Blue Exorcist

    Blue Exorcist centers around Rin Okumura who, along with his twin brother Yukio, was raised by Father Shiro Fujimoto, an exorcist. Rin is a regular teenager (e.g. stubborn, thinks the universe revolves around him, etc.) who is prone to agitation, but also has a kind heart. He has lived an unremarkable (and somewhat hard life due to his attitude) until one day he gets a job at a shopping mall were he sees a strange creature running away with a young girls scarf, Rin chases after the creature and eventually saves her from some heavy falling boxes. He is immediately fired. The next day Rin is attacked by the local bully who is possessed by a demon. Shiro rescues him, and in the process of explaining their situation reveals that Rin is the son of Satan (the demon overlord). Once back at the monastery Shiro explains that he sealed Rins demonic powers in a blade to make him human, and if it is ever drawn Rin will become a demon forever. Later night the monastery is beset by demons, Shiro and the others who live there fight them off, but in the end Shiro is possessed by Satan. Shiro sacrifices himself to protect Rin. Rin then does exactly what he was told not to, and draws the blade to destroy the Gehenna Gate (the link between this world and the demon realm). He permanently gains the features of fangs, pointed ears, and a tail as well as the power to ignite himself into blue flames that disintegrate almost anything they touch. After Shiro's funeral he enrolls at a school to train to be an exorcist.
    As far as animation goes it was pretty regular. The only thing that made it really distinct was how well the animation showed movement. All characters move regularly (even when standing), which was very nice to see (because it demonstrated excellent knowledge of each characters bone structure).
    First off I just want to say that the story line is nothing to sneeze at. It was easy to get immersed in the story, which in my opinion shows that it is interesting and good. Next, it was very interesting how the author (because this was based off a manga) got different religious beliefs to combine into the world of this animation. There are references to Christianity, Shinto, Judaism, Buddhism, and probably couple others I didn't catch. The author presents a world where all religions are present, so they generally didn't stick to one belief system, instead they made up their own system that referenced others. In any case it was fun to see different belief systems molded together (and to actually have it pulled off while still representing each well is really impressive to me). The other thing I found to be quite nice was the character relationships. The relationship between characters was constantly changing (often large groups, and not just few people. It was this quality that really worked in favor of the comedy (yeah this is a comedy, and a funny one at that!), since the characters had such a great chemistry it allowed the jokes to be just that more funny (because a joke specific to a person is a lot funnier if you know specifically why it's funny, not just generally why). In conclusion I would recommend that anyone who likes comedy and fusion religion cuisine watch this show. It is very well done, and interesting to say the least.

Rin Okumura: Guy in the front looking slightly embarrassed, Yukio: Guy in middle looking slightly concerned, Everyone else: Important side characters.