Blue Exorcist: Shimane Illuminati Saga

Episode 9

In the movie Adaptation, Nicolas Cage's character gets a piece of screenwriting advice from a fictionalized Robert McKee that is rather mercenary, but difficult to deny: “You can have flaws, problems, but wow them in the end, and you've got a hit.” We're far from the end of Blue Exorcist—we're not even at the halfway point of this Shimane Illuminati Saga season—but “Help Me” is the beginning of the end of this Izumo Rescue Mission story. As such, one of the biggest questions I had going into this episode was whether or not the show would be able to “wow me”, in the end.

This story hasn't been without its flaws, and some of those flaws remain present this week, too. The direction remains just a little too flat and sterile for the nature of the material. The climactic scene where the Nine-Tailed Fox Spirt worms its way out from between Tamano's legs so it can take hold of Izumos' body could have been one of the most genuinely terrifying things that an anime has put to screen in recent memory. Instead, they simply communicate what is happening to the characters while remaining as “PG-13” friendly as possible. The same thing goes for Gedoin's writhing, monstrous experiments, which are far from terrible looking, but lack the physicality and visceral impact needed to produce the excellent kind of horror that Blue Exorcist is so clearly aping from. It's like the difference between playing one of the all-time great Resident Evil games and settling for a movie night with one of those animated spinoff movies. Both products will technically supply you with the same brand of thrills and chills, but only one of them will stick with you in your memory for years to come.

Despite my continuing disappointment over what this part of the Shimane Illuminati Saga could have been, I can't deny that what we've been forced to settle for isn't half-bad at all. This is all thanks to the show's excellent cast of characters, which has become a real strength for Blue Exorcist. Like the rest of its ingredients, there's nothing about our heroes that is especially novel or daring, but they're likable and interesting enough to carry the series along and guarantee that its major story beats will hit when they very easily could have fallen flat. Rin's moment of crisis that occurs after failing to convince Izumo to come back home with the gang is a great bit of emotional storytelling that puts the spotlight back on our protagonist after a good number of weeks spent mostly in the background. Izumo's big moment of personal development, where she finally admits to caring about her friends and wanting the help she's been so insistent on denying, also works so much better than it ought to. I want her to survive this horrible ordeal and make it out alive with all of the others.

So long as Izumo gets a proper amount of closure, the only other thing I think I'll need to be satisfied with would be to see Rin and the others curb-stomp Gedoin at least a few more times. Maybe toss in a shot straight to the groin for Renzo, while we're at it. It's too early to say whether or not this conclusion to the Izumo Rescue Mission will end up “wowing” me. Even if it only manages to make me nod in general appreciation and maybe offer a satisfied chuff or two, that will mean that this storyline got the job done.

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Blue Exorcist: Shimane Illuminati Saga is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

James is a writer with many thoughts and feelings about anime and other pop-culture, which can also be found on Twitter, his blog, and his podcast.