Blue Exorcist #1

[informationgeek]

"It originally was inspired by a Brothers Grimm fairy tale, where brothers combat monsters. Then, I tried to make the story flip several times, and settled down into a simple structure of demons versus an exorcist." - Kazue Kato


This is a post that's been a long time coming, so I hope you enjoy this look at the first chapter of Blue Exorcist.



The first opens up with a teen named Rin Okumura, who has just beaten up some thugs that were attacking some birds. He fights them off, they call him a demon, and then we cut to this...




He explains what happened and Father Fujimoto calls him out on fighting...












Rin decides to get dressed up and try again at another job interview, wanting to become a better person for Fujimoto and his brother. On his way out, he sees the Father talking with someone and giving them a charm to protect themselves from demons.








When Rin gets into town, he sees all of the little black creatures flying all over the place. He's not sure if he's imagining them or not, but he doesn't have time to think about them. The guys he beat up earlier in the day show up...




Rin goes with them and the guys talk a bit, them not wanting Rin to spill the beans about them killing pigeons since it might mess up their ability to get into a good school. Rin is ready to blow them off when the demon looking guy disses his brother.

Everyone gets into a scuffle and Rin finds himself being held down.








Then suddenly Father Fujimoto appears and kicks the crap out of the guy, easily exorcising the demon from the thug. Rin is completely shocked by all of this and why all of a sudden he can see these demons. Fujimoto explains that our lead character is the bastard son of Satan and now he must hide him.

The two return home, Rin is still in shock. The Father says he can't stay at the monastery anymore and he needs to flee. He's given a few things, including this...




Eventually, Rin calls bullcrap on all of this, still in shock and not believing any of this.








Rin relents and says he will. Then suddenly, Fujimoto collapses in pain. Rin goes to check on him, but...






Satan summons something called the Gehenna Gate (Gehenna is the world where demons come from in this universe) and prepares to literally drag Rin to hell. He says he'll use Rin to conquer Assaih (that's the human world that everyone is currently in) and all of that. However,
Fujimoto regains enough of himself from Satan to stab and kill himself, forcing Satan to flee.

So now the two are partially stuck in the Gehenna Gate and sinking quickly into the demon world...





I still haven't shown you I've grown up!!





Embracing his demon side, Rin destroys the gate and saves them.



Later, after the funeral...









Rin convinces Mephisto to let him become an exorcist, who is really amused by the idea of the son of Satan. The chapter ends with Rin saying this:

I'm not a human or a demon. But I will be an exorcist!!


So what did you think?

Comments

[lordultimus]

I love this series. The anime was decent in its own right, but I recommend the manga a bit more.

Father Fujimoto: the most badass Uncle Ben ever.

[informationgeek]

I really enjoy the series as well, which is why I wanted to a do post for a long time. However, I just never knew how to do a good entry on the first chapter until now since there's a lot happening in it.

I'm hoping to do more posts on this series in the future, like with My Hero Academia (speaking of which, that series just finished an arc so I should probably do another entry on it).

[q99]

Yeeees. My hero!

[chalicother]

Same, though I despise the ending of the Anime. I wished the Manga would get the brotherhood treatment. I mean they gave the series a movie, so there was enough interest in the series at one point.

[q99]

I assume they will eventually, but the Manga's not near done, so...

[chalicother]

I don't know, I mean it ended in 2011, and only had 26 episodes. I mean Deadman Wonderland ended, but never got it's completion. Heck neither did Soul Eater(which upsets me so...)

[q99]

Really it depends on how popular the manga is when it wraps up.

FMA and Hellsing got re-dos, most don't.

[mrstatham]

This. Didn't the animated version - like so many things that get picked up as a show before the manga reaches the end of the run - basically have to do it's own thing?

But totally - Blue Exorcist is one of my favourites; it's not nearly as soul-crushingly by the numbers as Bleach has become in terms of 'there's a new bad guy, gotta have a long-winded arc and kill it', because each villain really taps into interesting things with all the characters or focuses in on specific ones, whereas things just tend to focus in on Ichigo after a while. I think I said before that BE clearly knows it's playing with heavily established tropes and the like, but it does it in such a way that it doesn't bother me much, somehow. I've really picked up the number of manga I'm reading lately, but BE is the only one I make sure I've got the next volume pre-ordered; I might extend that to Ancient Magus' Bride if that keeps it up, though.

[q99]

It reminds me a lot of early Bleach. Mostly pre-Soul Society with some shades of the Soul Society arc (I mean, they rescue a kidnapped student!), but much more that down-to-earth feel.

[mrstatham]

Oh, definitely. I think what I like most is that there aren't too many characters; my problem with Bleach is that Kubo threw up all these excellent character ideas, but not many of them seemed to get enough focus or stories about them. Blue Exorcist doesn't really have that problem as the cast is still fairly small and manages to focus as much on the others as it does Rin.

[q99]

Kubo has iirc said that when he has creative block he comes up with characters.

And yea, the problem there is he doesn't follow through with them. They vanish after their story. Or they get a bit of buildup then die. Or what have you.

The Bleach anime is arguably good for giving a lot more ordinary stuff on the Captains.

And the human crew vanishes regardless...


As a series goes on, bigger casts happen, and that's not necessarily bad, but you still need to know how to handle it. I think Naruto and Negima did pretty well with their big casts. One Piece in between- the format means we don't expect old characters to show up often so it's a treat when it does, but sometimes new characters give the actual crew members little to do.

Blue Exorcist? So far, so good!

[q99]

This one is great :)

[informationgeek]

Indeed it is, which is why I did want to do a post about it (maybe more posts in the future to show the series plays out since it's a fun ride).

Now, I only wish the other monthly manga in Weekly Shonen Jump was as good as this title... *sideglances at Seraph of the End disappointingly*

[janegray]

Never heard of this one. Thanks for posting it :)

[chalicother]

If you watch the anime, it diverges very early on. So don't judge the series on it. Alot of the best parts of the story sadly happen in the later chapters, that the anime never adapted.