Big Fish & Begonia (2018)

Other than vague knowledge of the famous story of Journey To the West novel I know absolutely nothing about Chinese mythology, yet I don’t need to in order to be completely absorbed in Big Fish & Begonia. Embodying one of my favorite aspect of animation is it unique ability for visual storytelling. Some nuances might be lost in translation unless you’re well verse into that country’s culture, but what is never lost are the limitless possibilities of what you can experience through animation.

Look how that cute Fish is. Worth all the trouble it brings.

Big Fish & Begonia is set in in the realm of The Others, a sort of parallel dimension that controls the seasons and tides on Earth and is where the souls of humans go after they past. Our leading lady Chun, a 16-year-old girl, travels to the human world in the form of a dolphin and forms a connection with a human boy. The first thing this movie gets out of it way is it world building. Setting up the important pieces of how souls are handle in this world, and later on expanding on them to fuel it main conflict. All the important details involving the world function is fleshed out while leaving enough unanswered to give it world a mysterious allure.

One of my ongoing issues about fantasies is the quick fix magic becomes in their stories. You’ll get that quick magic fix here, but there’s an effort to express consequences for one’s action I feel don’t come across as strongly in other fantasy stories. There’s a comment made by a character how the newer generation doesn’t value life when he frequently sees them throwing it away so easily. The whole film is dedicated to characters making sacrifices for another love one in multiple situations. Doing so in a way that paints the subject with some manner of complexity. Detailing it in a way where the reasoning behind it makes sense, but the action taken is unreasonable with drastic results.

Taking a boat ride through the clouds with this thing, illogical all the way.

No other character embodies this better than Qiu. He has the most tragic arch out of any character in the film. Through Qiu, the film tackles the theme of unrequited love while adding to the already well explored theme of sacrifices, and consequences. Everything revolving around Qiu is fully realize becoming the heavier emotional core of the film. It’s nearly impossible not to sympathize with Qiu wanting to protect his childhood best friend Chun as the world crumbles around him. While the film still get its happy ending, there’s a mid-credit scene that ensures you don’t forget about the significance of these characters sacrifices.

The story is structured nearly flawlessly. Allowing plenty of room be taken under it spell through a sense of wonder when Chun briefly explores the human world, and realm of The Others. Through Chun the viewer will be able to see a harsher side of The Others realm like Chun never witness before. Doing a magnificent job getting across how hard hitting it is for Chun to see everything around her crumble for the value of another life.

Preventing itself from becoming heavy handed the film also has some nice subtlety to its storytelling. None of the characters action are over explained. Instead the film drops some subtle visual reminders in certain scenes to help viewers make the connection easier. One area I’m most happy with is handling the discussion on the worth of human life. From Chun perspective her experience make her value human life a lot more than the adults of The Other realm that simply sees the existence of Kun (a human reincarnated into a Dolphin) as anything more a harm to the balance of the worlds. This plot point nicely sits in the shades of grey having it a strength.

Ray woman here, kinda pointless.

There’s a rat woman character in the movie who goes into the human world who gets forgotten about. Providing a false villain for no reason considering she didn’t add much to the overarching story besides adding a plot hole. Another issue is how Chun affection for Kun is handle. It feels like Chun falls in love with Kun over the fact that he just saved her life, and is willing to sacrifice everything for him. This is salvaged by the fact that through montages it gets across the bond they build over time. There’s also the absent of dialogue shared between Chun, and Kun unable to build the bond to a point where it easy to accept Chun goes as far she does to rescue Kun’s life.

When looking at the sums of it parts there’s some oversights on the storytelling front. On the whole, in its effort to create vast sweeping emotion it makes it possible to be lost in the moment. By pacing itself just right it narrative shortcomings aren’t lingered on for long. Going head first with beautiful visuals, and big emotions expressed by it characters. I’m not excusing the story’s shortcomings, but when I got swept up in the moment those shortcomings were the furthest thing from my mind. Well, except maybe the 3, or 4 times it had the someone got pooped on jokes. Those jokes took me out of its majesty temporarily.

So beautiful. If only I could frame gifs!

Animated by B&T studio the animation is richly detailed with a mixture of digital animation, and some light usage of 3D. My biggest surprise is the 3D in Big Fish & Begonia blends nicely with the 2D art. It is very noticeable, but good enough that it doesn’t take you out of the moment. There’s plenty of times where the animation shine creating dreamy like imagery like a scene involving Chun getting a ferry ride through the clouds, and giving off a oceanic like effect when riding roaring through the clouds. All the while maintaining high detail with so much moving on screen. Like a scene involving a giant stuffed rat that houses a vast array of real rats that leave it to forage before sewing themselves back up inside has much details to marvel at.

In particular the finale has plenty of chaos incurring in the background of the world brought to life by stunning details, and smooth movement sparring no details on its particle effects. At night the ocean reflects the sky, it’s stars and the sublime hues present; while during the day it is almost invisible and many objects look like they are floating through air to create a dreamy mood. It’s beautiful movie to look at with its lush color palette creating one very colorful movie. Sometimes giving off the visual finesse comparable to a Miyazaki movie.

The movie is filled with great imagery like this.

The English dub is great, especially with Stephanie Sheh, and Johnny Yong Bosch in the leading roles. Johnny Yong Bosch in particular as Qiu is gut wrenching, and a emotional powerhouse. It’s easily one of his best performances as a voice actor. He steals the show with ease. Then Stephanie Sheh who is also good manages to pull a convincing performance. She’s able make you believe what her character believes in a short amount of time. One downside to the English dub are the mouth movement are mistimed with the English dialogue. So you’ll characters speak while their mouths don’t move for a bit early on. It doesn’t happen constantly, but is noticeable.

The music is composed by Kiyoshi Yoshida. It’s sweeping, and epic doing justice every scene it’s used. Offering a peaceful quality during calmer moments, and a feeling of other worldly dread when things escalate. Finally, the ending theme “Jiao Xi Ru Feng” by Xu Jiaying appropriately ends the movie with a epic ballad that’s somber, and warm.

Visually one of my favorite still from the movie, and also one of the best scenes.

In a 24 minute documentary about the making of this movie it started life as a short film through a group of very passionate individuals in 2004. Through the course of 12 years B&T Studio would hone their skills doing various commercials, and short films, but would lack funding to complete the feature film. The studio goes into a failed endeavor making a game which dug them into a bigger financial hole than before. People leave the project, and it seems hopeless. Much like the movie itself, the trails to finished the movie required plenty of sacrifices. Every product has their share of setbacks, but few of those works have their passion seep through every frame on screen. One thing that is vividly expressed in everything about the movie, even without knowing it’s production history is the passion is strongly felt from watching it.

Big Fish & Begonia is an monumental achievement for Chinese animation. It’s visually absorbing from beginning to end, with a highly imaginative world it takes advantage off, and a story that’s easy to get become lost in makes one wonderful experience. The sums of it parts are muddle, but the whole thing is nothing short of amazing. I highly recommended Big Fish & Begonia for any fans of animation, and movie fans in general.

Rating: 10/10

Anime-Breakdown: Rakuen Tsuihou: Expelled From Paradise (2014) Movie Review

Gen Urobuchi is a writer I like, but even with that thrown out there he’s very repetitive in his writing. At times, he creates fascinating worlds, and characters, but then make them speak by info dumping, and reiterating the same topics as if viewers missed them the first time. They speak like plot devices instead of like people. So Gen Urobuchi opted to create a world that was formerly filled with humans, and now are just data. Here is story written in that kind of world. A world without consistency, nor intelligent life forms. Just a strings of badly written events.

The opening sequence of the film is confusing. We’re shown a beach, our main character in a swimsuit relaxing, someone hacks the beach, our protagonist throws her drink, and stops this hacking by being naked. Don’t worry, the event turns out to be pointless. I eventually found out by the end of the film that it lead up to nothing. Absolutely nothing. A conflictless story that forces in conflict in its final act just because. No logical reasons behind it besides the fact it wasted more than half of its duration on nothing related to the main story, and might as well try to end things with some action no matter how nonsensical it seems.

Minutes after failing to stop the hack it is established that Deva, this spaceship where 98% of humans resides, has been hacked by this same hacker, Frontier Setter, 184 times. So Deva has push aside the notion of improving their security, but it took them approximately 184 times of being hacked to finally decide to send one of their own agent to Earth to capture the hacker. So we got an advance system/civilization run entirely by super advance computers whom all take the appearances of Gods contradicting the notion this is an advance, smart, intelligence system when it reacts this slow. At this point (seven minutes in), you begin to question if the system got hacked that many times by a single entity how come a large amount of people are still living in Deva?

Not only that, but instead of assigning one of Deva best agents on the assignment Deva assigns 3rd class agent Angela Balzsac. There’s obviously much better agents that can accomplish the task. They (the computers Gods of Deva) established Deva already has an S ranking Deva agent on Earth. It would speed up the process by giving this assignment to Zarik Kajiwara, the S rank agent on Earth, who’s familiar with Earth, and despite being told he has a bad reputation is clearly reliable due to the fact he is an S rank Deva agent. Why Deva uses numbers, and letters to determine an agent ranking is beyond me. Seriously, is the number 1 or 0 much higher in ranking than S rank agents?

Our main characters is named Angela Balzac, which is the most respectable thing about her. She’s a stupid character who for some inexplicable reason knows to hack which would require understanding of simple terms like Script Kiddies, Black Hats, and words like Daemon for simple function. Yet, this same character does not understand people don’t eat sand which is the first thing she does when landing on Earth. These two things don’t belong to the same character. Ballsack (as I am referring to her out of the lack respect I, and writer Gen Urobuchi do not share for her) is introduce in a beach scene in a bikini saying it’s because of work? Wouldn’t it make more sense to be in a place that can overlook CPU, servers, hotspots, you know any area that’ll actively help you better spot when there’s a hacker in the system. I would wouldn’t be questioning this if the film itself provided decent world building. With that absent, there’s no understanding on the status quo of this world at all.

Ballsack goes from one scene to another completely inept in her abilities. Her human partner, Zarik Kajiwara, has to explain to her how using her mecha from Deva would expose her spot to Frontier Setter. Why Ballsack didn’t think of this is inconsistent with the claim she’s a 3rd class rank agent close to being promoted to a high ranking position. If that’s a high position in this world it further question her abilities to do this job, and Deva security too. She needed to be told by S rank agent Zarik Kajiwara to do this instead of her doing it on her own. After being told using this Mecha would reveal her position to this intelligent hacker the next logical step would be for Ballsack to put on some different pieces of clothing to blend into Earth crowd, and not stick out. However, she wears a leotard, garter, elbow-length gloves, and knee boots for the entire film. Everyone else on Earth else wear normal pieces of clothing, but this doesn’t matter in the long run either since this does not catch the attention of Frontier Setter at any point.

I’m meant to believe Frontier Setter singlehandedly hacked into this super advance ship called Deva, which apparently has high security, yet the fact Frontier Setter is unable to detect Ballsack who is looking for him in this city without changing her appearance goes against what’s established. Frontier Setter has other robots he could control, and taking into account he hacked into Deva 184 times this is also inconsistent with said intelligent of the character. As far as characterization goes he received nothing substantial besides questioning if human traits can be found in machines. This often used plot point in sci-fi would have been fine if the film actually explored it.

Another annoying trait of Ballsack character is her bragging how life is better on Deva, and how life on Earth pales in comparison. Ballsack mentions that old rock music wasn’t considered worth keeping by Deva. Meaning Deva intentionally didn’t keep information on simple stuff like sand does not taste good, but kept the information that made Ballsack be naked when stopping a hacker in cyberspace? The same information that does not tell her human body can get tired, and sick. If Deva was a such a great place to live at than it should have preserve as much information as possible not just be selective about it. Say, if somebody on Deva like rock, and Deva didn’t have it that person is out of like. However, on Earth you can find rock music if you like. If not, simply ignore it not discard it like Deva does. As I mentioned earlier, due to poor world building Anglea claims of Deva being better than Earth don’t add much to the film when the bare minimal about the world is not established.

Zarik Kajiwara is the most likable character, but even he has inconsistency in his character. He says himself in the movie he’s  afraid of heights, yet there is a scene where he’s on top of an abandon building stringing his guitar. Unlike tsundere Ballsack, Kajiwara is competent at his job to the point he should have been the protagonist of the film. For starter, he blends into the crowd unlike Ballsack who sticks out. Another thing is he knows the area, can collect information on Frontier Setter location, all while being off Frontier Setter radar. This guy, is basically babysitting this deadweight agent named Ballsack to make sure she doesn’t kill herself. This allows me to sympathize with Kajiwara because not only does he have to do most of Ballsack job for her, but also make sure Ballsack doesn’t end up killing herself. Sadly, there’s not much to his character either besides he likes rock music, and living on Earth. This about as close as the film gets to producing anything resembling good quality.

Our final character is Frontier Setter himself. The film sets him up as this intelligent hacker which does make you wonder why is he attacking Deva. Unfortunately the answer essentially amounts to “you want to go on this road trip bro?” for his motivation. It’s a letdown when this is reveal because the hour building up to this were spent on characters talking about nothing related to the plot. It was either debating where it’s better to live rendered into a pointless argument because of terrible world building, or being all philosophical with subjects on eating till you’re full, liking a specific brand of rock music, and being sick like a human. Frontier Setter is falsely presented as the antagonist in this story, and when there’s no ill attention from it then there should have been something the characters learned from their journey. Ballsack does eventually learn the value of being human, and having a human body just because. There’s not a single good experience she had on her journey before finally finding Frontier Setter. She has her mecha destroyed, and sold for parts, was nearly raped, got sick while on Earth, became very tired, hungry, and talked to Zarik Kajiwara discussing the current affair of their job. Somehow all of this made Ballsack change over a new perception of human living.

It’s explained later on in the film that human consciousness was transferred into data. How exactly that happened, when it happened, and how long it’s been going on for is up to anyone imagination. They (Deva) could have used “Bipolar Magnetic Reversal Theory” to accomplish that as far as anyone is concerned. These simple questions needed to understand the setting are never answered. After the opening credits, Angela Ballsack crashes on Earth, and fights giant Centipede like aliens with a giant robot. These bugs appear in this one, and only scene throughout the film. Are these bugs a common issue on Earth? Is there any other species on Earth that make people fearful to live on Earth? If so, then the idea of 98% of Earth population living in a computer would make sense. Except, there is no world building on Earth either!

While seeing the film I assumed it was created by A1-Pictures because of various ass shots, but nope I was wrong. This film was brought to us by Toei Animation, and Nitroplus who really wanted to outdo them with ass shots. All the budget for the film clearly didn’t go into the animation. Whenever character speak it’s only up, and down motion which looks unnatural. I’m guessing the budget likely went into developing bouncing boob technology for Ballsack character before abandoning the idea when realizing Toei, nor Nitroplus had the technology to make it happen. So they opted for ass shots just incase the audience forgets Ballsack has an ass. When the characters are still the models don’t look bad, but the low-framerate in motion makes everything look disjointed, and delayed. Possibly making you wonder if whatever device you’re watching it on is laggy. The only time the animation looks natural is when the framerate is bumped up in the action scenes. In these action scenes the motion is fast, and whatever moving looks somewhat natural. These moments don’t last long, nor are they very flashy in their presentation. Most of the film best moments of competent animation is in the climax, but given how pointless the climax is it undermines what happening on-screen, and ultimately would have been pointless if the writing wasn’t so awful. The only thing about the animation I wouldn’t complain about are the backgrounds are decent looking since they don’t move. That would be it as far praises go.

Voice acting in both Japanese, and English languages are competent while virtually sharing the same traits. For starter, both Rie Kugimiya in Japanese, and Wendee Lee in the English voiced Angela Balzac are equally annoying. Wendee Lee is higher pitched in her portrayal which makes her more grating when listening to her brag about how better life is on Deva. She doesn’t change her tone regardless what her character is meant to feel in any scene either. Rie Kugimiya doesn’t fare any better in the leading role. Instead of being grating her portrayal ends up being bland. At least Wendee Lee portrayal made me feel something about the character. Sure it is mostly hatred, but it’s certainly better than Rie Kugimiya who leaves no impression when having played other tsunderes. Nothing about Rie Kugimiya performance stands out besides she sounds no different from a bland tsundere character.

Zarik Kajiwara is played by Shinichiro Miki in Japanese, and Steve Blum in the English dub. On both audio tracks these two actors are easily best actors. Steve Blum especially operating on autopilot with his cool, laid back voice. Blum voice goes hand in hand with Zarik Kajiwara personality for an easy cool portrayal. Miki also does the same so not of a much difference in performances. Frontier Setter is voice by Hiroshi Kamiya in Japanese, and Johnny Yong Bosch in the English dub. None of them end up being better than the other voice actor. Johnny Yong Bosch is simply wasted in the role that demand nothing of him. The character has no complex emotions, or personality so it’s more disappointing seeing Johnny Yong Bosch in the role than it is a bad performance. He doesn’t sound robotic at all in the role. Whereas Hiroshi Kamiya does sound robotic in his portrayal. Fitting the role, but nothing demanding about.

The script is different in both languages. I wouldn’t advise seeing the film in any language given how bad it is. Reading the subs draws more issues to its writing while the English dub has some bad audio mixture. In English, some wording are changed to make the story appears less idiotic than it already is, but also end changing the meaning in the film in general. Hearing 98% of humans have “cyber personality” doesn’t seem like a big deal compare in Japanese where it says 98% of humans are “artificial intelligence”. Creating different problems for itself. At best, it’s most tolerable to mute the film, and read subtitles. Not the even soundtrack composed by Narasaki is noticeable in the film. It’s heavy on electronics, techno, and rock, but all equally forgettable.

Rakuen Tsuihou: Expelled From Paradise will leave you with many philosophical questions. The most important one being “What did I just watch?”. Don’t let Gen Urobuchi, and Seiji Mizushima (director of the original Fullmetal Alchemist anime) names trick you into seeing this film. If this is the standard Japan wants to set for every 3D animated film that come out of their country they’re in serious trouble. The general low-framerate in animation, lack of any thought into the writing, and nothing substantial to remember is inexcusable in an era where the likes of Pixar, and Dreamworks Animation have made better 3D animated movies. If the animation isn’t flashy enough to make it entertaining to watch than it should at least contain good writing to keep viewers engaged. When you got neither, this film here stands as an example of that.

2/10

Anime Breakdown: Blue Exorcist (Ao No Exorcist) (2011) Series Review

Important to note:

I’m no expert on manga or its animated form so when it comes to regarding it’s position of quality I have no idea how high or high low this would rank. Honestly though this isn’t the first anime I’ve ever seen, although I doubt anyone who sees and read this stuff would take someone who only anime he has seen are Angel Beats!, Persona 4: The Animation, Tokyo Ravens, Attack On Titan, Noragmi, Puella Magi Madoka Magica, and WataMote would take my criticism to heart. At the time this was posted I got confirmation from the official Blue Exorcist fan page that there is no plan for another season.

Lets get started into why I decided to check out the series in the first place. Looking through the animation section of my video store I was looking for something new to see. In the past I pretty much establish myself as a person whose sees the current state of animation in a negative light. Looking back at my reviews on animated movies most of them begin with me bashing current animation in some way. So with this incentives I chose to check out one of the more recent animated films. The one I chose just so happened to be Blue Exorcist and once I discover it was based on a manga that has a anime I chose to do my review of the film differently. Unlike in the past I didn’t just want to go into the film for just newcomers, but be able to tell fans if the film does justice to the series or not. Plus I had plenty of time to kill so there was no harm to be done if I checked out the series. This being a review of a television series and not the film I’ve chosen to adapt the wing-it style I originally developed for TV shows (which I haven’t decided to start or ignore) for this series review of  Blue Exorcist.

Premise:

The world of Blue Exorcist consists of two dimensions joined as one, like a mirror. The first is the world in which the humans live, Assiah. The other is the world of Demons, Gehenna. Ordinarily, travel between the two, and indeed any kind of contact between the two, is impossible. However, the demons can pass over into this world by possessing anything that exists within it. Satan is the god of demons, but there’s one thing that he doesn’t have and that’s a container in the human world that is powerful enough to hold him! For that purpose, he created Okumura Rin, his son from a human woman, but will his son agree to his plans, or will he become something else…? After killing Rin’s guardian, Father Fujimoto, in an attempt to bring Rin back to the Demon world, it led to Rin’s journey of becoming an Exorcist in order to become powerful enough to defeat Satan and also face the consequences of being the son of Satan.

Good: Accessible, Easy To Define Characters

If there’s one thing Blue Exorcist does correctly, it’s its characters. Each of them have an easy to define trait and backstories. Motivations become much more about the characters personal goals over simply being a battle of good vs. evil. Facing their own weaknesses even overcoming preconceived notions when facing each other. Taking time to do something with it sides character albeit be an entire episode or a moment where they specifically shine. Despite a being a series about orphans, devils, and demonic creatures it finds time to have a little fun with itself thanks to its balance of varied personalities. They have the right balance of comedy and genuine emotion that sells you on whatever the characters are currently going through their situations.

Rin Okumura, the protagonist of the series exemplifies the series contrast of the typical cycles we assume of good and evil. He’s the son of Satan, contains his powers, but ultimately decides to go on a different path from what’s society expects from him. Okumura goes against the norm of how to perceive a demon even if the series itself plays it pretty safe with it story. What makes Blue Exorcist easily accessible is the relationship between brothers Rin and Yukio. From first impressions, it came across as if Yukio’s accepting his brother’s status a demon would be a central arc, but gets resolved rather quickly. However, the key to maintaining the brother dynamic interesting is them seeking their parents past all the while facing several issues together. It’s this kind of brotherly love that makes it worth getting involved behind the protagonists.

The series best character moments are with Shiro Fujimoto who raised the spawns of Satan. Early on in the series his character bites the dust, a shame too since it leaves as little impact as you would expect, though that is to blame more on poor plotting than the character himself. Fujimoto slowly becomes more developed through the course of the series from the words of either the children he raised or those who knew him from the past. This father is a certified badass because of how strongly he sticks to his beliefs. Not only does he retain the good word, but always searches for a non violent solution if possible. He’s a pacifist if he sees other ways of resolving an issues, but not to the point he’s not afraid to get his hands dirty. It’s just unfortunate Shiro Fujimoto takes a back seat to his sons given how his backstory has a better setup for three act stories than the direction the series went in.

Good: Interesting World With Religious Elements

Admittedly I never once really thought much on the hierarchy of a church. I bring this up because religion is one of the series main elements. To an extent it does establish the rules in which the priests should do business. They are pretty clear using what the average person associates when it comes to exorcism and priests. It’s not an shoehorned element as its usage of religion ideas is solid. Baring some similar element to its inspiration is easy to compare, but free enough to explore the concepts with modern updates. For example, there’s five ways a Meister (an exorcist specific combat style) ranges from; Dragoon (guns), Knight (swords and what not), Aria (reads holy text scripture), Tamer (summon Demons), and Doctor (self explanatory). We get a good picture of how everything functions and works in the system.

Using religion as a starting point it yet again makes a number of contrast from established concepts. For starter the lord of evil Satan has far more characteristic than just a demonic being. His one trait of punishing is kept, but it’s the idea of what makes Satan who he is that we are given a glimpse off. Understanding why a human would fall in love with Satan and understanding Satan as a person not just as a mere demon. This exploration comes pretty late in the series although very much appreciated putting a different spin on a legendary figure. Further supporting the against type the series highlights with the demonic protagonist. Knowing it limits the religion elements never become overbearing to the series.

Mixed: Production Values

From a technical standpoint there’s nothing about Blue Exorcist that stands out from animation, visuals, music, or anything for that matter. It simply does its job adequately which isn’t enough to leave a permanent impression like the series so desperately wants to achieve.

When it comes to sound the only thing that comes close to registering on radar is it music. The series only has two notable tracks which are the opening themes; “Core Pride” by the (can’t believe I actually recognized this) band UVERworld for the first 12 episodes and “In My World” by Rookiez Is Punk’d for the remaining 13. UVERworld is a good band, but “Core Pride” isn’t a good representation of the shows first season. Opening with an uproaring saxophone accompanied by fast drum beats within seconds “Core Pride” goes from Jazz to a rock song in seconds. I definitely like the song “Core Pride” and how it expresses its subject matter, but that same notion can’t be applied vice versa. “Core Pride” transforms into another genre in seconds something the typical opening does not do; title appears with flashy fire effects, protagonist is running late to something, protagonist head facing down while walking alone with hands in his pockets, protagonist laying out in the rain holding his weapon, protagonist gets picked up and runs again, and ending with the protagonist holding out his sword just to look cool. Man I spend allot on a single track which honestly defeats the point of watching 12 episodes. Sure you’ll get more context if you see the first twelve episodes, but those moments are pretty insignificant when compared to the big picture “Core Pride” gets across a lot more efficiently in four minutes.

The second opening track “In My World” by Rookiez Is Punk’D is more in line with the series quality as the opening is even less inspired. However, “In My World” should basically be labeled “Core Pride 2” as both songs are pretty much the same thing lyrically. “Core Pride” talks about a person considered to be an outsider in his community having big dreams he knows are unobtainable. Over the course of his life he never loses the passion to obtain them knowing that if his future is never bound to change like people have told him throughout his life he knows himself he can change. Long summarization I know. It’s just the way the song presents that life experience is a lot classier because the person going on the journey is facing it head on with no excuses even if everyone is trying to put him down. “In My World” is the griefing version of “Core Pride”. Literally opening with “Dark side in my heart is a black box” it mopes around with an unenlightened outlook. Lyrically the song’s attitude is “F**k all to the world” for the majority of it until by the end the person embraces life and all bad things it throws. Notice a problem with the two? If not, “Core Pride” is a life experience where as “In My World” is a temper tantrum. “In My World” is a bad opening because it’s drastically smaller in scope compare to “Core Pride” and going against the big scope the show is aiming for. Worst of all “In My World” doesn’t in any way build upon anything that’s been established simply restating facts viewers at this point would have already known about the series.

Now with that off my chest how’s everything else that actually matters for longer than a minute and half. Well the sound effects are dull. Gunfire sounds are similar and at times when a bullet hits an object the effect can be missing. Things such as fire burning, swords clashing, broken gate falling, or any various series of action sound stock. There’s literally editing programs with same level of quality sound effect. Visually the animation is smooth, but there’s nothing notable about it. Feeling very restrictives it attempts to make up for it with a more stylized approach to make its battles appear big. Granted this works to make battle look cool, but the restrictive animation prevents from the action scenes from being elaborate. Art design is generally mixed. Demonic creatures for the most part are based around animals and unfortunately the creators don’t stray too far off from the animals anatomy. Everything from the color to the body structure, nothing about the demons look visually demonic. Take a look below.

Character designs are thankfully varied minus the protagonist Rin Okumura. While researching images I did not expect to find a character so similar to Rin’s design. So while the protagonist isn’t entirely original, the rest of the cast established their own identity. Although the animators did get carried away with the design of a particular characters breasts. I kid you not when I say there were times when the only things on my screen were animated breasts.

Mixed: Promises a lot, delivers very little

Seeing how many negative things I have to say about the writing, lets get out some positives. Story arcs that have little connection with the main story bring satisfying closure. These stories could be from the celebration of a certain character birthday to a husband finally forgiving himself to what happened to his wife. The downsides to these arcs varied as some do make character development progress, but overall these stand alone episodes neither strengthen nor weaken the overall story. Now for to the long rant.

Blue Exorcist throughout its 25 episodes follows the pattern of a Stephen King novel; it has excellent build up, but the outcome is underwhelming. It has the characters and world to fulfill the epic scope it has its eyes set on, but the stories themselves suffer from mediocrity. In order for Rin Okumura to be become an exorcist he must attend True Cross Academy. This ends up making the series just another high school anime. Character archetypes are pretty typical for a high school setting from the bully, the loner, the nerd, and so forth. Like the high school setting it has some twists like the lack of any actual romantic tension. The characters are good, but unfortunately what the series decides to do with them amounts in unfulfilling transformations.

Another problem with the series is protagonist Rin Okumura never overcomes any major obstacles that doesn’t require the use of his demonic powers. It pretty much throws away the idea of the usage of his power consuming him which prevents Rin Okumura’s having a sense of growth. From the beginning of the series all the way to the end, progression is absent with Rin having learned little to nothing at all. Also the subplot about Rin Okumura learning to control his blue flames for several episodes is thrown away by the finale. Without spoiling it, simply put another character inherits a similar power and immediately knows how to control it.

Another weakness is Rin’s rival Amaimon. Amaimon is meant to come across as the snarky rival, but rather comes across as a overly powerful brat. Everytime Amaimon fought with Rin it usually resulted in expositions between attacks preventing momentum from building up. Even when something did happen in the battles between Amaimon and Rin it resorted to the same trick every time. It’s amazing that despite how short the battles are they can take a while to get to the point.

Hands down the biggest issue with Blue Exorcist is the lack of closure. When reaching closer to the finished line it all feels rushed with elements being left unexplored or underdeveloped even a mysterious character that’s hinted to be more important is left as is. Sure the big finale is wrapped up insultingly easily, but it’s not a way to end a series on a high note. It leaves unanswered questions and teases at the end that our heroes still have a lot more adventures to go on that we’ll never see unless we read the manga. As it stand the ending pretty much promotes anyone who likes the series enough to check out the manga. Coming from someone who’s not an expert on the whole anime culture it doesn’t leave much of an impression other than “it was decent I guess”.

Mixed: Action with flare, but fizzles in execution

When it comes down to the action it’s the closest the series ever comes to being visually impressive. Undermine by battles that just look cool. Just about every single action scene is heavy on the spectacles as the characters fighting styles differs from guns, to summoning creature, spouting bible verses, and weapon combat. Pretty visuals can’t hide the fact the action scenes are basic. This wouldn’t be a problem if the series actually had a fair amount of action scenes, but it is due to the fact that the heroes spout exposition in every action scene, it can’t be forgiven.

Staging on the other hand fares a little better. Making use of its characters varied combat styles leads to seeing these different techniques coming together. Rather than simply using these techniques to pad out the spectacles their strengths and weaknesses are always present. With a clear understanding of how capable each combatant is, it brings excitement not knowing how things will play out. Although this doesn’t apply to whenever Rin fights an opponent. His fights usually are won by summoning bigger blue flames or lazy writing that makes his opponent incredibly easy to defeat. Rin Okumura battles have the most visual flares, but are also the most disappointing due to how easy everything is for Rin to overcome.

Final Thoughts:

Blue Exorcist is a decent show that can’t overcome mediocrity, but neither becomes a victim of it thanks to some twists and good characters. At one point while watching Blue Exorcist you see a glimpse of a show that reaches its potential, but sadly that moment is short lived and by the time you get to that point more than half of the series is done and past that mark it removes all progress to quickly wrap things up. Unable to come close to reaching the aimed epic scope in emotional values and losing momentum when reaching its high point Blue Exorcist entertains while it lasts, but that’s about all the height it’ll amount to.

Characters: 2/2

Ideas: 2/2

Production Values: 1/2

Writing: 1/2

Action: 1/2

Rating: 7/10 – Genre fans will find a lot to like, but for the average viewer its numerous flaws prevent it from standing out to similar series.