Yukio’s powers from the end of Blue Exorcist S1 don’t come back — and he is surprised to have similar powers in S2.
The last arc of the first season of Blue Exorcist anime is not canon.
It’s not the only anime like that, and fans often advise reading manga in these cases.
Whether you watched the first two seasons of Blue Exorcist (Ao no Exorcist) a long time ago or have just caught up to watch S3 weekly, you might have been confused about its second season. Specifically, the transition between S1 and S2 doesn’t make much sense.
At the end of S1, Yukio is revealed to also possess Blue Flames. There’s nothing in S2 that indicates that, however. Moreover, when he is revealed to have similar powers during it, he is really surprised, as if nothing at the end of the first season happened. Many fans feel like it doesn’t make sense — but the explanation is actually pretty simple.
That arc was not canon
Essentially, about half of the first season of the anime was filler. While the anime was mixing manga and original content from the very beginning, it went into its own direction in Episode 16. While Episode 17 still has some canon bits, it’s already straying from the manga pretty far, and everything after it is not canon.
The second season continues from around where the manga canon parts of S1 stopped — that is, from Episode 16. Everything after it virtually never happened and shouldn’t be taken into account while watching the anime.
Fans still liked it, so S2 was not well-received
Most of the time, fans hate filler content in anime. Blue Exorcist, however, was slightly different. While the manga readers were visibly upset about the first season changing the story, they were very much a minority at the time of its airing. Most Blue Exorcist fans were only familiar with the anime — and, naturally, were very confused when S2 started airing.
This, along with the amount of time that passed between the airing of S1 and S2, made the anime fall out of public favor. Fans turning to the manga instead didn’t help, as S1 was being disregarded completely for its filler content.
There have been multiple cases of that
Curiously enough, this is not the only case where a part of the anime is disregarded when making further sequels. The second season of Tokyo Ghoul is an alternate ending and doesn’t adapt the manga — and :re doesn’t continue from it.
An even more egregious case is Black Butler (Kuroshitsuji), which ran out of content to adapt very quickly — most of S1 and the entirety of S2 were filler. Book of Circus is a proper sequel to the canon content of S1, resulting in the anime having two second seasons.
In the end, you just need to remember that the last 9 episodes of Blue Exorcist aren’t canon. With the first season of anime having a lot of filler content, some fans even advise to skip it and read the manga instead to not get confused. They might actually have a point here.
In short, it never actually happened.
Spoilers ahead!
Summary:
Yukio’s powers from the end of Blue Exorcist S1 don’t come back — and he is surprised to have similar powers in S2.
The last arc of the first season of Blue Exorcist anime is not canon.
It’s not the only anime like that, and fans often advise reading manga in these cases.
Whether you watched the first two seasons of Blue Exorcist (Ao no Exorcist) a long time ago or have just caught up to watch S3 weekly, you might have been confused about its second season. Specifically, the transition between S1 and S2 doesn’t make much sense.
At the end of S1, Yukio is revealed to also possess Blue Flames. There’s nothing in S2 that indicates that, however. Moreover, when he is revealed to have similar powers during it, he is really surprised, as if nothing at the end of the first season happened. Many fans feel like it doesn’t make sense — but the explanation is actually pretty simple.
That arc was not canon
Essentially, about half of the first season of the anime was filler. While the anime was mixing manga and original content from the very beginning, it went into its own direction in Episode 16. While Episode 17 still has some canon bits, it’s already straying from the manga pretty far, and everything after it is not canon.
The second season continues from around where the manga canon parts of S1 stopped — that is, from Episode 16. Everything after it virtually never happened and shouldn’t be taken into account while watching the anime.
Fans still liked it, so S2 was not well-received
Most of the time, fans hate filler content in anime. Blue Exorcist, however, was slightly different. While the manga readers were visibly upset about the first season changing the story, they were very much a minority at the time of its airing. Most Blue Exorcist fans were only familiar with the anime — and, naturally, were very confused when S2 started airing.
This, along with the amount of time that passed between the airing of S1 and S2, made the anime fall out of public favor. Fans turning to the manga instead didn’t help, as S1 was being disregarded completely for its filler content.
There have been multiple cases of that
Curiously enough, this is not the only case where a part of the anime is disregarded when making further sequels. The second season of Tokyo Ghoul is an alternate ending and doesn’t adapt the manga — and :re doesn’t continue from it.
An even more egregious case is Black Butler (Kuroshitsuji), which ran out of content to adapt very quickly — most of S1 and the entirety of S2 were filler. Book of Circus is a proper sequel to the canon content of S1, resulting in the anime having two second seasons.
In the end, you just need to remember that the last 9 episodes of Blue Exorcist aren’t canon. With the first season of anime having a lot of filler content, some fans even advise to skip it and read the manga instead to not get confused. They might actually have a point here.
