Blue Exorcist

Genre: Action
Age Appropriate: Pre-teens
Emotional Response: excited, surprised, entranced
Notable Features: demons, exorcists, high school
Language: Japanese
Length: 2 seasons, 25 episodes
Overall Recommendation: FTW

"Time, Stop! Thou art so beautiful" - Mephisto/Faust

Rin and Yukio are a set of 15-year-old twins who've been raised in a monestary by Shiro Fujimito, as his sons. While they know that he's not they're actual father, he is still their Dad. Rin is the troublemaker of the two, always getting into fights and refusing to grow up. Yukio is serious and wants to become a doctor, so he's more driven. He's gotten himself a scholarship to go to True Cross Academy - an elite school campus in their area. It is both a school for regular (read: rich) kids, and new exorcists-to-be.

Rin and Yukio are also the sons of Satan, who impregnanted their mother during a terrible event. This is how their father found them. At first, Rin seems to be a normal bumming high school-age student, but it turns out that he's been hiding his demon powers - until being accosted by a gang of teens including a demon, sets his powers free. His father saves him and drags him back to their monestary and gives him a brief talking to while they run from the little demons heading from them. During the attack, Shiro gives Rin a demon sword with instructions to never use it, and then locks him in an underground room to fight off the demons with the other priests. When Rin finally releases himself the battle seems over, until he gets upset at his father, says terrible things, and earns a slap in the process. That one action opens Shiro up to Satan's possession and thus is the beginning of the series story.

All of these events, lead Rin to join the Exorcist Cram School. It will include regular classes and cram school classes with hopes of educating all of the students to be exorcists fighting the evil demons that escape into Earth. There is no greater shock than to look up and for Rin to see that Rin's twin brother, Yukio, is his new teacher! Not only that, but Yukio is a full intermediate level exorcist whom Shiro had been training since age 7. With this new revelation, and the other students being annoyed with his presence, Rin's first days in class are difficult. His relationships with his classmates, his brother, and other characters as they enter the scene all lead up to the grand finale.

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I loved it! I didn't think I would. I'd been putting it off for awhile, because I wasn't too impressed by the synopsis where I found it to watch. After surfing around the internet for ideas, I decided it was time to watch it, anyway. I'm so glad that I did. I think that it's sometimes harder to get myself to watch anime in Japanese, because sometimes I'm too lazy to think about subtitles. If a series is new enough, Japanese may be the only option - or the easiest to find.

Anyway, I watched almost the entire two seasons in one day. I've figured out how to watch some of the Japanese series that I watch via the Xbox, which means I can enjoy them on the couch rather then on my iPad and it's has been awesome. Blue Exorcist just possessed me (haha), and I couldn't watch only one episode. It is highly likely that I will watch it again. After a little bit of time, and a lot more anime, I may consider promoting it up to Top 5 status. Per the usual note: No nudity, or swearing, some blood but not enough to make me cringe, so I think a mature pre-teen could handle it. Did I mention that I loved it? It was very exciting, and funny, and woooooooooo! Go Get Satan! Raaar! Also, I would like a familiar like Rin's.

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Surprise!: Kamisama Kiss

Demon King Daimao

Genre: Comedy
Age Appropriate: Older Teen
Emotional Response: Hilarious
Notable Features: magic, demon king, a dragon, youthful misunderstandings
Language: English/Japanese
Length: 1 season, 12 episodes
Overall Recommendation: YAY!

"It's just a big misunderstanding!" - Akuto Sai

Oh, Akuto Sai. The poor kid starts as a transfer student at Constant Magic Academy. He meets his first friend, Hattori, on the train there, and she goes through a solemn ceremony to pledge their friendship. Constant Academy is very Hogwarts-like. There is a mix of magic and technology, magic classes, and the most important - a career sorting crow. This crow predicts the career the student will have in the future, and because this is an anime: Akuto Sai is determined to be the future Demon King (much different from the priest he wanted to be). After hearing this Hatori takes back her pledge and begins attaching him (after said youthful misunderstandings), and Hiroshi (friend #2) declares that Akuto is now his big brother.

Then there is a young redhead (Kena) who may, or may not, be an old friend from the past, a evil witchgirl (Eto) who wants to be by Akuto's side as he theoretically takes over the world and has a spirit ghost brother inhabiting a severed head, and a student council with strange connections. To top it all off, Horone is an android secret surveillance agent who follows her orders very seriously (including an episode of attempted seduction) and moves into Akuto's life, stalker style. When Akuto's powers begin to surface and the gang goes on an interesting treasure hunt, Peter Hausen arrives - a dragon who is the servant of the Demon King.

All of these characters, and more, lead to the supposed destruction of the world and domination of the Demon King. While Akuto's ideas are occasionally misconstrued as Demon King-like, it is often either a misunderstanding or something societally rebellious which is also misunderstood. He seems to have no desire to be the Demon King or act in a way that people feel he should as a Demon King. While demon beasts start cropping up after his powers start to awaken, he's often not the catalyst to an attack - AND Brave, a mysterious hero, makes the news with his demon beast battles. All of this leads to the endgame of Demon King destruction.

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If you haven't figured it out, I love this anime. It's short and sweet and hilarious. There are a lot of inappropriate goings on - mostly accidental but wow - and a lot of awkward moments. I feel bad for Akuto pretty much the whole time, and the female shenanigans are quite amusing. I don't really have a lot to share about the anime because it is relatively short, and it seems like the whole plot is really just a vehicle for the hilarity (rather than the other way around). I cared a lot less about what would happen with world destruction than what Korone was going to do next - and how Akuto would survive it.
Korone's creepy obsession with Akuto, and her living in his closet paired with her robotic speech and lack of understanding regarding bluntness, are some of the best parts.

There was a whole lot of head smacking going on, and some actual lol'ing. Don't expect anything important or deep out of this anime, but watch it. The end does get exciting! It's all a little weird and somewhat hard to follow, but I did find myself cheering the Demon King on! There is even a surprise twist (that's actually a surprise)! Seriously. It's awesome - not enough for a Top 5 but highly recommended.

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Now back to our regular programming: Kaze No Stigma

Trinity Blood (Halloween 3)

Genre: Action
Age Appropriate: Older Teen
Emotional Response: Sad
Notable Features: vampires, priests, nanomachines, supervampire
Language: English
Length: 24 episodes
Overall Recommendation: Wonderful

"Avert not thine eyes." -Narrator

Abel Nightroad: Traveling priest, Lt. Col., AX member, Crusnik (supervamp) and our protagonist.
The first interaction with Abel shows him to be food hungry (he really does love his food) and goofy. A bit of a moron, actually. It takes a little bit to understand that he's actually an intelligent, compassionate priest. Also, the series is pretty quick to show his superhuman/supervampire superpowers as a Crusnik. A Crusnik is a supernatural being one step up on the food chain from the vampires - as a Crusnik actually feeds on vampire blood rather than human blood. Vampires, or Methuselah, are a result  of the post-apocolyptic reality in the series. All current technology is considered "lost." Abel is, surprisingly, amazing with lost technology. There is a scene here or there where he saves the day by excellent hacking skills.

Abel is the savior/martyr type. He is frequently put in situations where he has to save someone in distress - the most important character being Sister Esther. Sister Esther is a young nun from a Istvan (read: Istanbul) who is taken by Abel and a huge debacle orchestrated by the Marquis of the region, who was in turn manipulated by the Contra Mundi, or Order of Rosenkreuz (the villains). The Order wants a New World Order, run by them of course.

Then, there is the Vatican, lead by Alessandro - a childlike Pope, his sister Cardinal Caterina (AX leader) and his brother, Brother Francesco (Inquisitorial division leader). The Vatican is the opposing force for humans against vampires, although the general goal is to find a peaceful exitance. The Empire, for vampires, is run by the Empress, who is the end-all-be-all authority. There is a lot of politics in there.

THEN there is....I'm going to stop now. This just gets more complicated.

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Sad. That's really what this series is, a lot of episodes of sad. Still, it's sad in a more poignant way. Abel's dorky personality is often the only lightness in any episodes, often tempered by his own serious moments. It's not the kind of sad that makes you cry or anything, but maybe hurt a little. At least, depending on how easily you get sucked into character emotions.

The political intrigues aren't as interesting as the personal interactions. I think they were an attempt to shadow historical figures, but only in the sense where you have to care enough about those particular historical figures in order to care. I only know about them from watching that terrible The Borgias show. The individual satellite characters are pretty interesting, actually. My personal favorite is Fr. Hugue (shocking, I know). There is one scene in an episode where the priests have to band together for a few moments in order to stop a big bad from happening and their special abilities (because priests need special abilities :P) are displayed in an excellent group effort. These priests kinda kick ass.

Abel's special 80% Crusnik form is pretty epic. You don't really see it until later in the series, and then it shows up frequently. If I thought the 40% was cool, man, 80% is wicked - both in awesomeness and darkness. He's complicated and in a good way. It wouldn't be right if he was a one-dimensional character.

There is a twist here and there, and they aren't always completely obvious - which I appreciate. Abel is actually pretty when he's not a superfreak vampire or wearing his glasses (such a heartbreaker,too). He's a tragic hero and I was rooting for him the whole way. The blood isn't too bad, there is no sexuality really, but the storyline is a little advanced for someone under a certain age.  So, yeah, go watch it. It's better than great, but it doesn't seem right to call it "YAY," so it gets a "Wonderful."

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Moving On: Fortune Arterial