Welcome back to Anime Rants. On Wednesdays, I plan to alternate between covering Blue Exorcist and writing about Sakamoto Days. This time, it’s the former. In these two episodes, Rin continues his journey in the past, observing his surrogate father and his biological mother as they grow up. Everything is slowly leading up to the mysterious Blue Night. Please enjoy my notes on these installments.
Episode 2: Truth
Episode Rating: 8/10
At the interview with Mephisto, Shiro took the opportunity to make a demand: he wanted to become the next Exwire chosen from the experimental children. Mephisto agreed, but he made sure to tell Shiro that becoming an Exorcist wouldn’t free him from the True Cross Order. Shiro didn’t care. Once he was powerful enough to be Paladin, he reasoned, he would just kill anyone who tried to control him. He also promised to rip out Mephisto’s windpipe someday.
Shiro wasn’t kidding or exaggerating when he said would rather die than stay in the Asylum. This episode made it more obvious why Shiro hates the Asylum so much. The fact that it treated the children like they were in boot camp, offering no normal emotional support, was bad enough. But the worst part was the cruel experimentation on the clone children. Many of them lost their minds, reverting to a lobotomized state and often losing the ability to speak. Shiro was one of the few resistant and lucky enough to survive with his mind in tact.
Even if there hadn’t been any traumatic experimentation, the children of the Asylum were still abused by the system. It’s not normal to grow up surrounded by clones of yourself, knowing that you are also a clone of someone else. Shiro said it was terrible to be around people with the same face as him all the time. Imagine the identity issues that would come from this. In addition, the children usually weren’t given names, but were referred to with product codes. There is truly no excusing such abuse.
Although he stood at a safe distance, Rin now also saw the horrors of the Asylum. He was appalled. I agree with him that nothing could justify such cruelty. However, Mephisto argued that it was the only way to satisfy Lucifer and prevent his suicide plan of destroying both Assiah and Gehenna. In this mythos, Lucifer is like an angry deity waiting to explode. Everyone fear his next “episode.” Even Rin, who was usually fearless, felt petrified when he saw the diseased Lucifer open his eyes in the infirmary. Those were eyes that would destroy the world.
There is a time skip of a few years and Shiro is now a powerful Exwire. He kills a tree demon by himself. Yuri was also there, watching Shiro’s strength in awe. However, she becomes upset with Shiro when he slaughters the greenmen who were running away and not hurting anyone. Shiro doesn’t care that greenmen are primarily peaceful and helpful creatures. The True Cross Order labels them as demons, which makes them fair targets in his mind. This scene showed us Shiro’s lack of empathy as well as Yuri’s interest in defending helpful demons.
Episode 3: Alone
Episode Rating: 8/10
This episode shows us a lot about how Shiro struggles with low empathy and anger, but remains a good person at heart. For example, when his guardian Fujimoto died during a mission, he tried everything in his power to save him. Unfortunately, it was too late. Shiro took the old man’s glasses and kept his last name, becoming known as Shiro Fujimoto. Around the same time, he became an Exorcist First Class and was given permission to leave the Asylum and stay in his own apartment.
Things were going well for Shiro at that point. In addition to becoming an Exorcist, he had also become a legal adult. Shiro made good use of his newfound freedom. He was constantly out smoking, drinking, and hitting on women. Shiro had not stopped being a shitty brat, so he enjoyed being a bit of a playboy, hooking up with multiple “onee-san” ladies who would buy him drinks and sleep with him. He often led girls on when he only wanted sexual relationships. Shiro had the right to celebrate his freedom, but he never had the right to treat others poorly. This issue blew up in his face before long.
Yuri also became an Exorcist, but she was Second Class and in the Tamer category. This way, she would study, tame, and cooperate with demons more than she would have to directly fight them. During an Exorcist mission in Mexico, Yuri bravely and peacefully exorcised a large golem monster. Shiro wanted it to be destroyed, but Yuri was able to make it shrink down to a harmless form after it assessed that she was not a threat. She then quickly released the spirit, rendering the golem an empty artifact.
It would be an understatement to say that Shiro was angry. He was irate. Furthermore, Shiro wasn’t used to being ignored or defied during Exorcist missions. He lashed out at Yuri’s friend Rick for absolutely no reason, calling him second class and striking him in the face. Yuri responded appropriately by bitch-slapping the hell out of Shiro.
Other Exorcists tried to interfere and stop the fight, but Shiro kept struggling and trying to hit Yuri while she yelled at him. He would have hit her if not for a sudden shield of blue fire that protected Yuri. It seems that “Rinka,” who would one day evolve into Satan, was still watching over Yuri after all these years.
A bit later, after both got in trouble for infighting, Yuri and Shiro managed to make up. While they were alone, Yuri took the opportunity to kiss Shiro and tell him she’s been in love with him for years. Shiro responded appropriately by asking Yuri’s age. When he heard that she’s still sixteen, he did the right thing and walked away. However, the two of them did become platonic friends after that point. Shiro also apologized to Rick.
Around this time, one of the dormant clones of Azazel began to show signs of being possessed by a spirit that had just started developing its own consciousness. This young man – who looks exactly like Shiro – would become the vessel for Satan. However, it would take Satan nine years to figure out how to possess the body consistently.
By the time nine years had passed, the dynamic between Shiro and Yuri had shifted. Shiro began to be attracted to Yuri. It would have been creepy if he felt this way when she was a teenager, but it’s been nine years. During the last scene in the episode, Yuri would be 25 and Shiro 27. Assuming there was no weird grooming going on anywhere over their friendship, this is not a problematic age difference. I’ll end on that note for today. Next time, it will be the episode of Satan’s awakening.
~Thanks for reading~
Written by 7Mononoke at Anime Rants
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