Nue’s Exorcist Manga Review

Nue’s Exorcist is your serialised dose of capital C content from the esteemed pages of Weekly Shonen Jump. It wants to be the next big battle shonen from this absolute hitmaker of a magazine but is held back by the fact its author Kouta Kawae doesn’t appear to have read any manga since the early 2000s. It’s cool to a fault, has quite possibly the prettiest girls around and an almost religious aversion to drama and any possibly of depth from its cast. It’s worldbuilding is so compartmentalised into one small town that the supposed world ending monsters that lie within feel like a bad joke. In short is is painfully milquetoast or in simpler language(so Kawae can understand you see) its really frigging mid. Like quite possibly the most mediocre thing to emerge from this magazine in quite some time and maybe that fact caught everyone by such surprise that they forgot to kill it cause yup this ain’t a cancelled manga but a semi successful over a year old serialization that shows no signs of stopping. But and this is a big but, I don’t hate it. Not one bit, I don’t even particularly dislike it because it is so empty of substance, so devoid of purpose that it wraps around into a friction free reading experience that whips by at a gallop, this horse I ride only stopping to ogle at the genuinely fantastic artwork.

Nue’s Exorcist is the story of a cowardly boy given untold power and gaining the courage and purpose from it to fight ever greater threats to protect what he holds dear. So basically every battle shonen ever and I won’t even do the protag kun the service of naming him for y’all because to be honest I uh don’t remember it. He is white bread, totally inoffensive, perpetually drama free, and maybe welcome in a pinch but there’s an overwhelming lack of charisma to his character, no x factor to overcome the weight of his mediocrity and as the central figure of this story he’s a nothing figure who will never lead this manga to stardom. His companions(all female) don’t fare much better with the depth of characterization but they got an x factor in spades because my god Kawae draws the absolute best looking girls in Jump, like this manga’s a smokeshow in that regard. Nue’s not the name of the main character but actually the demon goddess that gives him power and basically pulls the strings, unlike her 5 other demon gods though she’s a good guy I promise. Nue’s a rather enjoyable character all things considered, she’s a bit goofy as a god gamer but she also drives the plot with her machinations and her hands are everywhere, most notably in setting up protag kuns harem. It goes without saying Nue’s the baddest girl of the bunch right, like take one look at her design and try to disagree because you can’t. The first of the exorcist harem is Kazusa Suo and she is also the most boring because man she’s basic as hell. Pretty as hell sure but basic, she’s so friendly and well mannered that even the romantic feelings she has for protag kun carry about as much spice as milk, there’s nothing to this character and her by the books sad backstory only put the final nail in her coffin. Next up is oh no, it’s my favourite of the cringy character archetypes it’s the kuudere wahoo. Oh yeah her name is Shiroha Fujino by the way but my personal bias aside she has not a hint more personality or depth than her peers, technically less by design so um that’s something going for her if you like kuudere’s I guess, she pretty too? Yeah we’re off to a smashing start with this cast, everyone’s a riot so far whose next!

A not related by blood sister with a 7 year absence from her brothers life oh, oh no this could be bad. Somehow somewhere Kouta Kawae came to his senses though and threw off the shackles of Japanese fiction tropes and wrote an honest to god spiceless step sibling relationship and when I say I cheered I’m lying because I am not that invested but I did breath a sigh of relief, incest avoided woohoo! Her name is Tomesode Shitotsu and with god as my witness I crown her character design the greatest in modern Jump. You got the dark purple hair, you got the lil fangs, you got the short messy hair, and even catlike iris, she is the greatest tomboy design in the history of mankind and I kneel at the feet of god emperor Kawae for this gift. Less importantly though is that’s she’s frigging insufferable, like bro eat a Kit Kat and chill because you be crazy. So the harem is a mixed bag of absolutely peak character design and only the most basic or outright annoying personalities possible, truly a cast of all time. Than there’s the “ecchi” and I’m air quoting there because this manga is spiceless buuut has a penchant to put in out of date cliches like dude accidentally touching tiddy, dude having to kiss girl for lifesaving means and the absolute classic girl loses bra and than can’t immediately put it back on. If my descriptions don’t sound sexy just know that Kawae is hellbent on removing any possibility of naughtiness in his series which begs the question, than why do you keep inserting ecchi adjacent cliches.

There’s a crippling lack of drama in this whole series, I’m not even complaining that the ecchi scenes are played straight and narrow because I hate ecchi but when the big set piece battles feel like they’re going through the motions you know somethings wrong. The action part of this manga is a mixed bag like everything else, the good being the positively badass artwork and the bad being the setup and payoff of the plot points. This manga feels like every other battle shonen setup crammed into just a little town, apparently the only town with spirits and those who exorcise them which is just a failure of a setting I’m sorry, absolutely zero ambition went into crafting this microcosm of a full scale action adventure and the only way to fix that is for all this setup to get thrown out by the big bad winning and spreading his influence across Japan at the least. The spirits are ranked because duh, the exorcists are ranked because duh, both sides have a big six strongest or something along those lines it’s literally like every manga you’ve ever read but without the individual creativity and flair of those other works. Heck even the action sequences themselves don’t stand out, there’s no medium pushing fluidity to their choreography, no power system any different than the norm, no brutality or high level stakes, nothing, nada. This isn’t just an abject failure of a cast, it’s an abject failure of a plot with no sense of identity of its own and only faint shadows of better series recycled for material. Kouta Kawae is one of the rare few with absolutely zero talent as a writer, I know that’s harsh but based on the current 86 chapters available that is my conclusion.

Lucky him though, manga isn’t just a written medium. Like I mean sure there’s no actual substance to this story and that’s a big issue but when the guy is without question one of the best weekly artists around I can cut him some slack, okay alot because I am about to gush about Nue’s Exorcist to close out this review. This style is truly superb, it’s a unfathomably polished artstyle given his relative lack of experience and somehow he’s only improved during the serialised process, each week getting more and more ambitious without losing a hint of the robust style he’s genuinely perfected. It’s a heavy manga when it wants to be, leveraging thick linework and solid black inking to make the demons of this realm feel like true unknowable monsters, evil seeping off them like oil. It can get too black at times, overwhelming the more detailed designs with encompassing darkness but holy crap is it a powerful heavy style. The monster designs are works of horror magnificence, feral beasts whose claws and fangs jut out of pitch black bodies dripping like sticky tar, they’re badass and while in context not exactly scary due to the no stakes plotting its still an effective image, especially when the gods come a knocking. To contrast and compliment the dark fantasies the slice of life scenes are delightful in their own way. I’ve complimented the character designs plenty but the fact that they never lose their gorgeous edge is a genuine feat, these characters are supposed to be attractive and Kawae always gives their drawings the necessary eye popping attention to make for some of the best overall character art you can find weekly. I am also a sucker for chibi forms and while these are basic and universal I do love seeing them, maybe this manga not keeping up with the always serious times is a good thing. Overall though it’s Kawae’s consistency that shocks and impresses, there’s never a rough drawing and I have absolutely no idea how he maintains such a detailed style so seamlessly, it’s like he has all the time in the world when objectively speaking he does not, I pray you’re taking care of yourself because this is superhuman work.