The majority of people in first world countries are born free from those who would claim to own them. Those with good health also have the realistic expectation of living into their 70s or beyond. Assuming this is your experience, stop and imagine what it would be like if your lifespan ended at thirty, guaranteed. Moreover, your destiny is entirely decided for you. You will have a child and die at thirty. In the meantime, your very being is bound to your master, the one for whom you live.

This is reality for Shura Kirigakure. It’s all she knows. Though she may have felt fleeting hope at certain points in her life, Shura lived with the expectation of dying young. Living freely was not an option. Her story continues in Blue Exorcist: Beyond the Snow Saga.

---

Episode 4: Goodbye to You

Episode Rating: 8/10

Content Warning: Brief nonconsensual sexuality with underage character

The first element to discuss is Shura’s flashback to meeting Shiro. Hachiro taught young Shura to speak, read, and write, but other than that, she had no social experiences, growing up in the snowy wilderness. When Shiro found her, Shura felt excited and hopeful for the first time. This man was powerful enough to do major damage to her master. Her behavior toward Shiro – demanding to have a child with him – was of course inappropriate, but it’s not like she knew better back then.

I wish there had been a little more time spent on Shura’s positive experiences with Shiro, because the importance of those memories can’t be overstated. Shiro introduced Shura to the outside world and made her life worth living. He even gave her the name Shura. (The child knew that Hachiro wanted her to be Tatsuko, but she never thought of that as her own name.) It’s no wonder that Shura fell into depression after Shiro’s death.

Hachiro can use hypnotic powers to control people after making eye contact. He must concentrate in order to use it, and if he overuses it, he loses mental capacity. To ensure the next generation of “Tatsuko,” Hachiro tried to make Yukio and Shura have sex. I’m grateful this scene wasn’t more graphic and that it was stopped. I was afraid it would be fetishized, but the vibe the anime went for was extreme discomfort. After all, Yukio is underage, and even if he was an adult, nobody’s consent was taken into account. Luckily, Rin broke Hachiro’s concentration before things got serious.

Rin had a few good moments, but Yukio takes the cake for being the coolest in this episode. He essentially tricked Hachiro into undoing his pact with Shura. Yukio’s lines were delivered perfectly to make him seem like he was starting a villain arc. His lie was very convincing and even I doubted for a moment that he had an actual plan. I mean, he even shot Rin multiple times (though not with real bullets) to make it convincing.

In the end, Yukio’s plan worked, and Shura was freed from the demonic pact. However, Hachiro transformed into an enormous multi-headed hydra and angrily grabbed Shura. It’s up to Rin and Yukio to fight this immortal monster. (Shima also came to help.) Surprisingly, the visuals for Hachiro’s giant serpent form were alright. The animation wasn’t the most fluid or dynamic, but it wasn’t the eyesore CGI that I expected, either. Not bad work from studio VOLN.

I’m going on a quick tangent. I actually really like this arc and the idea of Hachiro’s “love” for Tatsuko. It’s like something from an epic fantasy tale. Naturally, Hachiro is a sociopathic demon who exercises unfair control over the one he supposedly loved. He enslaved hundreds of innocent women. Nothing like this should be acceptable among humans, but this toxic relationship makes for a thrilling, dark-fantasy “romance.” I just hope it ends with the demon losing and Shura achieving true freedom.

This episode concludes with a cliffhanger where viewers are unsure if Shura will die. She has agreed to descend into the lake and die there with Hachiro. I doubt she will die because Blue Exorcist usually doesn’t kill off characters. Regardless, this scene brings us back to the idea in the introduction: that Shura’s entire reality was defined by this abuser – this demon. I definitely get what she means about not knowing another way to live. Still, I think she’s strong enough to survive. We’ll see next time.

~Thanks for reading~

---

~