Blue Exorcist: Season 2 Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		4.0
Overall		4.0

Blue Exorcist: Season 2 Blu-ray Movie Review

You little devil.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman December 14, 2013

Kids with a seemingly innate ability to cause trouble are often called little hellions or hell raisers or some other pejorative that ostensibly alludes to them being the spawn of Satan. Rin Okumura is one such lad, a young man who usually means well but who ends up mucking up the works anyway. Blue Exorcist: Season 1 introduced us to both Rin and his twin brother Yukio, as well as their ostensible guardian, Father Shiro Fujimoto. The boys have little inkling about their past until a series of events makes a number of things crystal clear, including the fact that while the two are twins, Rin is something more: the inheritor of the nefarious powers of the boys’ true father, that horned dude some call Old Scratch. When dear old “Dad” decides Rin needs to follow in his cloven hoofed footsteps, a tragedy occurs which forces Rin to come to terms with his “half breed” nature. He ends up enrolling in The True Cross Academy, a training school for exorcists. The headmaster of the Academy, the interestingly named Mephisto Pheles, actually has a bit of knowledge about Rin and had been attempting to let the boy lead a more or less normal life with Father Shiro. Mephisto Pheles had managed to sequester Rin’s demonic powers in a katana named Kurikara, but as Rin grew and his powers escalated, all bets were finally off, and the headmaster realized a different tactic needed to be developed. While Rin’s story is unfolding in the first set of episodes, we also get perhaps even more interesting background information on Yukio, who it turns out doesn’t have Rin’s demonic proclivities, but who in fact has been an exorcist for some time, attempting to keep the demons at bay from his slightly older twin brother. Yukio often acts as a “check” for Rin when he notices Rin starting to lapse more and more into his Satanic side, even as Rin attempts to hew to a straight and narrow path where he will rid the world of all demons for good. (For those wanting a bit more information on the first set of episodes, see our Blue Exorcist: Season 1 Blu-ray review.)

There’s an interesting dynamic that starts to play out part way through the first arc of episodes and which continues on to the second set of Blue Exorcist that almost feels like a “bizarre world” reimagining of the Harry Potter franchise. In both of these outings, a young boy who discovers he’s specially powered and who is coming to terms with his mysterious parentage enrolls in an academy for other similarly gifted youngsters. In both outings, some of the instructors are not entirely whom they seem to be, and in fact in some cases, they’re downright nefarious. Part of Blue Exorcist therefore follows a fairly standard shōnen format, with Rin interacting with his schoolmates, while many (and perhaps frankly most) episodes also have a “demon of the week” that needs to be contained, causing sometimes contentious colleagues to have to band together to get the job done.

This second season starts to nicely examine Rin’s feelings of insecurity as he’s forced to reveal his parentage to his classmates during an epochal battle. Rin also has to come to terms with the fact that his powers often overpower him, leaving him in the throes of what might almost be called a demonic possession. The opening arc of episodes is actually more of a long form enterprise that sees Rin and his friends taking on a demon who has immense powers that nonetheless seem to be quelled once Rin really fires himself up (and that’s an appropriate term, since Rin is able to emit extremely destructive blue flames). The demon however is not so easily managed and it takes several episodes for this drama to fully play out, during which Rin’s katana is damaged due to Rin’s inability to control his Satanic side.

As probably should come as no big surprise, the series cartwheels toward a final showdown between Rin and his “Dad”, although there’s a kind of interesting twist involving Yukio that makes this battle more dangerous for everyone involved. As I mentioned in the review of the first season, one kind of odd thing about Blue Exorcist is its use of terms from the Jewish occult tradition known as the Kabbalah, and that once again comes into play here, although in a context that is far removed from actual Kabbalistic tradition. There’s the threat that the realm of humans, called Assiah (one of four spiritual “worlds” in the Kabbalah), will be merged with Gehenna (an actual physical location outside of Jerusalem, which in Blue Exorcist becomes shorthand for Hades). While this may not make much sense to anyone actually knowledgeable about the Kabbalah, it gives a kind of desperate edge to the final couple of episodes, as Rin and his cohorts try to keep Satan from completing his dastardly plan. Of course, teamwork and some smart thinking helps to achieve a fairly predictable outcome, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the work of these fledgling exorcists has come to an end.

Blue Exorcist: Season 2 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

There's no appreciable difference in video quality between Blue Exorcist: Season Two's AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1 (courtesy of Aniplex) and that found in Blue Exorcist: Season 1 . This presentation from the A-1 Pictures production host boasts often nicely detailed animation, with some nice effects sequences when Rin transforms into his specially powered demonic self. Line detail is generally quite sharp and colors are nicely saturated, but the series sometimes tends to exploit what must be assumed is an intentionally softer look, one that's a bit reminiscent at times of another Hades-centric anime, Hellsing.

Blue Exorcist: Season 2 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Likewise, the audio in this set is completely in keeping with that found in the first set. Blue Exorcist features uncompressed LPCM 2.0 tracks in both English and Japanese (the English dub is one of the big calling cards for this release). The tracks are pretty much indistinguishable aside from the voice work, with both offering excellent fidelity and a rather unexpectedly boisterous low end a lot of the time. Purists will no doubt want to stick with the original Japanese track, but the English voice cast is excellent, well modulated and presented very clearly and cleanly on this uncompressed track. The exceptional music is also very well rendered here.

Blue Exorcist: Season 2 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This deluxe set from Aniplex comes housed in a rigid case illustrated by manga author Kazue Kato, which includes three Blu-ray discs, one DVD, and a soundtrack CD, as well as a lavishly illustrated 36 page booklet. The supplementary material is spread over the four discs:

Blu-ray Disc One

• Ura-Eku (1080p; 2:41)


• Web Previews (1080p; 1:25)


• Textless Opening 2 (1080p; 1:32)


• Textless Ending 2 (1080p; 1:32)
• Credits

Blu-ray Disc Two

• Ura-Eku (1080p; 1:36)


• Web Previews (1080p; 1:08)

Blu-ray Disc Three

• Ura-Eku (1080p; 3:03)


• Web Previews (1080p; 00:51)

Bonus DVD

• English Cast Interviews Part 2: Exorcists and Demons (480p; 42:49) is a much more in depth set of interviews than that found on Blue Exorcist: Season 1. Most of the principal English cast first introduce themselves (separately) and then discuss various aspects of their characters, including how they approached voicing them. There are subtitled questions on screen that the actors answer. This set has fewer spoilers than the first set (perhaps because we're so far into the story), but it's still best to watch these after having finished the actual show.

Soundtrack CD 2

As I mentioned in the Blue Exorcist: Season 1 Blu- ray review, normally I wouldn't even list this as a supplement, but in this case Hiroyuki Sawano's insanely diverse music merits special kudos. Everything from J-Pop to trance to techno to quasi-classical is included on this stellar CD, and there's some really elegant music to enjoy here. There are a couple of noisier cuts on this particular CD that didn't impress me very much, but those are offset with some other cuts like ones featuring a gamelan orchestra.

Blue Exorcist: Season 2 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Blue Exorcist actually manages to pick up steam in its second half, nicely dovetailing a number of elements that have been introduced earlier and leading to a cataclysmic showdown with the real father of Rin and Yukio. The series manages, rather improbably it might be stated, to keep a good dramatic sweep going even as certain more goofy comedic elements at least occasionally enter the fray. While there's nothing revolutionary about Blue Exorcist, it's well animated and the characters are all extremely memorable. While this is another pretty pricey deluxe Aniplex package, for those with the coin to spare, Blue Exorcist comes Recommended.