Ao no Exorcist – 13

Who needs a proper shirt when you’re this awesome?~

Hoshi: All right, so the majority of us girls don’t appreciate Shura’s tight bikini top, but hey! She’s bad-ass! She can do what she wants. Anyways, yay new OP and ED starting today! Let’s get this show on the road!

Hime: I am dying to hear these new OP & EDing songs, and just as impatient to see the animation that goes with them. *rapes play button on VLC*

Hoshi: After a pretty terrifying flashback of a young Rin causing chaos, we immediately go to where we left off last episode with Shura wanting to take Rin to the Japanese Branch office and talk to Mephisto. She drags him along as Yukio opens a door to the center of the Japanese Branch. There Mephisto greets Shura and she immediately asks why did he hide the son of Satan. He says it was for the Order, to tame him and to become a weapon and finally put exorcists on the offensive.

Seeing his dodging of the question, Shura asks specifically why he didn’t report to the vatican, to which Mephisto answers because Rin’s powers are still incomplete. Finally she asks if Shiro Fujimoto had anything to do with all of this. Of course, he tells of Shiro raising him until his flames grew stronger. With questioning Mephisto done, Shura decides to interrogate Rin in the Great Cell. Rin, after hearing her say Yukio hasn’t changed at all, asks if she knew his father and Yukio. It’s then she mentions she was Shiro’s apprentice after he saved her from quite the horrible place.

Suddenly Shura falls to her knees, seemingly in pain. Rin goes over to her, but she gets up, taking his sword from his hands. He gets angry, causing his blue flames to appear, and tries to grab the sword back. Shura then flashes back to when Shiro had asked her to take on a young Rin as her pupil since she was familiar with demon swords. She tells him giving a demon sword is crazy, but he still begs her to. Angry at his demeanor, Shura refuses.

Back to the present, Shura pulls out her demon sword, telling Rin that she was dispatched to find out if Shiro and Mephisto were hiding something related to Satan and that if she were to find that something, to eliminate it. With Rin’s blue flames as her confirmation of a sign of Satan, she attacks.

Rin barely dodges her attacks, but he won’t give up, especially after Shura calls Shiro a coward. All the while, Shura is eyeing how he fights, making comments to herself. She continues to hit him with pretty powerful attacks, then stabs him in the shoulder when his guard is down. Despite the injury, Rin still has his strong determination to not die so he can become a great exorcist. Shura suddenly starts laughing, pulling out her sword, then opening the cell.

As Rin gets patched up in the Infirmary, Shura comes in and throws him a wooden sword. She tells him she’ll keep his real sword and won’t get it back until she can kick her ass and prove that Shiro was right. Later in the evening, Shura tells Mephisto to set her place at the Branch so she can watch over Rin.

Meanwhile, Rin sits on top the roof, unable to sleep. He tells Kuroi that he was thinking of his dad, which triggers the beginning flashback to a young Rin causing an angry commotion, throwing toys and the like after beating up the other children in the daycare. Shiro appears, telling Rin what he’s done, but he retorts back saying they called him a demon and continues his rampage. Shiro approaches and hugs him, causing Rin to punch him furiously. However, he seems unfazed and tells Rin to use his strength for other purposes and that he wants him to be cool guy with lots of friend (and of course, girls after him). Just as he finishes his lecture, he falls to the ground, in pain from broken ribs!

The next day at cram school, Shura appears as their new teacher to replace Neshaus, causing quite the confusion among everyone in the class. Rin comes in late, but still has his determination to become paladin (and his trusty manly hair clip) to keep him going~.

And because we love the new OP animation with its twin bromance depiction….

End thoughts~

Hoshi: Oh, I always love these OP and ED transitions; just that excitement of what song they’re going to use next always gets me pumped up. However, I usually end up getting disappointed and wishing for the original. Luckily, they’ve kept a good streak with Exorcist! I absolutely love both the new OP and ED, music and animation wise. I had my doubts about the ED song because seriously, who can beat ‘READY READY FOR THE TAKE OFF’? Yet I was completely surprised by how hypnotizing and mellow it sounded (Dare I say it’s even better than ‘Take Off’). Out of the two though, the OP was my favorite. It wasn’t as get-up-and-GO-and-rock-out as ‘Core Pride’ but it was still downright catchy. The animation was killer (see gif ABOVE lulz), and I couldn’t help but sniffle at the parts where they showed memories of the twins and their father. They seem to have some sort of theme going on with that in both the OP and ED, hmmm…

「In my World」by ROOKiEZ is PUNK’D

All right, so we have more of a sentimental episode here with little sprigs of action as Rin remembers his father and why he’s working to become an exorcist, but it also reminded me that Shiro was one awesome, kick-ass character. It’s a shame he had to die (and I probably realized this too late). I mean, did you see how awesome he looked in that segment with Shura’s past?! Not to mention, he was an amazing father to both him and Yukio. Speaking of awesome, kick-ass characters, Shura has always been one of my favorite characters from when I first read Exorcist and the anime just make her ten times as cooler. I love her laid-back but firm attitude, which I hope we get to see more of soon. All in all, it was a pretty fair episode, nothing to really rant about or do some serious fangirling over. I am a bit hopeful with this next episode; at least everyone’s in it this time around~.

Hime: As your would expect from ROOKiEZ is PUNK’D; the new OP is a catchy-ass song that fits in perfectly with the themes and characters of the show. Hell, even some of the lyrics are in straight reminiscence of Core Pride. How cool is that? I was anxious to see and hear this new OP but I realize now I had no reason to be. It isn’t really a contest on which is a better OP and ED sequence when it comes to this series, they are all good, they all match up with the story and visuals, and they are all tremendous fun to sit through. So, yeah, I loved the new ED as well, it’s pretty damn sexy. The way the lyrics match the pictures is just beautiful and I will downloading an mp3 version of both songs AS SOON AS. So many animes these days have such medicore OP & ED sequences with just as mediocre songs, they forget that this is their oppertunity to get us hyped up for the show. It’s the same in movies, you 9 times out of 10 they just start the movie and flash the credits over what’s happening. It’s just lazy, so it’s great to see a really well thought out OP & ED with nice fitting animation in it to get us hyped up for the show we’re about to watch.

「Wired Life」by Kuroki Meisa

That being said this episode was only alright. It was better than the past few but it’s still lacking that momentum of the earlier ones. It almost got there, though. It was so close, because it really did feel like a turning point, and a positive one at that. I only wish they’d ramped it up just a little and we could have had a really impactful episode. The animation during the fight with Shura was better than I expected. There was a lot more movement and nice dynamic shots than in Rin’s fight with Amaimon. They can kind of get away with shortcuts if there is a lot of movement, and a lot of time it looks better that way too. It worked, needless to say, this time around. Speaking of Shura, man, I’m totally ladycrushing on her right now. I like the way she talks, and she is pretty awesome in the fight. Her back story is interesting, or at least, the little glimpse we got points to a rather badass origin. She is fun and despite her attire can be really mature. All her dialogue is really well written, which is what I mean when I say I like the way she talks. Her seiyuu, Rina Sato, does a spectacular job of bringing her to life.

The flashbacks to Rin’s childhood – first off, was anyone else reminded of Elfin Lied with the classroom scenes? – were as heartbreaking as usual. Fujimoto is like the best Dad ever, and despite having died in episode two, still proceeds to have a meaningful impact on the story even now. His scenes with the boys are always tough to watch, and so well handled. I particularly liked how in the OP they focused quite a lot on the memories of both Rin and Yukio respectively. Same in the ED. It’s not just cause I’m totally for their twincest that I like the focus being on them; I do genuinely think that their relationship is one of the most interesting in the show. That’s why I think that the first few episodes are still the strongest of the series. While I still love all the side characters, I hope the focus shifts back to their rocky brotherhood at some point in the story. So while this episode is only okay, there was still a lot of good stuff in it. It doesn’t look like we are diving straight back into the story though as the next episode reeks of filler. I do think it’s funny that an episode called “Fun Camp” shows Rin being attacked by tentacles. Someone better doujin that shit or I will be very dissapoint.

Preview:

Now who doesn’t like a good camping episode, especially when tentacles are involved? It appears to be some sort of mission the group has to go on, but what’s with this strange creature appearing from the side? Until next week then~!

About Tag Team

We live, laugh, enjoy and strictly believe on "more the merrier". When together, we usually come up with very chatty, conversation-based episodics and interesting posts.