KICK SATAN'S a**! ~A Blue Exorcist Thread~ (ch61 out!)

with the current manga events what are your feelings on Shima?

******** that little s**t	11.8%	[ 13 ]
dammit Shima!	25.5%	[ 28 ]
not quite as fond of him as before	3.6%	[ 4 ]
unchanged/still dislike	2.7%	[ 3 ]
ucnchanged/still like	5.5%	[ 6 ]
like him a little more	1.8%	[ 2 ]
seriously liking him more	1.8%	[ 2 ]
loving him now	3.6%	[ 4 ]
******** YEAH CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT	12.7%	[ 14 ]
poll whore	30.9%	[ 34 ]
Total Votes:			[ 110 ]

[Mugetsu Ookamiza]

Izumo: Uke?! Mike! Why…? I ordered you to…
Mike: You little brat! (like we’d ever take orders from you!) We’re your only weapon. Use us!
Mike (to Shima): In the name of the god Uka no mitama, you shall not pass!
Shima: Fine. I hate to do this, but…[chants]
Izumo: Mike! No…this can’t be happening….
Mike: You fool! Hurry up and go…keep moving forward…
Uke: *sobs, then charges Shima, screaming*
Izumo: Uke!! Don’t! That’s enough! I’ll be fine, just go! That’s an order, got it? Please! PLEASE!
Izumo: They…they were like brothers…to me…
Shima: Were they? I’m sorry.

[Roxas Kitsune]

omg Blue Exorcist is freaking awesome!

[Mugetsu Ookamiza]

omg, someone who works on the group scanlating it as one of the translators had this to say on another site:

Quote:

(However, some dialogue Shima says this chapter...ugh. That's not misunderstood it's borderline evil. Again, I am sorry.)

dammit, Shima, looks like you are dead to me and shall remain thus...

[Mugetsu Ookamiza]

I am kicking myself in the a** right now because I didn't realize this until tonight and I freaking should have considering the type of things I looked up while reading Hoshin Engi, Ushio & Tora, and Yashakiden (which I still need to get volumes 3-5 of, dammit)...

in the new arc we hear about Izumo's past and family and her mom is named Tamamo, it's said all those who take over the shrine are called that. the shrine holds a stone of death and is associated with a ninetail fox demon...

now, to divert this a little bit I'll go back to Hoshin Engi, it's a manga based on one of the four great Chinese novels, the Chinese title is Fengshen Yanyi. anyway, in it a ninetail fox named Dakki (Daji in the Chinese original) manages to enchant an emperor and drive him to ruin, there are several stories out there involving characters similar to Dakki in that they all involve an evil fox spirit seducing and enchanting a ruler and causing their decline. this include Mo Xi and Bao Si in China as well in relation to other dynasties, there's one story from India, and then there's one story that says Daji fled from China, to India, back to China where she possessed Bao Si, then came to Japan possessing a girl named Wakamo where later she was found transformed into an abandoned infant that was named Mizukume.

now here is where we get to what relates this to the most recent arc of the Blue Exorcist manga...

after 17 years of being raised by the family of the samurai who found her transformed into an infant she changed her name from Mizukume to Tamamo-no-mae, entered the palace, and bewitched the emperor and caused him to fall ill. eventually Abe no Yasuchika (a decendant of Abe no Seimei) found her out and informed the emperor of her plot to help an evil daimyo to take his throne from him. after this she was hunted and eventually killed in the Plain of Nasu where she transformed into a Killing Stone (Sessho-seki) that her spirit haunted.

but, yeah, considering the fact I looked up info on Daji and related stories while reading Hoshin Engi, later again after reading Ushio & Tora (Hakumen no Mono draws from multiple stories of ninetailed foxes), and the first two volumes of Yashakiden (where Daji is a significant character and the different stories of similar nature are all connected to her) I really should have caught that sooner, instead of having Hozuki no Reitetsu ep 9 smack that fact right into my face. I'll blame my fibro acting up, weather pains, stress from various sources, and getting injured when my friend and I got rearended on the way to supper on how I missed that before now.

altho it is of note there is a version where Tamamo-no-Mae isn't Daji, but a good fox spirit being forced to work for the evil daimyo. in that it's getting killed that causes her spirit to transform into the evil spirit Hoji that haunts the Killing Stone. it's also said eventually a priest manages to get Hoji to relent and obtain spiritual salvation and stop haunting the stone, thus destroying it with the pieces of it scattering.

[Mugetsu Ookamiza]

so the Viz translation and the scanlated version are out now... Shima just gets less and less likeable... and I'm still pissed at him for what he did this chapter...

[babyl10]

Wow... now I wanna know just what is Shima's motivation.
'Cause, I can't shake the feeling that there's something else driving him, even if he's acting like a douche.
He's pretty much one of the characters I wanna wanna kick in the balls the most right now, though.

You know, with the stuff you said about Tamamo no Mae, I think it's a little ironic that Izumo's mom was pretty much the one betrayed with her love and taken advantage of, so the Illuminati could get her power.

[Mugetsu Ookamiza]

babyl10

Wow... now I wanna know just what is Shima's motivation.
'Cause, I can't shake the feeling that there's something else driving him, even if he's acting like a douche.
He's pretty much one of the characters I wanna wanna kick in the balls the most right now, though.

You know, with the stuff you said about Tamamo no Mae, I think it's a little ironic that Izumo's mom was pretty much the one betrayed with her love and taken advantage of, so the Illuminati could get her power.

I'm pretty sure his initial motivation for joining the Illuminati was related to all the pressure his family was putting on him, but he seems a little too... in to being an antagonist... for it to just be that.

and I'm just wondering what version of the Tamamo no Mae story she's gonna go with. because while in all versions she becomes a vengeful spirit when she's killed there are versions where she's a good fox spirit forced to act in a way that would bring down the emperor. I'm just kind of curious as to if they're going to make her flat out evil, a tragic villain, or perhaps ultimately redeemable (especially since the whole Tamamo no Mae story typically ends with a monk convincing her to repent, causing her vengeful spirit to be purified and move on and the killing stone to shatter) and what that could mean for the storyline.

[Mugetsu Ookamiza]

found a translation of an interview with Kazue Kato on tumblr: http://rinkafushi.tumblr.com/post/79910952400/katou-kazue-faq-panel-at-the-mcc-lbm-2014

minor fandork moment when she mentioned she worked as an assistant for the mangaka of Black Cat.

she also managed to clear up a bit on what exactly inspired the series

Quote:

Host: How did you come by the idea for Ao no Exorcist?

Katou: It all started when I saw the Hollywood movie Brothers Grimm, after which I thought “It’s a good premise, but it could be done better!”. I did some research about it, which is when I came across Mephisto, for example. As I went along with working on the project, I made the monsters into classical demons and transferred the series into a Japanese setting.

Host: But in the end you could say that the Okumura twins are actually somehow based on the Brothers Grimm?!

Katou: Yes, that’s true.

she's given an idea of the likely length for the series

Quote:

Audience member 7: How many more volumes do you think the series will have?

Katou: I would like to end the series at around 25 volumes, but I can’t say that for sure. It might be a few more, I think.

(so the series is roughly at the halfway point it seems)

there's a lot more, of course, but I just thought I'd share those two bits because I've seen the topics of those come up places in the past.

[Kitty the Ninja Pikachu]

hello there ^^ I just started watching the anime on Toonami, and so far I love it

[M00NDR0PS]

" Hey, it's me! Don't shoot! "

»»» I finally got off my lazy a** and caught up to the chapters. Feeling really bad for Izumo at the moment. Still undecided on how to feel about Shima though. That lady Izumo contacted when she was young looked like an adult Shiemi, that kind of bothered me. gonk

Lucifer's pretty hot without his mask.

" I did everything you asked! "

[Mugetsu Ookamiza]

Kitty the Ninja Pikachu

hello there ^^ I just started watching the anime on Toonami, and so far I love it

welcome to the fandom. make sure you check out the manga because the anime does start straying from the manga and altho it has a slow start the Kyoto arc of the manga gets REALLY DAMN EPIC. the current arc is getting pretty good too.

Aperture Sentry Turret

»»» I finally got off my lazy a** and caught up to the chapters. Feeling really bad for Izumo at the moment. Still undecided on how to feel about Shima though. That lady Izumo contacted when she was young looked like an adult Shiemi, that kind of bothered me. gonk

Lucifer's pretty hot without his mask.

I kind of keep fluctuating between "dammit, Shima, I hate you now..." and "dammit, you poor kid, you've made some DAMN SHITTY life decisions."

[Kitty the Ninja Pikachu]

Mugetsu Ookamiza

oh do not worry, honey, I plan to emotion_dowant

[Mugetsu Ookamiza]

also, it looks like Kazue Kato uploaded a WIP shot of a colorspread/poster she's working on for the series. bask in the glory of Rin and Kuro with glasses

[Jager Ryu]

biggrin

[Rosa Red14]

^.^