The Best Exorcist Manga in YEARS!!|| Ultimate Exorcist Kiyoshi First Thoughts

Hello my friends, may I introduce  to you a gag comedy exorcist manga released in June of 2024 in Weekly  Shonen Jump about a scared exorcist, with three words in the title? No. Not that one… This week we have Ultimate Exorcist Kiyoshi by  newcomer Shoishi Usui, our second comedic exorcist manga in a row, and I promised you guys last week  that I’d save you from my fourth rant this year about having too many exorcist manga in Jump.

So,  check my previous video if that’s what you want. The long story short is that Jump keeps publishing  Exorcist manga and we’re all tired of it. But, while I think Youkai Buster Murakami could  have saved itself from being part of all this conversation, by simply saying the main character  was a Yokai Hunter and not an exorcist… That is very much not the case with Ultimate Exorcist,  this really is, as the title implies, a true exorcist manga, with our main  character going around exorcizing demons.

Just like Yokai Buster Murakami,  this manga features an exorcist who’s completely scared of the demons he  has to exorcize. Which is sad, because as we slowly see throughout the chapter,  Kiyoshi is actually incredibly strong. We start the manga with him acting all smug saying  that he’ll exorcise the demon in seconds, before revealing that he’s scared shi- uh- witless.

The first half of this manga is actually pretty hilarious, with Kiyoshi managing  to intimidate the demon for a short while, but completely breaking down when  the demon figures out his secret. He breaks down so hard that the  demon actually sympathizes with him, and starts being nice to Kiyoshi, which is when we  first take a glimpse of his powers… Or actually, we don’t. Because once he’s not scared of  the demon anymore, he’s able to remove the demon from the girl he’s possessing so quickly  that we don’t even get to see it happening.

With that out of the way, we get the  backstory of the two characters. The demon is called Yamada and he’s a guy that works  in the Water department of the Devil World… Yes. Yamada is out here exorcizing this girl because  he was asked directly by the Demon Lord, but he claims that he doesn’t want to do this at  all, as he rather just keep working on his day job and go back to his wife and son back at home.

Kiyoshi also drops that the reason why he wanted to be an exorcist is because  his family was all killed by demons. The typical backstory, really. Not even the  manga seemed willing to dwell too much on it.

The two bond a bit more, with Yamada  trying to help Kiyoshi with his fears, but the feel good moment is cut short when  the Demon Lord Meto himself appears in front of them and quickly dispatches Yamada. This is where the manga fully turns into a  battle manga, with Kiyoshi saving Yamada, and then showing his full power on the Demon Lord, eventually defeating him. Of course,  the manga ends with Yamada revealing that Meto was but one of 13 Demon Lords, and  all of them are bound to target Kiyoshi now.

Okay, so here’s my biggest problem with  this manga, the thing that I absolutely hated the whole time I was reading the  manga… It’s good. It’s fucking good. It should not.

I think pretty much everyone was clowning on this manga hard  when the first couple of images came out. This was an exorcist manga that looked like the  most generic, edgy battle shonen ever to exist. A certain cancellation, a U19 in the making… and  then the manga drops and it’s honestly my favorite chapter of the year so far.

It’s unfair to me, who  was fully ready to dislike something for a change. But alas, here we are. Based on nothing but chapter one, this is probably the best of its kind  in recent times.

It’s genuinely funny, the main lead has a great personality,  the fight, even if short, was pretty good, and there was enough of an emotional narrative  between Kiyoshi and Yamada to keep me engaged. My biggest problem with this series is how it  will move going forward, as in… we don’t know. This manga is still a battle shonen, and one who’s highlight was the comedy and the characters,  and not really the fight, so I’m a bit scared that it might go full on battle  shonen in the next couple of chapters.

I saw many people comparing Ultimate Exorcist  Kiyoshi to Mashle, and while I disagree, mostly because Ultimate Exorcist had more funny jokes  in one chapter than Mashle had its entire run, I do get it when it comes to the structure of  the last fight and the genres of the manga. Both are mixes of battle shonen and comedy,  and the fight followed the structure of Bad Guy boasts a lot before being completely  destroyed by the overpowered main character. However, I do believe there’s  differences in execution.

Kiyoshi is, in my opinion, a far  more interesting character than Mash Burndead. Yes, both are goofballs  who happen to be extremely strong, but Kiyoshi actually being afraid of the  guys he’s fighting brings a bit more depth that Mash missed, plus I think he’s a lot  more expressive and fun to follow than Mash. That isn’t to say that Mash is  a horrible character or that I don’t think deadpan humor can’t be funny,  but he’s definitely a character that needed a good cast surrounding him, whereas I can  see Kiyoshi carrying the manga by himself.

The reason why I brought up Mashle  wasn’t just to trash it though, it also serves as a cautionary tale for Kiyoshi. Even among the people that liked Mashle, many started feeling disinterested  in the manga during it’s middle arcs. That’s mostly because Mashle focused too  much on the battles, which weren’t it’s strong point to begin with, making it more  boring and more generic than it once was.

I don’t want this manga to turn  into the generic shlock we all thought it was going to be. It wouldn’t  be the first manga to have a stellar chapter one just to disappoint me  in the next following chapters. But I really do hope this continues the  quality, and that it survives the magazine.

I mean, I’m always a bit pessimistic in this  situation, and that’s because I’m normally right, most of the series that start in Jump end  with a cancellation rather than a success. But with My Hero Academia ending very soon,  there will be another spot open for the magazine, and if this catches the heart of the  readers then maybe it has a chance. I would definitely prefer it over the rest of the Exorcist manga currently in the  magazine… Yes, even Jujutsu Kaisen.

Sure, some people think that Yokai Buster  Murakami will have special treatment because it’s being reserved as the bookend gag manga, a  position a couple long lasting gag series held, but the last two that did it were  Teenage Renaissance! David and I’m From Japan, one that was canceled in 30 chapters,  and another that moved magazines in one of the weirdest runs to ever exist in the history  of Shonen Jump… So Murakami is definitely not safe yet, giving Ultimate Exorcist Kiyoshi a  fighting chance, we’ll have to see how it goes. And, actually, if you want to know more about  I’m From Japan, you should check out the video on the left.

It’s interesting, I promise. If you want to know my first thoughts on all the previous series in Jump  click the playlist on the right, if you want to know my first thoughts on all  the upcoming series, consider subscribing and if you watched it till here, thank you  very much and I’ll see you next video!