Manga Review – Blue Exorcist Vol 4 by Kazue Kato (4/5 stars)
Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Manga/Shounen/Fantasy
Length: 200 pages
Publisher: VIZ Media LLC
Release Date: August 2, 2011
ISBN-13: 978-1421540474
Stand Alone or Series: 4th volume in the Blue Exorcist series
Source: Borrowed from Library
Rating: 4/5 stars
“Raised by Father Fujimoto, a famous exorcist, Rin Okumura never knew his real father. One day a fateful argument with Father Fujimoto forces Rin to face a terrible truth—the blood of the demon lord Satan runs in Rin’s veins! Rin swears to defeat Satan, but doing that means entering the mysterious True Cross Academy and becoming an exorcist himself.
While most of the students at True Cross Academy head home for the summer break, Rin and his classmates are sent to a training camp in the forest district, and the right to go on a real mission is riding on their performance! Locating and recovering their objectives in the woods is tough and will require teamwork, skill and more than a little magic—and Rin will have to learn to rely on his friends. But is Mephisto masterminding something behind the scenes?!”
Series Info/Source: This is the 4th volume in the Blue Exorcist shounen manga series. There are 24 volumes published in this series right now in the US with the 25th due out Feb 2021. There are 26 volumes in this series right now with the 27th to be published in 2021 in Japan.
Story (4/5): In this volume Rin and his classmates work to survive the trails in the woods, but in the course of doing this Rin accidentally reveals he has the blood of Satan which makes his classmates distrust him. I liked the quest that these characters needed to go on in the woods and enjoyed the interesting types of demons we saw there.
Characters (3/5): Shiemi needs to be rescued yet again and Rin gets himself in trouble…yet again. The characters are fine but there is still a lack of decent female characters, I understand this is targeted at a teen male audience but come on… It was good to see the classmates start to work together, even if this all fell apart at the end.
Setting (4/5): The creepy forest setting here was a nice change and I enjoyed it. It is well described and pictured throughout.
Writing/Drawing Style (4/5): This is decently drawn and easy to follow. The story makes really good progress each volume and I am enjoying both all the new types of demons and the action scenes.
My Summary (4/5): Overall this was a well done continuation of this series. I continue to be impressed by the pace of the story and to enjoy the demons and the action. The characters are a weak spot, there just isn’t anyone in here I really engage with well. This is a pretty typical shonen style manga, so if you enjoy those I would check this out.
