There is this title of a manga called "Ao no Exorcist". Is this exactly the same as Aoi Exorcist? can they be used indistinctly or there is a nuance or something?
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3 Answers
の is a linking particle that has a wide variety of meanings, and 青のエクソシスト (literally "exorcist of blue") can potentially refer to various things.
- exorcist who is somehow related to blue or symbolized as blue
- exorcist who belongs to a group somehow related to blue
- exorcist who has a title/license related to blue
In this case, this exorcist uses special blue flame to defeat enemies, so it's used in the first sense. Similar examples include 鋼の錬金術師 ("alchemist of steel"), 愛の戦士 ("warrior of love"), 自由の女神 (Statue of Liberty; literally "goddess of liberty") etc.
青いエクソシスト ("blue exorcist") usually just means someone whose skin or uniform is blue. It may also mean "an inexperienced exorcist" (see the last definition on jisho).
Short answer: No, they have completely different meanings, especially when used in this case.
Long answer:
[青]{あお}のエクソシスト, when directly translated, means "Blue's Exorcist" due to the の particle, which could be better worded as "Exorcist of Blue". (The exorcist is exorcising blue.)
[青]{あお}いエクソシスト, however, uses 青{あお}い as an い-adjective to describe エクソシスト, so when translated would mean "Blue Exorcist". (The exorcist is blue.)
And so, "Blue Exorcist" and "Exorcist of Blue" are pretty different things.
(Also I'm not so sure about the details of this particular manga, but I translated [青]{あお} directly as "blue" in this answer.)
The の-particle with adjectives is typically used in this case to indicate that the exorcist can be identified because it's blue.
If you say 青いエクソシスト, you're saying the exorcist is blue, but there may be other blue ones too.
青のエクソシスト is the only blue one of its kind, so the other person immediately knows which exorcist you mean. You could use 「青の」 to say "the blue one", in essence.
