English Dub Review: Blue Exorcist-Beyond The Snow Saga- “Happy (Merry Xmas) Birthday!”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Shiemi decides not to become an Exorcist, Ban learns more key details about the past, and Rin and Yukio learn about their birth mother.

OUR TAKE

This week, on the Blue Exorcist Christmas Special, a lot of new revelations are dropped on us in addition to the sheer flood of new information we got last week. For one, apparently Shiro Fujimoto, foster dad to Rin, Yukio, and Shura, was part of a series of clone bodies for Azazel, one of the eight Demon Kings, though Azazel himself would go on to not use any of them and die when his body decomposed naturally. Also among these clones was Satan himself, who was the clone right after Shiro, and would go on to impregnate an exorcist named Yuri Egin, who would then give birth to Rin and Yukio, but even among all of these classified data about clones and demon kings and what not, everything about Satan has been covered up or destroyed. You know, I can’t help but think back to the first season when they were forced to come up with an anime-only ending that ALSO involved Yuri Egin and her relationship to Satan, and THAT seemed to be more cohesive than this. And keep in mind that anime only arc was basically stripped from anime canon as if it were a gas leak, but THIS? This we’re keeping for some reason!

But yeah, as for character development specific stuff, Shiemi has decided to not pursue being an exorcist for what are, at least to me, still somewhat unclear reasons. She seemed pretty sure of things before and how she wanted to move forward, but then we have a scene at the beginning of this episode where she is in front of a storm that clears up and then she says she’s changing her mind, so…I don’t know, maybe I need to rewatch those scenes again, or maybe there’s something else that will become clear in time, though at least everyone got a fun Christmas party out of it. Then there’s Rin and Yukio who get a brief story about Yuri from Shura and while Rin is pleasantly surprised to learn this bit about their birth mother, Yukio is a bit over eager to learn more, leading to an argument between the two of them to end the episode and carry over into the next one. Yukio’s uneasiness about his origins and his abilities has been a recurring plotline throughout this season, which is apparently longer than twelve episodes and going into more in the new year, so I guess we’ll see how this differing view between the brothers plays out as we move forward!