Tastes are a funny thing. No two people have the same exact tastes in anything, let alone in anime. You ask what two people think about Blue Exorcist, and you’re bound to get two different answers. I know quite a few people who could care less about this show, in question, but me? I like it, despite its faults and its hovering-above-average presence. It’s pretty much how I feel about Fairy Tail and Inuyasha, they’re solid shows and I enjoy the hell out of them – and STFU, Rob, I don’t want to hear it again.
Well, I can think of worse things to start an episode with, but here you go, Bon’s dad is getting a feel of Shura. I swear, do all monks in anime have lechery and/or alcoholism in their system? Anyway, Yukio and his crew have arrived at the scene – finally – and they’re all briefed on the proceedings that have taken place, so far: the eyes, the miasma, the traitor, and the connection to Todo. Oh, and Yukio was informed about Rin going Super Saiyan Blue in front of everyone. And all of this, somehow, took up the first 8 minutes of the episode. Well, in any case, Rin’s been put into solitary confinement, kind of like that other character that Papenbrook plays, who everyone’s totally afraid of… probably just a coincidence. And before the A-part wraps up and the show goes to break, there’s yet ANOTHER flashback that was recycled from the first series, taking up 90 seconds of air time… look, I get that animation production can be expensive, and that corners need to be cut for certain circumstances, but this is A-1 Pictures we’re talking about, they HAVE the resources – and the money – on hand to make some incredibly gorgeous and good-looking animation. Yet they continue to choose the easy way out for projects that aren’t light novel adaptations. What a shame.
Onward to the B-part, we have Yukio and Shura talking about Rin’s possible fate, then Izumo and Shiemi talking about… I don’t know, how useless they both are? I kinda zoned out, given how unimportant they are to the series. And then Bon shows up to tell everyone about what went down, wasting more time as the episode’s clock ticks down. Seriously, 15 minutes into the episode, and so far?
NOTHING.
HAS.
HAPPENED.
You’re really testing my patience, show.
But maybe something will happen here, with Yukio meeting Rin down in solitary. Of course, Shura’s there, too, giving Rin a letter, direct from Bon’s father. Here’s the skinny on what it says: long ago, he was tending to his ill and pregnant wife, when a bird fell down near him and his clergymen, out in the snowy fields. On said bird was Shura, Rin and Yukio’s priest dad, who gunned the bird down immediately and took with him the Koma Sword, the one that keeps Rin’s Satanic demon powers in check. And the sword is pretty important, because it’s the Myoda sect and clan’s object of worship, and it originally belonged to Bon’s family. This took me all of three sentences to explain; it took this episode SEVEN MINUTES to get through. And that’s it, the episode ends with Bon’s father out in the fields, looking to test his resolve by doing… something. Great cliffhanger, guys.
I really don’t get this episode. It had about 6 minutes’ worth of story stretched out into 24. If it was meant to be a breather episode, it probably took one too many Xanax to calm itself down, this one was painfully slow. It’s bad enough seeing the early episodes of Dragonball Super do this, but for this show? This is One Piece-level time-stretching. Not a great episode, and we’re coming up to the halfway mark of the show really soon, so things better pick up the pace, and quick. There’s only so much you can do with so little, and if this episode is proof, the end result is an episode that does absolutely nothing for the story, save for one – just ONE – background moment. Until next week, I guess.
Blue Exorcist: Kyoto Saga is available on Crunchyroll, with new episodes every Friday at 1:30pm Eastern, and is also available on Daisuki.net, Hulu, and Amazon Video’s Anime Strike channel.