is a Japanese

manga Manga ( Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is use ...

series written and illustrated by Yoshiaki Sukeno. The manga has been serialized in

Shueisha (lit. "Gathering of Intellect Publishing Co., Ltd.") is a Japanese company headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. The company was established in 1925 as the entertainment-related publishing division of Japanese publisher Shogakukan. The foll ...

's ''shōnen'' manga magazine ''

Jump Square , also written as , is a Japanese monthly '' shōnen'' manga magazine. Published by Shueisha, the magazine premiered on November 2, 2007 as a replacement for ''Monthly Shōnen Jump'', another manga anthology that Shueisha discontinued in June of t ...

'' since October 2013, with individual chapters collected into thirteen ''

tankōbon is the Japanese term for a book that is not part of an anthology or corpus. In modern Japanese, the term is most often used in reference to individual volumes of a manga series: most series first appear as individual chapters in a weekly or m ...

'' volumes as of January 2023. The story revolves around Rokuro Enmado and Benio Adashino, a pair of young and talented exorcists, who (according to a prophecy) are destined to marry and have a child that will be the ultimate exorcist. The series was adapted into an

anime is hand-drawn and computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japanese, (a term derived from a shortening of ...

television series by

Studio Pierrot is a Japanese animation studio established in May 1979 by former employees of both Tatsunoko Production and Mushi Production. Its headquarters are located in Mitaka, Tokyo. Pierrot is renowned for several worldwide popular anime series, such as ' ...

, that ran from April 2016 to March 2017. The manga series has been licensed for an English language release in North America by

Viz Media VIZ Media LLC is an American manga publisher, anime distributor and entertainment company headquartered in San Francisco, California. It was founded in 1986 as VIZ LLC. In 2005, VIZ LLC and ShoPro Entertainment merged to form the current VIZ M ...

, publishing the first volume in July 2015. A video game was developed and published by

Bandai Namco Entertainment is a Japanese multinational video game publisher headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo. Its international branches, Bandai Namco Entertainment America and Bandai Namco Entertainment Europe, are respectively headquartered in Irvine, California an ...

for the PS Vita and released in January 2017 in Japan. As of December 2018, three light novels and two spin-off manga series have also been published and released in Japan.

Plot

Rokuro is a young boy who used to be a powerful aspiring

exorcist In some religions, an exorcist (from the Greek „ἐξορκιστής“) is a person who is believed to be able to cast out the devil or performs the ridding of demons or other supernatural beings who are alleged to have possessed a person ...

, before a tragic incident left his friends dead and made him abandon the profession. One day, he has a fateful encounter with Benio Adashino, a girl around his age and a well known exorcist from the east. According to a prophecy, Rokuro and Benio are the "Twin Star Exorcists" and are destined to marry and have a child known as the "

Miko A , or shrine maiden,Groemer, 28. is a young priestess who works at a Shinto shrine. were once likely seen as shamans,Picken, 140. but are understood in modern Japanese culture to be an institutionalized role in daily life, trained to perform ...

" which will be the ultimate exorcist, capable of cleansing all evil spirits (

Kegare is the Japanese term for a state of pollution and defilement, important particularly in Shinto as a religious term. Typical causes of ''kegare'' are the contact with any form of death, childbirth (for both parents), disease, and menstruation, an ...

) from the world and ending the war that has lasted over a millennium.

Media

Manga

Yoshiaki Sukeno began serializing the manga in

's ''

'' magazine on October 4, 2013. A special chapter was published in ''

Weekly Shōnen Jump is a weekly ''shōnen'' manga anthology published in Japan by Shueisha under the '' Jump'' line of magazines. The manga series within the magazine consist of many action scenes and a fair amount of comedy. The chapters of the series that r ...

'' in April 2016.

licensed the series for publication in North America, with the first volume released on July 7, 2015.

Spin-offs

The first spin-off manga series, ''Sōsei no Onmyōji: SD Nyoritsuryō!!'' (双星の陰陽師 SD如律令!!) is a comedy spin-off comic, written by koppy and supervised by Yoshiaki Sukeno. It is published at the official website of the original manga, as well as the magazine ''

Saikyō Jump is a Japanese monthly ''shōnen'' manga magazine published by Shueisha. The magazine was started on December 3, 2010 with three completely original titles and seven spin-off manga from series in ''Weekly Shōnen Jump'' and ''V Jump''. Originally ...

''. The content of this manga is canon, showing personalities of many characters. The compiled volume was published and released on March 3, 2017 in Japan. The second spin-off manga series, is a manga adaptation of the light novel ''Sōsei no Onmyōji: Tenen Jakko'', written and illustrated by the same authors. The back-story focuses on the characters, Seigen Amawaka and Yukari Otomi. The spin-off series was launched by Yoshiaki Sukeno on Shueisha's '' Shonen Jump+'' website on August 27, 2018. The compiled volume was published on December 4, 2018 in Japan.

Light novels

As of December 2018, three light novel adaptations have been published and released by Shueisha under its JUMP j-BOOKS imprint. The light novels are titled in the following order; , and . Each novel features a back-story from the perspective of different characters from the main series, serving as prologues to the main story. The light novels are written by Hajime Tanaka and supervised by Yoshiaki Sukeno.

Anime

television adaptation was announced on the January 2016 cover of ''Jump Square'' on December 4, 2015. The series is directed by

Tomohisa Taguchi is a Japanese animator, director, storyboard artist and screenwriter. Personal life Taguchi was born and raised in Sōja. He graduated from Osaka Seikei University Faculty of Arts in 2007 and worked as a production assistant at Anime Intern ...

and written by

Naruhisa Arakawa is a Japanese screenwriter who primarily works on anime and tokusatsu dramas. He first served as a series' main writer for ''Blue Seed'' anime and the Kamen Rider Series revival ''Kamen Rider Kuuga''. Arakawa was the main series writer for the S ...

, with animation by

. Additionally, Shishō Igarashi is serving as assistant director, Kikuko Sadakata is designing the characters, and Itsuko Takeda is serving as chief animation director. The series' first opening theme song is by Wagakki Band, while the first ending theme is by

Hitomi Kaji Hitomi Kaji (加治ひとみ) is a Japanese pop singer, songwriter under the label Avex Trax. Biography In 2012 March, the new J-pop duo KAJI on the INTELLIGENCE performed their at the Yokohama Arena as the opening act during the 14th Tokyo Girls ...

. The second opening theme, "Re:Call", is performed by the idol group

i☆Ris (stylized as i☆Ris) is a Japanese voice acting and singing female idol group, formed in 2012 by Avex. The group currently consists of five members: Saki Yamakita, Yu Serizawa, Himika Akaneya, Yūki Wakai, and Miyu Kubota. The leader is Sa ...

, while the second ending theme, is performed by the two-man group Itowokashi (Kashitarō Itō and Ryō Miyada). The third opening theme, "sync" is performed by lol, while the third ending theme "Hide & Seek" is performed by Girlfriend. The fourth opening theme, "Kanadeai" is performed by Itowokoashi, while the fourth ending theme "Hotarubi" is performed by Wagakki Band. The series began airing on April 6, 2016 on

TV Tokyo JOTX-DTV (channel 7), branded as and known colloquially as , is a television station headquartered in the Sumitomo Fudosan Roppongi Grand Tower in Roppongi, Minato, Tokyo, Japan, owned and operated by the subsidiary of listed certif ...

and other

TX Network TX Network (TXN) is a commercial television network in Japan owned by Nikkei, Inc. The "TX" is taken from the callsign of its flagship station, TV Tokyo. It is also known as TV Tokyo Network. History Tokyo Channel 12 almost went into bank ...

stations, and later on AT-X and ended on March 29, 2017 with 50 episodes aired. Animax Asia aired the series with English Subtitles. Crunchyroll is

simulcast Simulcast (a portmanteau of simultaneous broadcast) is the broadcasting of programmes/programs or events across more than one resolution, bitrate or medium, or more than one service on the same medium, at exactly the same time (that is, simult ...

ing the series worldwide outside of Asia, and also released the series on Blu-ray + DVD with an English dub. Part 1 (Episodes 1-13) has been released on July 24, 2018 with a collector's box to store the later three parts, and Part 2 (Episodes 14-26) on September 18, 2018. Part 3 (Episodes 27-40) was released on November 13, 2018, and Part 4 (Episodes 41-50) on January 8, 2019. Chinese streaming site iQiyi has listed the series with fifty episodes. The anime is licensed in North America and the United Kingdom by Crunchyroll, with home video distribution handled by

Funimation Crunchyroll, LLC, previously known as Funimation from 1994 to 2022, is an American entertainment company owned by Japanese conglomerate Sony as a joint venture between Sony Pictures and Sony Music Entertainment Japan's Aniplex that specializ ...

in North America and by

Anime Limited Anime Limited, also known as All the Anime is a British anime distribution company based in Glasgow, Scotland. It releases anime for British, Irish, French and other European audiences. The company was established in 2012 by Andrew Partridge, ...

in the UK.

Video game

A video game adaptation of the series from

was announced on September 3, 2016. The battle adventure game was released for

PlayStation Vita The PlayStation Vita (PS Vita, or Vita) is a handheld video game console developed and marketed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on December 17, 2011, and in North America, Europe, and other international terri ...

, and features Rokuro as a playable character. It features an alternate setup with five different girls as candidates for the title of Twin Star, including Benio, Mayura, and three other characters designed exclusively for the game by original creator Yoshiaki Sukeno. The game was released to Japan on January 26, 2017.

Reception

Volume 1 reached 11th place on the weekly

Oricon , established in 1999, is the holding company at the head of a Japanese corporate group that supplies statistics and information on music and the music industry in Japan and Western music. It started as, which was founded by Sōkō Koike in N ...

manga charts, with 29,527 copies sold; volume 2 reached 23rd place, with 30,734 copies; volume 3 reached 46th place, with 38,835 copies; volume 4 reached 24th place, with 37,900 copies; volume 5 also reached 24th place, with 47,489 copies; volume 6 reached 32nd place, with 48,029 copies; volume 7 reached 20th place, with 48,762 copies; and volume 8 reached 11th place, with 56,947 copies. As of March 1, 2021, ''Twin Star Exorcists'' had over 5 million copies in circulation. Volume 3 of the English translation appeared on the ''New York Times'' Manga Best Sellers list for two non-consecutive weeks, first at 8th place and then at 6th.

References

External links

* on the ''

'' website * * {{Pierrot (company) 2013 manga 2016 anime television series debuts 2017 video games Adventure anime and manga Crunchyroll anime Funimation Jump J-Books Pierrot (company) PlayStation Vita games PlayStation Vita-only games Exorcism in anime and manga Romance anime and manga Shōnen manga Shueisha franchises Shueisha manga Supernatural anime and manga TV Tokyo original programming Viz Media manga