Ao no Exorcist: Shimane Illuminati-hen

At True Cross Academy, Rin Okumura unknowingly comes across the first signs that something is amiss; ordinary people have been gaining the ability to perceive the invisible creatures that roam the human realm, Assiah. While Rin sees this as an opportunity to make a new friend, his twin brother, Yukio, is more burdened than ever. Swamped with his education, exorcist duties, and teaching position, Yukio has remained silent about his awakened powers, unable to understand their scale or significance.

While Rin and his friends prepare for the annual Exorcist Certification Exam, the True Cross Order has uncovered the first artificial gate to the demonic realm of Gehenna. Witnessing its size and the advanced technology that made it possible, the exorcists realize they are now dealing with the Illuminati, an extremely wealthy and powerful organization. Moreover, the inscrutable Illuminati have planted three spies in the True Cross Order—and one may be hiding among the aspiring exorcists sworn to protect mankind from the demonic threat.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Okumura, Rin Main

Okamoto, Nobuhiko Japanese

Okumura, Yukio Main

Fukuyama, Jun Japanese

Pheles, Mephisto Supporting

Kamiya, Hiroshi Japanese

Kuro Supporting

Takagaki, Ayahi Japanese

Amaimon Supporting

Kirigakure, Shura Supporting

Satou, Rina Japanese

Fujimoto, Shirou Supporting

Hirata, Hiroaki Japanese

Moriyama, Shiemi Supporting

Hanazawa, Kana Japanese

Suguro, Ryuuji Supporting

Nakai, Kazuya Japanese

Shima, Renzou Supporting

Yusa, Kouji Japanese

Matsumoto, Miho Producer

Aoki, Makoto Producer

Mita, Keiji Producer

Ogasawara, Yuki Producer

Reviews

Mar 24, 2024

Kumoiro_Shizuki

Recommended

Funny

After 12 weeks, I'm finally going to write my thoughts on this sumptuous season, because there's a lot to say about it.

I'll start by complaining about 2 things in particular. First, the overall rating of the series. How can it be that this season receives such a catastrophic rating, knowing that other, much worse anime receive a much higher rating(I'm not aiming at any anime, except perhaps the one with 7.55 for this season). What are the fans doing, seriously?

Animation: 6
AD: 8

Nevertheless, despite my disappointment on this point, I do understand the rating, which allows me to move on to my 2nd complaint: Voln's animation. ... It's true that this is by far the biggest flaw of this season. The animation was nowhere near the level of previous seasons. However, in view of the excellent announcement of a 2nd court, I'm totally confident that Voln, with a little more afford and time, will be able to prepare something even more qualitative for the arcs that follow.

Music: 10
Va: 9.5
Story: 9
Characters: 10

I'll end my review, however, with the many qualities of the anime, which enabled me, like many others, to be drawn into this 3 season. As for the obvious, the music, as well as the VA, were simply breathtaking. I'd even go so far as to say that this one surpassed the previous ones on all counts.

Story: 9
Characters: 10
But it's not just that that I think this season was a success. I could talk about it for hours, but the biggest strength of Blue Exorcist, but more particularly of this arc, is very clearly the character development, as well as the world building, which is simply incredibly well done. And on this point, despite a few cuts here and there, we must applaud Voln for the work and care they've put into it.

The 2nd court will focus on many of the points that make this manga my top 1. This season, which will stop just before the Blue Night investigation arc, will allow us to see the main players in the rest of the story. The six-year wait is rewarded with the sequel, scheduled for autumn 2024. Only 4 months to go.

Looking forward to seeing Blue Exorcist again, and in the best possible form.

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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Mar 24, 2024

CodeCypheur

Mixed Feelings

Blue Exorcist was one of my favourite animes when the first season came out, so much so I immediately started collecting the manga - which I haven't read so my review is based soley on the anime. I can also safely say I am not blinded by nostalgia as I rewatched all the (canon) media prior to starting s3 - that really set the tone for what I was about to experience.

Season 3 perfectly encapsulates everything there is that is wrong with this anime: boring exposition, confusing character motivations, eye rolling amounts of twists, reliance on shock factor and trying to 1-up the last ... deception in order to keep things interesting. All of these are ever present throughout the 12 episodes. A lot of my problems are very specific, but for the sake of keeping this spoiler free I'm going to talk very vaguely - so my apologies if this is confusing.

Starting with what annoyed me the most; the plot twists. There's around five of them which all happen fairly early on - 2 of them are excusable and contribute positively to the story as they make sense and have been foreshadowed in the prior seasons. The others however seem to only exist to add shock value and provide the characters with something to do. Not only are there far too many of them but they just make no sense, there's no build up or hints as to what the twist is - they just happen completely out of nowhere? To avoid spoilers I'm not going to break these down but oh boy are these revelations handled poorly and significantly degrade the quality as there affects continue to disrupt the following episodes.

Exposition dumps is another feature that, to this seasons credit, isn't used all that frequently - there was just one particular episode that was entirely and exposition dump that irked me the most. It piled 1 characters entire backstory and motivations into 20 minutes, then expected me to care for them? The way it was done was incredibly poor and did absolutely nothing, I did not empathise or feel anything in particular as the way the information was delivered seemed much to like it was telling me how to feel. "Here's this poor character, look at their misfortune, isn't it so sad? are you feeling sad yet?" Overdone.

Through trying to develop characters, this season just butchers them instead. Each character is given something to work with, but every time it just falls flat. By the end of the season there's practically no difference as to how they were at the start - with one exception of differing character relations. Their motivations for their actions made absolutely no sense to me, they just seem like completely different people - or at least watered down versions of how they were in previous seasons. They have barely any actual depth, despite the things they go through that very so should affect them! They act no different and their morals are just up in the air, who knows what they value because they seem to change it every episode.

Rin's character is one I have a very big problem with as well. Having the main character also be the comic relief can work - if handled with care. As you can probably tell by now, Rin is not. I understand that this is a shonen, and me being very much not the demographic I might be expecting too much, but there are plenty of other shonens out there that explore deep themes whilst also balancing light hearted scenes to even out the tension. Season 3 bats you around like a tennis ball with no regard for subtlety or care. One second Rin will be battling with what it means to be half-demon then the next he'll just crack an immature joke. I understand that comedy is his way of coping - that's what I love about his character, he prioritises everyone else's comfort above his own and is such a kind and loving guy who cherishes friends, and he's also literally just a kid who has been through so much trauma...but it's just not handled well. The tonal shifts are like a slap in the face, I don't know whether I'm supposed to be feeling tense during the tense moments when a stupid joke that is about to ruin everything is hovering just a few seconds away. It really ruins a lot of pivotal moments.

Technically that is a separate point I got a bit carried away with, but it's most prevalent through Rin's character - but the tone of the anime is another downside. On paper it very much seems like they're going for a more serious feel with strong themes of generational trauma and familial betrayal, but the fail to ever stick to this. The strong moments are undermined by comedic jokes right after, with no breathing room to let whatever big impactful event sink in. I also think the stakes are non-existent this season, there just isn't an overwhelming threat that feels like it's actually going to cause an real significant long lasting damage.

In terms of animation, it's all been said before. I agree with the majority that the anatomy on the new artstyle makes a lot of the characters look off. but the colouring is gorgeous and somebody really loves Bon because he looked so fine in practically every scene he was in. Bon stans ate.

The sound didn't stand out to me at all, the op and ed are fine nothing special. The effects and background tracks do feel a little corny in places but are unremarkable at best. Voice performances are also fine, on par with the previous seasons and again, nothing special.

Overall I'm incredibly disappointed with what we got, it feels rushed which is incredibly sad considering just how long we had to wait for this. I'm definitely going to go read the manga now because it feels like a lot was left out/underdeveloped, and I really do love this series so I don't want to leave it like this.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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Jul 25, 2024

_Serpico

Not Recommended

This point is where the show completely falls off. The previous seasons and the movie are generic in a lot of ways but entertaining enough to keep watching, this season however is pathetc.
First I will get the obvious out of the way and acknowledge the undeniable drop in animation quality, but beyond that the story and characters become incomprehensibly bad. The most succint way I can describe this without giving specifc spoilers is that there is a character whose allegiance is all over the place, they are double agents, no wait, they are triple agents, no wait, they are back to double agents, no ... wait, they are now openly loyal to one side oh wait, no they aren't.

This is already handled extremely poorly and it is made a million times worse by the fact that it is effectively never addressed, all parties involve ed in this season are aware of this characters constant back stabbing and fickle "loyalty" yet for somreason never do anything about it and every single other character in the show allows this character to freely walk around their base and interact with them like they are good friends and they hadn't fought tooth and nail trying to help a depraved, perverted "scientist" do horrific experiments on children. It is so painfully stupid, having a traitor could have easily been a great angle to take but the way it is handled here with nobody caring about the perpetual betrayals, nobody treating the person any different, none of their actions having any consequences means it is all utterly pointless, none of it goes anywhere, has any weight or significance to it, it is the most anticlimactic way to incorporate a "twist" humanly possible.

I will take a moment to point out this review focuses largely on events surrounding one character because that is what this season primarily revolves around, however believe it or not I am trying to keep this brief but there are so many things about this season that are bad, some subjective but mostly objective that it is difficult to even scratch the surface without turning this into a dissertation, apologies for that, but it is fair to say most of the main characters are handled poorly. The power scaling is a mess, even as far as shounen go it is inconsistent and there are dialogue/inner mononlogues that make no sense because they are questioning things they themselves first hand experienced, it is as if the events of the final episodes of season 1 have been retconned and the show is only now trying to build to stuff that was revealed all the way back in 2011.

Lastly, again without outright spoiling specifics, as you know from the synopsis this season introduces another powerful organization, however nothing about this organization makes sense, the being who is in charge of it and the goal they are striving towards is directly contradicted by the rest of the organization being manned by humans. Which makes the above mentioned traitor angle even more sloppy because it means there is zero, literally zero reason for their betrayal, their whole "personality", the one thing driving them is their own survival and they go about this by betraying people they trust to work with an organization they can't trust and who are actively trying to destroy, how can it even be argued that that makes sense?

I finished this season out of curiosity and read a little bit of what comes next in the story and jesus wept somehow the impossible happens and it gets worse and dumber beyond this point, like I said despite being relatively generic I liked the show before this point but this season, it's "story", it's inconceivably poor handling of a twist involving recoginzable characters and it's ignoring of scenes in earlier seasons is all objectively bad writing. I can't in good conscience recommend this and I for one won't be watching any more of this going forward.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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