Ao no Exorcist – 23

And the truth and lies are revealed…

Hoshi: There is no such thing as comprehensible words when it comes to talking aloud about Exorcist at the moment….

Hime: Nope. Still dead from last week…carry on~

Hoshi: As the Exorcists pray and Rin hacks out blood, Ernest tells a stunned Yukio that he found out the top of the Academy would be the best place to connect Gehenna and Assiah. However, the quality of the blood they had gathered was too low, so by adding in Rin’s blood, it would increase the quality of the blood and allow them to summon the Gehenna gate. Not to mention losing such enormous amounts of blood would hardly have an effect on Rin because of his demonic regeneration. As Ernest tells of Rin becoming a hero, Yukio pulls out his gun, demanding to let Rin go. The plane carrying the Messiah warhead has taken off from the Laboratory and is headed to the Academy, Ernest says, and since it only takes orders from him, shooting him would mean that the warhead would hit the Academy instead of inside of the gate. With that, Yukio brings down his gun and offers to open the gate himself instead of using Rin.

Setting Rin aside, Yukio cuts his wrist and lets his blood flow onto the seal, which not only releases the blue flames in him, but in other exorcists who are praying around the seal. It is then that the cram students appear at the sane time the gate begins to form. Once fully opened, the Messiah is dropped into the sea of heads, which shoots out a bright pink light from the gate. It quickly stops however and instead, out come hordes of coal-tar-like demons that float out into the sky.

Yukio suddenly starts hearing a voice, Satan’s voice, that sounds almost exactly like Father Fujimoto’s. Angry, Yukio tells him that if he had left Assiah alone, Fujimoto wouldn’t have died and his mother wouldn’t have been killed. But Satan tells him his wrong, that Ernest killed her, and proceeds to show Yukio through his own eyes…

Flashback years before, with Fujimoto waiting outside a cabin in the snow for Yuri, who comes a few seconds later with hobgoblins and snowman-like demons at her side. He tells her that they need to go to the Vatican, but she refuses. Another day, Fujimoto starts shooting at the snowman-like demons and Yuri holds onto him, telling him that they’re her friends. He pushes her away and keeps shooting. However, as she grows angrier, she suddenly becomes engulfed in blue flames.

When she comes to, Fujimoto asks her since when has Satan been in Assiah. Yuri tells that she was dispatched to the area she lives in to investigate spontaneous human combustion cases when the other exorcists around her suddenly were set ablaze with blue flames. She soon fell to the flames as well, but was able to tolerate them. Despite being ordered to return, Yuri stayed in the forest. One night she encounters a wolf surrounded in blue flames who tells her that everything he encounters in Assiah turns to ashes. Willingly, she lets him use her body and after a talk about creating life, she reveals that his children are growing in her.

Unfortunately, upon finding out about Yuri being pregnant, they put Fujimoto in the dungeon, thinking it was his doing despite him telling them she’s possessed by Satan. The truth is quickly found out, and Yuri is sentenced to death. In an effort to save her, Satan tried to find a vessel, but his power was too great for any body to handle, until he gets to Ernest. With his body, he manages to free Yuri.

Meanwhile, Mephisto goes to Fujimoto, telling him of Satan’s attack. As he walks out of the dungeon, Ernest, his face bandaged almost completely, tells him to kill Yuri and her offspring with the help of Mephisto, who gives him the Kurikara. The two arrive in a cave in the forest, where Yuri lays holding her twin sons, one engulfed in blue flames. She soon dies; her last words being that her sons will be proof that demons and human could understand each other. Fujimoto begins to draw the sword, but suddenly hears Rin laugh. He then sheathes the sword and tells Mephisto that he’ll raise the children. Mephisto, after having quite the laugh, asks about making a gamble: if he can raise the children as human, then Fujimoto wins. Yet, if they awaken to their demonic powers, he wins and their lives are his. He even helps by sealing the demonic powers in the sword, and going off to tell the Vatican that they killed the children.

Back to the present, Yukio doesn’t believe what he’s seen, but when he goes to ‘save’ his grandfather, he asks him directly if he ordered his mother to be burned. Ernest answers yes, saying she was dead to him once she gave birth to them. Before Yukio can punch him, his shirt rips and Ernest is lost in the gate.

Yukio screams out in anger, but suddenly, he becomes possessed by Satan, becoming his perfect vessel. Meanwhile, the cram school students stare in horror just as Rin begins to regain consciousness. Seeing his brother engulfed in blue flames, laughing madly, he runs to him, wondering what has happened~.

End thoughts~

Hoshi: First of all, I’d just to like to say: I KNEW IT. I KNEW THE GRANDFATHER WAS THE ONE WHO WANTED TO KILL HIS DAUGHTER! You can’t get past me and my knowledge of lying, manipulative characters, A-1! Anyways, who would’ve thought we’d be seeing the ‘bad guy’ in the beginning of the series? I thought that tie-in to the horrific first scene of the first episode was just brilliant. And speaking of brilliant tie-ins, what I loved the most was when the kid with the puppet actually talked, saying a passage as the Messiah fell into Gehenna. It matched well and it gave it more of that apocalyptic feel to the scene. It was definitely the most memorable scene for me; it’s the first thing I think of when I even mention this episode.

Yuri was so adorable (AND SHE EVEN HAD THE MOLES ON HER FACE –SOB-), but her love story with Satan seemed a little sappy for me. Personally, and this is in general with all kinds of stories, I don’t like it when they humanize Satan so much (Totally the English major in me talking). I like it when they keep that evil, crude, sarcastic, and twisted image of him, like when he possesses someone. It just urks me so bad to see him with Yuri and acting a bit lovely-dovey with her, getting curious about life and what not. I actually thought it would be more of an unfortunate, forced type of scenario, but of course, they went for the cliché, sweet side, which I can understand. It just…ugh; it’s not my cup of tea. Now Yukio looks quite awesome and so, may I say, deliciously evil when he’s possessed by Satan. It’s also quite scary, but I love it~

LAST EPISODE PREVIEW LOOKS AWESOME, GUYS. Shura’s coming in to kick some ass, and Shiemi…oh Shiemi…But I’m curious to see how Rin will handle all this. I hope they don’t make him as naive as they did last episode. I want to see some major fight or SOMETHING hella intense to finish this nail-biting build-up. We’ll just have to wait and pray A-1 doesn’t screw up this ending~.

Hime: Oh Yukio, put those ears away! It’s too much for me. I JUST WANT TO TUG ON THEM. He looks AH-MA-ZING as a demon (who’s surprised, really?), and is totally working that angst. Mmm, now if only they’d just give him a tail it would be perfect. I found it kind of funny that when Satan takes him over properly and his voice goes all maniacal he sounded just like Watanuki when he is being cheeky. It’s so over the top, I was literally crying with laughter. I don’t know for sure, obviously, but it sounds to me as if Jun is really having fun. AND THAT JUST MAKES ME SO HAPPY ಥ_ಥ…

Ahem~ Well, anyway…jkfkdjdkjdkjdkgfjkjgfdkj. This episode was incredibly fun to sit through. You can say what you like about A-1s adaptation, but you can’t deny that they are going all out on this ending. As much as I liked it though there were problems that I know people are going to bring up, and I’m not going to deny them. Firstly; BWAHAHAHA Satan is a big softie. He just wants to be wuved! Nyaw, does the ickle Prince of Darkness want a hug? *snuggle* *snuggle* That was so lame, I don’t even. Also, the rushed pace was painfully obvious. I don’t think there was a line of dialogue during the flashback that wasn’t pure exposition. Fujimoto’s decision to raise the boys just seconds after he was about to kill them was ridiculous. Obviously he wouldn’t have killed them, but the 360 personality turn was so jarringly shoe-horned in that even Mephisto couldn’t take it seriously. I’ll admit it was cool to actually see Mephy and Fujimoto together for once, though. They were supposed to be friends after all.

Something I want to note (and it makes me sound like such a sadist) is that the animation on Yukio’s expressions was really great. He just radiated absolute confusion and despair for most of the episode, and his rage at Grandpa was so fiery, I just loved it (show dem fangs off, baby) and once Satan took over his body his delightfully twisted expressions were very well done, too. I JUST LOVE THAT YUKIO IS GETTING ALL THIS ATTENTION FINALLY. One of my favorite cliches is when a friend/family member/lover has to face off against another friend/family member/lover. I blame CLAMP for giving me this fetish. I can’t wait to see Rin and possessed Yukio duke it out, and even Shura seems to get in on the action. I also wonder just how they are all going to get out of this situation. I mean, when this happened to Fujimoto (and a fricken legion of other priests, don’t forget) they died. But it’s a shounen, so it’s not like they would actually kill the main character’s twin brother, right?………right?

Preview:

It’s the last episode, folks, and while many of our questions have been answered, what will become of Assiah now that Satan has found his perfect vessel? Will there ever be world where humans and demons can live together as Yuri wanted? Until next week then (if our special plans work out on time)~!!