English Dub Review: Blue Exorcist “Pink Spider”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

While Lucifer puts Gedoin out of his misery, Shima returns to True Cross, revealing that he was actually set up as a spy for Mephisto when he was invited to join Illuminati before he even came to the academy. Only now he is also still a double, possibly triple, agent, as Illuminati sent him back to the acadmey to spy for THEM, even after he already blew his cover. The kids all meet with Lightning, another of upper crust of True Cross, who is mainly there to assess if they still trust Shima and Mephisto, and while they trust the former, they definitely don’t trust the latter. Later, Shima talks to Yukio about having met Lucifer, which Yukio is apparently surprised by.

OUR TAKE

Hey, what a twist, Shima wasn’t bad after all! Which is good, because he didn’t really cut it as interesting villain to begin with, but it still feels kinda overly complicated, as well as a bit contrived that he was just…put back at True Cross like nothing happened, and even moreso that he was TOLD to go back BY Illuminati. As Shima points out to them, under the pretense that he’s a traitor, they would KILL him if he went back to them as if things are totally normal, but they just tell him “do it or you’re useless.” Lucky for them that he was secretly still with their enemies! Maybe it’ll turn out there are more spies there, Mephisto even hints at that by mentioning he has multiple spies, but I really can’t help but feel like this was just a way of forcing things back into a status quo while maintaining the introduction of a new big bad organization. And the Illuminati have had a decent introduction to their threat level in this arc but they haven’t exactly captivated me with how interesting they are. I guess it’s good that there’s a confirmed fourth season coming later this year so maybe they’ll do more with it there…right?

Anyway, this episode is pretty much just about falling action now that the action portion of this arc and season seems to be over, mainly checking in with all the characters to see where they’re at after everything that’s happened…oh yeah, and revealing that Shima was never actually a bad guy. That definitely lends itself to some funny moments like Rin trying to be a replacement Shima, then the real Shima coming back to everyone’s shock, and the Yukio just feeling like he has to go along with there being no Rin but somehow two Shimas. It’s a good bit, and overall this seems like it would’ve made a fine Season Finale since it wraps everything up in a tidy bow…until that last scene, which doesn’t seem all that significant, but I guess it must be if it needs a whole other episode to let it breathe and PROPERLY wrap everything up. So, looks like we’ve got one more episode in us, which means you’ll have to check back one more time next week for the ACTUAL season finale of Season 3 of Blue Exorcist. Surely there’s no more spies after this, correct?