blue exorcist
blue exorcist, also known as ao no exorcist or aoex, is an ongoing japanese manga written and illustrated by kazue kato. it began publication in 2009, and has been ongoing since. it received two anime adaptions, one in 2011 and one in 2017, but i've seen neither so i won't cover them much. a feature length film was also released in 2012, which i've only seen once.
i started reading this series in 2017. my first encounter with it i remember vividly - i was in 7th grade, and specifically my english class, which took place in the school library. at the time me and my friends were huge anime and manga fans, to the point of being obnoxious, and we used to ask our teacher/school librarian to order more manga for the library. and since she was a fan too, we ended up getting a lot for the school - when we first arrived the manga section was half of a shelf, but by the time we graduated, it grew to encompass nearly 4 whole short bookcases. i had requested many series, but this was not one of them - though i was aware of it, seeing it on the shelves often, i was more drawn to pandora hearts (which was my then favorite manga, and still my second favorite as aoex has grown to overtake it) and other series. so once, when we had an independent reading period, i had no book to read, and made over to the shelves to pull out something at random. and since we were allowed to read manga, i of course drifted over to that section. of course the manga i pulled out was the first volume of aoex. i quickly fell in love with it and went on to read every chapter - at the time the manga was at chapter 89, so i read up to there.
as mentioned before, this is my favorite manga to date, and will probably remain my favorite for the forseeable future since i'm not as into anime/manga as i used to be. despite my interest tapering off, i've continued to read aoex, and maybe even become a bigger fan than i was already. this manga means so much to me - the characters are all loveable and resonate with me in ways i sometimes don't realize intially, and kazue kato's intricate storytelling and development of her characters has grown over time and elevated the manga's quality to a point where i don't think many first time readers will initially forsee, nor will watchers of the first season of the anime be privy to. it's an excellent manga and in my opinion underrated for a shounen series - though tbh it's less shounen as the series progresses, it kind of takes a bunch of shounen tropes and subverts them for the hell of it lol - and while i rarely talk about it online i think about it nearly every day. it means a lot to me and i just love sharing it when i can lol
favorite characters
beware that this section contains spoilers! i wanted to avoid them but i realized it's difficult rambling about my favorite characters without getting into later parts of the manga
my favorite characters are okumura yukio and shima renzou, but mainly the former. i feel like his arc immediately reaching a boiling point as soon as i started reading might've had something to do with my love for him being so strong, but i also feel like it was almost inevitable since i really relate to him. so his whole thing is that he's the brother without the powers, so his father raised him as an exorcist instead so he would be capable of protecting his brother. if you want to look at it another way, he's basically a child soldier, and that rears its head over the course of the manga but especially by the beyond the snow arc, chapters 80-something through 99. this arc was intense and essentially where shit hit the fan - it was a major turning point for the story and without it the current chapters would not be what they are. it encapsulated yukio's downward spiral mentally, which was occurring throughout the manga but culminated in that arc, and then he defected to the villain faction.
or well, it only lasted 5 days until he fought his brother, and as always the power of shounen characters beating the shit out of each other won out, but it was still a major leap for the story and yukio's character in particular. he's an amazingly in depth character, beyond what readers might expect initially, and his spiral takes its time to build up but when it crashes, it burns. at the current point in the manga things are looking up for him, having talked (fought) things out with his brother and made up with the rest of the main cast (aka his friends but he doesn't realize it yet), which is nice after so many chapters of watching him Going Through It haha
and then there's shima renzou, who is a lot like yukio, but his behavior and demeanor is almost the complete opposite. at first he's the archetype of the stupid anime pervert, who lazes around instead of doing schoolwork and always talks about creeping on girls, but by the illuminati (villain faction) arc, his character takes a literal face-heel turn as he's revealed to be a spy for the illuminati, and kidnaps his classmate kamiki izumo (who is wanted by the illuminati for story reasons). this was the point in which the manga underwent a major tone shift, moving away from the lighthearted shounen tone of the first few arcs, and towards a more seinen style (though still rooted and grounded in shounen storytelling and tropes) - arguably, this is due in large part to renzou's spy reveal. i mean, it takes a previously somewhat understated main character, generally assumed to be good natured and unassuming, and reveals him as much less than that - still good natured at heart, for the most part, but much greyer due to his role as a spy, one not to be trusted, one who lurks in the background and collaborates with the villain faction that's working to erase the only world most characters know.
but there's more to him than that! i think the biggest reason i love him is because of how layered he is. despite his various archetypes he has more depth to him than one might imagine - while he's a spy for the illuminati, one who has harmed his friends for the sake of that job, he also looks out for those same friends, trying to keep them out of harm's way within his capabilities - i think the clearest example of this is when he threatens yukio back after yukio threatens ryuji at gunpoint. and despite his lackadaisical demeanor, he's also quite similar to yukio, though both seem very different on the surface. they both rely on their masks so much that they sometimes forget who they are underneath them, and have a fundamental distrust of the people around them and even their own families because of how they were raised.
those two are my main favorites, but there's a couple others i consider secondary favorites, i guess? something like that at least. the most prominent of these is toudou saburouta, who is at times hard to really solidify as a favorite because he's more a supporting role and rarely appears in the manga, but he's just such a fucked up bastard i can't help but love him lol. his first appearance is in the kyoto arc where he's revealed as a villain (and later a member of the illuminati, after that arc kicks off), and where he really shines is when he fights yukio and promptly screws with the poor guy's head lol. that fight scene is not only wonderfully drawn but is also a major predictor of where yukio's character arc would go. toudou's later appearances are few and far between but i appreciate them nonetheless, purely because of how much he sticks to being an asshole lol.
i also really like kamiki izumo, though i definitely don't appreciate her as much as i should. initially she's the textbook tsundere, and at the start is kind of a bully or a mean girl, treating shiemi like crap and just being callous towards the rest of the exwire group, but as the manga progresses she undergoes an immense character arc - of course the arc most emblematic of this is the illuminati arc, where her full backstory is revealed and immediately dived into, and her character is essentially analyzed and dissected to high heaven. it's a very emotional arc laser focused on family themes and generational trauma (which both are core themes of the manga and are explored frequently), and by the end of it, izumo is almost a different character from where she started - almost more mature in a way? i guess changed by those experiences, finally getting closure with her family and growing closer to the exwire group, and she seems more contemplative and appreciative of her friends, and herself even. her background is heartbreaking but she moves on from it, and i think that's what i really like about her, and even how it represents aoex as a whole - how characters accept and move on from their trauma. and of course, i just love bitchy tsundere girls in manga, so it's no wonder that i really like her lol. also her growing friendship with shiemi is the cutest shit
favorite ships
oh god where do i start. so there's this ship you might not have seen it coming but i think yukio and renzou look cool together. i've liked yukishima since i started reading and the manga has only given me more material since. i just think they're nice and want them to be friends at least! they have such a fun dynamic, i mean they're both horribly repressed and hide everything from their friends and family, and they're only somewhat real and honest (much more than usual at least) to each other (and maybe a couple others but you get the point). honest to each other by way of renzou trying to get yukio to join the illuminati, but close enough. morally grey characters and pairings are god tier and not only are they both a bit looser on morals they're also unhinged and capable enough to fit the trope lol
just like i don't appreciate izumo enough, i don't cherish izushie enough either. it's easy to pair the only two girls but whatever! i think they're not only cute together but i also find it really cool that they're both insanely powerful and can kick ass together, instead of being reduced to backdrops or male love interests like most main female characters in shounen manga. izumo's closed-off exterior with shiemi's warm but steeled demeanor is a great dynamic imo.
honestly besides yukishima i'm not that into shipping for this series but i'm fine with most ships i guess. and i appreciate most fanworks regardless of ship content, they're just nice to see
