Blue Exorcist: Ura Eku
青の祓魔師(エクソシスト) 裏エク (Ao no Exorcist: Ura Ex)
- Comedy
- Gag Humor
- Parody
- Episodes
- 10
- Duration
- 1 min per ep
- Aired
- Jun 22, 2011 to Mar 21, 2012
- Status
- Finished Airing
Synopsis
*Blue Exorcist: Ura Eku* is a set of extra-short comedy segments created as bonus content for the Blu-ray and DVD releases of *Ao no Exorcist* (Blue Exorcist).
Otaku Consensus
Blue Exorcist: Ura Eku works best as a home-video gag reel: A-1 Pictures keeps Kazue Katou’s cast recognizable through Keigo Sasaki’s character designs, while the two-minute pacing lets the jokes land before the bit wears thin. Its reception is politely positive rather than passionate, with a 7.04 MAL average and 66/100 AniList score reflecting fondness from Blue Exorcist loyalists, but the consistent criticism is that the shorts feel disposable if you are looking for story progression, action direction, or the emotional weight praised in the main series and Kyoto Saga.
Why You Should Watch
Watch Ura Eku if what you want from Blue Exorcist is the cast chemistry with zero arc-management, training detours, or dramatic cooldown. It scratches the same tiny-omake itch as the comic extras around big shounen releases: closer to a character gag reel than to Gintama’s fully built comedy episodes, and far lighter than Blue Exorcist’s main dark-fantasy appeal. The best audience is a viewer who already likes Rin, Izumo, Shiemi, Konekomaru, and Amaimon enough that a two-minute joke can feel like a reward rather than a shortcut. Because the episodes were made for Blu-ray and DVD buyers, the format is completist-friendly: ten quick sketches, no commitment, and a tone built around parody and gag humor instead of exorcist spectacle.
Key Characters
- RRin Okumura(VA: Nobuhiko Okamoto)
Rin’s hot-blooded personality makes him a natural engine for ultra-short punchlines, especially when the franchise steps away from action and into embarrassment comedy.
- IIzumo Kamiki(VA: Eri Kitamura)
Izumo’s sharp, prickly presence gives the skits a useful straight-man edge, turning group silliness into something with bite.
- SShiemi Moriyama(VA: Kana Hanazawa)
Shiemi brings a softer comic rhythm to the ensemble, balancing the louder personalities without needing dramatic buildup.
- AAmaimon(VA: Tetsuya Kakihara)
Amaimon stands out because his demon-side weirdness fits the parody format, where odd behavior can be the whole joke rather than a threat.
What Makes It Stand Out
- 1
The entire release is structurally built around brevity: 10 episodes of roughly two minutes each, aired across the Blu-ray and DVD rollout from June 22, 2011 to March 21, 2012. That makes it a compact companion piece rather than a sequel-season viewing obligation.
- 2
A-1 Pictures produced the shorts, keeping them tied to the same studio identity as the 2011 Blue Exorcist anime that critics and fan reviewers often praise for its vibrant visual style. The appeal here is not action animation, but seeing that production shell repurposed for throwaway comic timing.
- 3
The genre labeling is unusually narrow for the franchise: Comedy with Gag Humor and Parody as the dominant themes. Compared with the main series’ dark-fantasy reputation, Ura Eku deliberately pushes exorcism and demons into joke material instead of dramatic worldbuilding.
- 4
Its reception profile is that of a fan-only extra rather than a hidden classic: 40,239 MAL votes put it at a 7.04 average, while AniList lists a 66/100 score and 128 favourites. Those numbers suggest many viewers sampled it, but relatively few treat it as essential Blue Exorcist.
- 5
The shorts lean on an ensemble drawn from the True Cross Academy side of the franchise, including Rin, Izumo, Shiemi, Konekomaru, and Amaimon. That cast density matters because two-minute comedy depends on instantly recognizable personalities rather than setup.
Fun Facts & Trivia
- Fun fact 1
- Kazue Katou is credited as the original creator, which anchors Ura Eku directly to the Blue Exorcist source-material lineage rather than making it an unrelated parody spin-off.
- Fun fact 2
- Keigo Sasaki is credited for character design, an important detail for a gag short because recognizability is the whole visual joke: the audience needs to identify the cast immediately.
- Fun fact 3
- The release window stretched from June 2011 to March 2012, meaning Ura Eku functioned as a rolling bonus across the home-video life of the first TV anime rather than a single broadcast event.
- Fun fact 4
- The MAL rank of #4646 and popularity position of #2532 show the odd split common to anime extras: plenty of franchise viewers know it exists, but its standing is far below the main Blue Exorcist entries.
- Fun fact 5
- One negative user review rated it 4/10 and called it a waste of time, which captures the main divide around the title: the same two-minute looseness that makes it easy to watch also makes it feel nonessential.
Studios
- A-1 Pictures
