English Dub Review: Blue Exorcist – Beyond the Snow Saga “Awakening”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Rin and Shiemi talk about their feelings!

OUR TAKE

With that whole snake demon stuff in the rear view mirror, we and all of the characters get to have a little bit of a reprieve between story arcs, with everyone calming down to just take in normal every day shenanigans and others setting things up for the next arc. Shura no longer has her curse on her but she still has her weird sword, it just doesn’t do anything special now, but she’s not going to die at thirty so I guess that all evens out. Meanwhile Ban and Lightning are doing that aforementioned set up by further investigating the Blue Night, where Satan’s blue fire spouted up from everywhere and killed a lot of Ban’s family. This is part of why he really Rin keeping his satanic powers a secret was a big deal early on in the story since he’s the only one who has those blue flames (I’m not sure even Mephisto or Lucifer has them), but obviously Rin was a child when this incident happened so he couldn’t be responsible. Now I guess we’re finally going to get to the bottom of that, even though this and the stuff happening with Yukio weirdly echo that anime only plotline that they had to throw into Season 1 when they didn’t have enough manga to adapt.

Meanwhile, we have a more or less conclusion to the hinted at Shiemi romance stuff, as despite Rin trying to nudge her towards going out with him, she ultimately decides she doesn’t know enough about romance or the difference being platonic and romantic love to really commit to that. And fair enough, she was apparently sheltered quite a bit as a kid due to her illness and really only knows a few people, so understanding she doesn’t really know these things well enough is actually a pretty mature decision to make for someone her age. This is unsurprisingly pretty disappointing for Rin, who has been pining after her since they met in the first season, but fortunately he’s a good enough guy to respect this decision. And frankly, I’m just kinda glad we’re not going to be spending too much more time on this romance stuff until there’s something to actually go into here. Anyway, onto the next half and arc of the season where we will hopefully get some more fighting! And if not that, then maybe just some cool lore!