Review of Blue Exorcist: The Movie
Ao no Exorcist anime was pretty dissappointing. So, many people watch this movie expecting something not even good, just more decent that the anime ending was. It turn out to be more than this. It's actually a good movie, far better than the series is based. This movie is the spin-off/second season's substitute kind of anime movie, like the second Tiger & Bunny movie, or many movies from shonen series, instead of the outrageous recap on buig screen kind, fortunetly. This kind has the chance to tell parallel stories with the characters, letting the creators tell stories they can't tell on the TV show because thatwould be a filler episode, or story arc. Most of this movies doesn't add any new to the story, and people watch them just to see more adventures with their favourite characters. So, most of the times the plot is pretty shallow. Appears an antogonist never seen before, our heroes defeat them, he never comes back. And that would be the easy route to this movi, but the fact is, the writters tell us a story with character driven importance, that helped to made the two brothers Rin and Yukio more consistent characters.
How they made this? The plot revolves around Rin being irresponsible, Yukio being to responsible. But, unlike the TV show, Yukio has actual reasons to complain about Rin, like putting in danger the mission, instead of being the whinny stupid brat that suddenly fears the brother he was raised since he was a child. Made one character likeable, but what about Rin, what progress they do towards him?
Rin is an irresponsible, hot-blooded but good-hearted hero, like the rest of the 99% shonen heroes. But in this movie, we see him grows and mature because he has to take care of Usamaro, a little demon the exorcist found. At the end, Rin learns an important lesson about how bad and good memories are important, and teach Usamaro this lesson.
Usamaro, the little demon, is the threat. This movie actually doesn't have a real villain or antagonist, despite there's a conflict between characters, better written than in most of the anime episodes. He follows the childish logic if bad things doesn't exist, everybody will be happy. But when he does that, he put people in danger. So Rin turns into a big brother figure that grows and take care of Usamaro, while he tries to proof sealing him away is not the best solution.
Unfortunetly, the rest of the cast are the anime characters that are there because they were in the show, and they don't made too much to the plot. People who hasn't watched the anime probably wouldn't know most of them, because they don't have an exposition scene. That's pretty sad, specially with some good characters like Mephisto Pheles doing nothing.
The movie's theme is actually pretty close to the show, because Rin's memories about his deceased adoptive father it gave him his main motivation. So the writters decide to tell a story that actually reflect the best part on the anime.
It really feels the budget's difference between the Tv show and the movie, because visuals are here some much better that the anime ever has. The soundtrack has also some great tracks, but it's the art the one who shines on. From the start, with the ethnic-look alike images to tell us the tale, to the spectacular backgrounds, without forgetting the impressive demon designs.
One of the big problems is actually the fact many people has to watch the show to enjoy the movie. Just to watch this movie and enjoy the whole of it, i would just recomend watch Ao no Exorcist.