Shounen isn’t my favourite genre, but I have enjoyed plenty of the better series in the genre. Ao no Exorcist is a sneaky one though: at first it first seems to avoid a lot of the overused cliches that plague the genre… only to fall into them anyways.
What sets Ao no Exorcist apart is that it’s typical shounen, but done well. The main character is a hot headed brat, but he’s well fleshed out and has good development and reasons for his actions. The show inevitably ends up at an academy, but school assignments that the characters have to do are fun, interesting and lead to quite a bit of character development.
The big problem is that this series is way too epic for what it wants to be. On one hand it aims for high school hijinks and a look at exorcists in training, and on the other it is involved in an international plot involving to purge the strongest demon known to man: Satan. The main character may be Satan’s son and all, but the two parts don’t mesh at all and leave a terribly divided series.
The part of the series that suffers the least is the one that focuses on the high school. It’s not ambitious, but it’s fun, the characters are genuine and they have a great chemistry between them. The plot against satan unfortunately is horribly rushed, with in the end Satan magically forgetting to use a lot of his powers in order to actually prevent the main cast from not instantly dying. It’s full of bland twists and unoriginal plot devices that are way too constrained with trying to go for a “by the books”-ending. This series is based on a manga, but decides to go with its own storyline for its final third. While that isn’t immediately a bad thing, it just doesn’t work here.
A-1 has made sure of great animation, but in the end there are just many better shounen series out there. Ao no Exorcist was a nice attempt, but it lacks vision.
| Storytelling: | 7/10 – Does not know what it wants to focus on and ends up half-hearted. Tries to subvert shounen cliches only to fall into them. |
| Characters: | 8/10 – Saved by a good chemistry and good development. Bad villains, though. |
| Production-Values: | 8/10 – Solid action, though nothing amazing. |
| Setting: | 7/10 – Tries to deliver a solid setting of exorcists, but in the end there is hardly any gap between the best and the worst of them. |
I feel that episodic series tend to be dismissed for the wrong reasons. “It has no story”? What do you mea, these series are filled with stories? Personally, I find that an episodic series needs to have two elements in order to really succeed:
1) Strong episodic stories.
2) Something to tie the show together.
Dantalian no Shoka has nailed one of them.
Basically, this is a show that explores various people who were given strange powers through what this show calls “Phantom Books”. These stories start off a bit clumsily, but amongst the episodes there are some real gems to be waiting. Some of the people highlighted are well fleshed out and portrayed, and when it wants to, this series can really create a great atmosphere to support them. These stories are all varied, interesting and aside from a number of duds here and there, succeed in telling their story. I’d say the ratio of episodes that don’t work to the ones that do is about 1:2.
Ironically, the main characters are some of the least interesting characters of the series. They feel more like plot devices that the show needs in order to be able to move from story to story than actual characters most of the time, and their development is just shallow, and they fail to really tie this series together or give it a satisfying conclusion. Especially Dantalian herself is just an annoying brat who spends every episode randomly insulting people and not really doing anything at all to contribute to the story.
Standalone though, the episodic stories and characters are more than enough to make this one worth watching. On top of that, Ganiax threw in a lot of eye candy as well, with some gorgeously animated action scenes (oh, ad Osamu Kobayashi also pays a visit to do one episode). The main couple is annoying, but this show has more than enough to make up for it.
For a long time I wondered what happened to the good parts of Xebec. I mean, it’s been ages since they released anything. Now however, I know: they were working on this movie. This was one heck of a roller-coaster ride.
The Fafner TV-series set itself apart with the way in which it took the “teenaged mecha”-formula, and executed it well. Not partially well, like what Ao no Exorcist is currently doing, they really came up with a great setting, premise and storyline for their run. This movie carries on this tradition, with a significantly upgraded budget. This is a real feast for the eyes and especially the action scenes are just gorgeous. Oh, and the music kicks even more ass than it already has.
Heaven and Earth makes terrific use of its time. The TV-series did enough building up. Using this, it can really deliver climax after climax after climax, with a very good balance between the quiet scenes that never drag out. On top of that though, it does manage to push the themes of the TV-series further, like the enemy, who is trying to understand human nature, or the way in which the main cast uses children, just because they happen to have special powers.
This movie is an action movie, but it puts its characters’ emotions above all else. It successfully introduces a new cast of characters who manage to show themselves off, without taking over the series in favor of the main cast. The main characters themselves also have some great scenes themselves, while also giving plenty of time for the side characters to shine (another great point of the TV-series that managed to carry over). The creators really tried to turn this into an emotional roller coaster, and combined with some excellent character development, they really succeeded.
This has one downside, though: it refuses to explain most of the stuff that happens. I mean, it describes what happens, but as for the why behind everything this is a movie that really likes to leave its viewers into the dark.
Let me stress this to the people who haven’t seen the Fafner TV-series: watch that one first. Heaven and Earth is really meant as a continuation, not to mention that it’s filled with spoilers from the TV-series. If you have watched the TV-series and liked it however, then there is no reason not to watch this movie. It delivers an excellent emotional climax to an already excellent franchise.
