Last night during the Anime News portion of Aniplex Online Fest, it was announced that a third season of Blue Exorcist will be broadcasting in January 2024. This news was soon confirmed on both the anime’s official Facebook page and website along with the visual below. The season will be called -Shimane Illuminati Saga- and will follow the arc of the same name from the manga.
The first season of Blue Exorcist came out in 2011, and followed the same plot of the manga until gradually splitting away and following a new story. However, unlike anime such as The Promised Neverland which completely abandoned the manga by the end of the second season, the Blue Exorcist anime returned to the manga’s plot for season two. The changes made in the anime were minor enough that the shift back to the manga story was still logical, albeit a bit awkward. This Tumblr post explains the first season’s divide from the manga pretty well.
Although this sudden new season announcement seems to have come out of nowhere, the anime is actually following a similar schedule to the production of the first two seasons: Kyoto Impure King Arc (season two) came out six years after the first season, and -Shimane Illuminati Saga- (season three) is now coming out seven years after that. If they continue this pattern of adding one more year to the time between seasons, maybe we can look forward to season four in 2032?
You can watch the teaser trailer for the new season below.
