Blue Exorcist, Volume 1 Review

Blue Exorcist, Volume #1    

Author: Kazue Kato

Publisher: Viz Media

American release date: April 5, 2011

Format/Genre/Length: Paperback/manga/paranormal/200 pages

Overall Personal Rating: ★★★★  (3.5)

Rin Okumura lives with his twin brother Yukio at the Southern Cross Boys’ Monastery in True Cross Academy Town. Their guardian, Father Fujimoto, wishes Rin to get a job, so he can someday become a fully functioning member of society. He sends Rin on a job interview to a local restaurant, but Rin encounters a group of troublemakers who harassed him that morning. But there’s something very odd about them.

Rin learns the truth of his birth. His mother was human, and his father a demon, and not just any demon but Satan himself. Father Fujimoto gives Rin a choice—to run away or be killed. But Rin has other ideas, and ends up a student at the True Cross Academy, along with Yukio.

The first volume of the Blue Exorcist series feels a little disjointed at times, and maybe a little repetitive. Once Rin enters the Academy, the story becomes stronger, with the addition of Rin’s brother Yukio, and the head of the Academy, Mephisto Pheles.

I’m a little confused at this point about the relationship between the two brothers. They are twins, but only Rin is a demon, and Yukio seems obsessed with Rin being a demon, although they have the same father. I hope we see more about this later, as well as more about the Academy and the Strange Mephisto Pheles.

One of the best parts of this volume concerned Rin accompanying Yukio to an exorcism, where he meets a young girl named Shiemi, who lies helplessly in her grandmother’s garden.

All in all, it was a good first volume, and I intend to keep reading the series. If you like demonds, exorcists, and sassy bishounen, check this series out.