan's ass" for destroying his temple, his two cronies, Renzo and Konekomaru, who surprisingly are quite friendly with Rin despite how much their de facto leader seems to hate him, and Izumo, another demon tamer who is basically a bitch. I mean, I guess the girl has her reasons, but she somes off as a pretentious bitch, but even her familiars don't buy it and it takes time for her to even get control of them. What is most interesting right now is the fact that they are each choosing specialties that sound like classes in an MMORPG. Rin is leaning towards Knight(tank) because of his sword, Yukio is a Dragoon(damage dealer) and a Doctor(healer), Shiemi and Izumo are Tamers(crowd control/buff) Ryuji and his cronies want to be Arias(debuff spellcaster) which seem the most boring because theyjust recite scriptures to dispatch demons, though it does prove effective. Last week they even referred to their group as a party, which lads me to expect that the next episode will deal with HP/MP/GP/XP. Seriously, even though I joke about how cheesy it is at this stage, I am very curious to see where they go with this because it's not entirely different from my approach to 7th Moon and it will indicate how receptive audiences will be to my project. Also, this is some funny stuff, and funny on purpose because it's witty. I mean, there is just no end to the amount of humor you can get out of reluctant demonspawn who have no evil inclinations and desire only to help people rather than hurt them. If I did a good job of letting you know how cool this show is, tune in at 1:30AM on Toonami Saturday nights and check it out. If I didn't sell you on it, watch anyway to decide for yourself and tweet about your favorite arts with #BlueExorcist.
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