Some of my longtime readers may remember my complete freak out over Weekly Shounen Jump‘s handling of the ending of Bleach.
To say that I was furious was probably an understatement. White hot burning suns may have been involved. I kind of lost my mind and went to Twitter in July of 2016 and took WSJ to task. I tagged them in tweet after tweet after tweet where I asked them what was the point of my subscription when pirate sites were two weeks AHEAD of their official English-language digital-only production and they wouldn’t even translate all the material, like a runner explaining the Bleach was ending in a matter of weeks. I blasted them over and over and over and…
You get the point.
My best moment might have been:
And then I promptly cancelled my subscription.
Well….despite the distinct lack of likes, comments, or re-tweets, WSJ might actually have been listening to me.
On a whim today, I decided to renew my subscription.
Listen, the thing is, I like officially supporting my mangaka, and I’m mostly over my saltiness over how WSJ handled the ending of Bleach (notice that I did NOT say I was over my feelings about the ENDING of Bleach.) Frankly, they publish good stuff. Some of my current shounen favorites are WSJ products: My Hero Academia, Haikyu!, and, of course, Blue Exorcist.
Thus resolved, I paid my money and downloaded the most recent issue. In it, I see Blue Exorcist: Chapter 97 “Beyond the Snow: Part 6.” And, I’m, like, wait. The last chapter I reviewed here was Chapter 93! I went to my usual sources for scans because, in the past, the other problem with WSJ was that it was always AT LEAST a week behind the pirates, and I thought, “Sh*t, they must have scanned up to 98 by now!”
Except they haven’t. I can only find up to chapter 95: “Beyond the Snow: Part 4”
There’s an actual value to my subscription again, because I’ve now read up to chapter 97…. which leads me to a new conundrum.
What do I review here? Obviously, the current WSJ is out. I own it. In my capacity as a reviewer, I can talk about all of it. In fact, it actualy behooves WSJ for me to post pictures and teasers and tell you all about the upcoming chapters, because it could (and, if I do my job right, it SHOULD) prompt you to run out and buy a subscription for yourself.
HOWEVER. I kind of feel like the average fan of Blue Exorcist / Ao no Exorcist is doing one of two things: reading chapters as they hit the pirate sites OR buying the official tankōbon as they come off the presses.
Also, depending where you are, Weekly Shounen Jump (English) might not be available for you. So, encouraging people to buy a subscription is fine, but there are a lot of English readers of these manga who don’t actually have a valid way to pay to play, as it were.
More to the point, I don’t imagine that this is the site that people go to for information they can’t get elsewhere. I suspect (and again, HOPE,) that what you’re tuning into is my take on what you’re also reading. A shared community of fannishness, if you will. That’s why most of my reviews on chapters like this start: “[manga title] chapter [#] is out. Go read it. I’ll wait.”
I’m waiting to share with you.
But now I have potentially valuable information, too.
Thus, the conundrum.
So, what do you, my readers, think I should do?
While I wait for the answer, I’ll at least let you know what I think of the two widely available chapters 94 &95:
SPOILERS
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We open the chapter with the arrested Lewin Light, being his usual weirdo self. He’s super happy at being treated like a criminal by Redarm and the rest of the Exorcists.
Light’s excitement over his predicament is hampered by the fact that demons are spawning everywhere and Redarm is leaving him in order to take command of the exorcist troops… Light seems especially distressed to discover that the Paladin has gone to guard the “artificial Gehenna Gate” which is apparently being attacked by a… yeti?
Um? Yeti are yokai now? …. Okay.
ANY-way, back to the story. Light brings up the Mephisto‘s barrier of the Hellmouth Gate is set to expire soon, which seems kind of unrelated, except, Light gets very cryptic about all this and COULD NOT LOOK MORE SUSPICIOUS when he says, “I hope nothing unexpected happens.”
[In Godfather voice] “Sure would be a shame if something was to happen to ya boy.”
Because, sure enough, something totally unexpected happens to Mephisto.After talking the prime minister into revealing the existence of demons, Mephisto goes on TV to field questions at a press conference. Only, Yukio has followed him with the intention of confronting him about what he learned about his past from the files Bon sent him. This does not… go well.
In fact, instead of answering Yukio’s burning question (see what I did there? Do you? ‘Cuz of his eye! Get it? Get it?), Mephisto has one of the best lines ever: “Sorry! I simply don’t have the time to accompany children on journeys of self-discovery!”
I mean, I get why someone would want to shoot Mephisto in the head after that remark.
But, it wasn’t Yukio that did it, despite the fact that he clearly had his gun trained on him. Boob Lady is right. The angle is all wrong.
But, that doesn’t stop the authorities from grabbing the wrong guy. Yukio is forced to the floor and dragged from the scene.
Rin, meanwhile, has been racing to try to find his younger brother, having overhead from Bon that Yukio has gone off the rails. He arrives too late, but Boob Lady gives him some important information:
Can I just say? I love how this is drawn. The silent exchange, the desolation of the Rin outside of the van with the snow falling… the two panels of the extreme close-ups on their eyes: one shocked the other… pitying?
LOVELY.
Meanwhile, just as Light suggested, something unexpected happened. Mephisto’s body has grown too weak to keep himself alive AND hold the gate, so, being a demon and selfish (no shade!), he choses to focus on his own survival and literally lets loose Hell.
Rin, who was told explicitly by Boob Lady to go home and lay low, bursts back into the True Cross Academy and exclaims that he’s going to mount a rescue.
When the curtain falls on these two chapters, that’s exactly what he’s done. He blows up Yukio’s cell with a “I’m here to rescue you!”
The question is, will Yukio appreciate his onii-chan efforts or not?
…
Of course, I now know the answer, but for now, I won’t say.
What about you? If you’re reading this, what did you think? Also, don’t forget to let me know if you want information from the Jump chapters or not.
Min’na, Arigatō !
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