Reviews

I have to say, I'm pretty impressed with this first volume. The artwork/art style is expressive with a nice balance between serious, creepy, and silly. Rin isn't an original main character, especially for a shounen action series, but the fact that he knows he's hot-tempered and wants to learn to be a respectable person to curb his temper is admirable and refreshing to see. I'm also impressed that Rin is not motivated by revenge, but by his desire to save others. Again, this isn't original, but it plays into his desire to become a more respectable person by wanting to save/protect others rather than get revenge. It's a refreshing change and for what it's worth I like Rin's character. As a long-time shounen fan, it can be exhausting seeing them same "punk kid/hot-headed" main character in action series, but Rin is still enjoyable and his brashness can come in handy when pushing someone to act a certain way. In this sense, he reminds me a lot of Yusuke Urameshi from Yu Yu Hakusho, my favorite shounen protagonist at this time.

Yukio is a kind, caring, serious, yet playful character and he meshes well with Rin. I genuinely love their dynamic and look forward to seeing them grow together. Sheimi is an interesting character, though I'm not sure where her character is going. She seemed pretty demure and sweet when she was introduced, but at the end of the volume when she's allowed to become an exorcist, she takes on a more proactive and energetic demeanor. I'm not upset about this at all, in fact I quite enjoyed her character, just not sure where it's headed. Sir Pheles is fun, quirky, and his character designs (both his human form and his dog form) are fun and well-done. I like that he's nice balance between being an authoritative figure and quirky without leaning towards one extreme. There wasn't a lot of information given about him or the organization he's a part of, but I think that was for the best so the story could focus on establishing its characters.

In fact, if there's one thing I respect about this series so far, it's that it is much more invested in establishing it's characters than dumping exposition about the world/rules/what-have-you. As a character driven reader, I am not as invested in a story's world or magic system or society as I am in its characters mostly because the characters can give me insight into what was previously mentioned. I don't want to read chapter after chapter about the world, I want to meet the characters first and slowly learn about the world. Thank you, Kato, for prioritizing characters over worldbuilding, you're the best!

That's quite a bit of praise to lavish someone after only the first volume, but I am truly impressed with this series thus far. I'm looking forward to what the series has to offer from here on out.