Ao no Exorcist: Shimane Illuminati-hen – 01

「ざわめく世界」 (Zawameku Sekai)
“The World’s Astir”

The whole gang is back, and it’s better than ever! In case you didn’t know, Studio VOLN is at the helm for this season of Ao no Exorcist comprising of its third season. But I’m a big fan of this series so I’m ready to jump right in, even though I’m not a manga reader. Just wanted to get that out of the way. But who knows, much like JJK I might just pick up the manga back up and give you in-depth details just like JJK. That is if time allows of course.

So the gang is back and needs to introduction, the episode wastes no time introducing the important characters like Okumura, Rin (Okamoto, Nobuhiko) our favorite little spunky spawn of satan. And everyone else. Rin notices one of his classmates is acting weird because he is seeing some weird stuff going around the classroom. This poor guy is seeing black shadow spirits. Something normal to Rin is scary for this poor guy. Of course, why wouldn’t it be? But this guy is human, so what’s going on with that!? It serves a little bit as a bit of foreshadowing for a big reveal later. So of course, Rin goes full investigation mode and decides to take the opportunity Mephisto has presented him in the form of a quirky love letter to ask him all about this situation with his new friend.

Pheles, Mephisto (Kamiya, Hiroshi) is a quirky character. Rin has some beef with him that is quickly addressed after Mephisto sends Rin to another dimension using his powers of space and time. You know just a typical Monday for any good law-abiding exorcist. All Rin wanted was to help his friend be able to stop seeing those weird creatures and live a normal life. Mephisto does eventually give Rin those eyedrops but not before torturing him a bit for some good fun. Mephisto explains that he is also a demon and Rin is all like WTF?! You know – normal stuff.

I don’t know after all that with Mephisto the show throws our cast of characters into a fight with some paintings. And well the next scene was a little weird because Miwa, Konekomaru (Kaji, Yuuki) of all people takes the helm. And starts spouting verbal fire, dissing and reading all of the characters with their flaws and insecurities. Is it some type of bonding exercise or something? Because I kinda don’t like it. Was this some type of way to give Miwa some stardom, I don’t think it worked. It just made me hate him more. And I already disliked him. There’s just nothing special about him. Why didn’t he get read? Anyway this might be a good point to tell you that Shima, Renzou (Yusa, Kouji) is okay I guess but I still hold my interest in him because he a playa and a lazy character. And Suguro, Ryuuji (Nakai, Kazuya), is umm… well I had a bit (massive) of a crush on him when forever ago. Whatever let me fangirl for a moment.

At the expense of being vulnerable with readers, I like guys who have a scary face but are softies on the inside. Sue me!

Anyway – they beat up the paintings and then guess who makes an appearance? No other than Arthur Auguste “Baldy” Angel (Ono, Daisuke) that’s right, he’s on a mission somewhere in the Sahara or something and finds a terrorist presumably from the Illuminati, who blows up in purple because otherwise, they would torture that person until they get the information they want presumably. Anyway, Rin goes back to the guy gives the teardrops, and reveals he’s a demon to him. But thankfully the guy is nice about it. Hopefully, this doesn’t come and bite him in the tail.

Overall I think this was a great introduction to S3 because it wasted no time getting into the grit of things. Hopefully, the story continues onward and upward and we get to see what this Illuminati organization is planning and all that – but I guess I already have a couple of ideas. Let’s just wait and see how this season of Ao no Exorcist turns out!

Full-length images: 36.

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