Excel Saga

Original Title: エクセル サーガ
Romanized: Ekuseru Saaga
Literal: Excel Saga

Plot Synopsis

The evil and severely understaffed secret organization ACROSS, headed by the mysterious Ilplazzo, is about to begin its nefarious plan to conquer the world... or at least City F, which is far more manageable. The conquering army consists of a Martian Princess on the verge of death and young, pretty Excel, who isn't even qualified to flip burgers without causing some sort of severe havoc or killing herself unintentionally. The Will of the Universe also seems to be on some form of retainer.

But who cares about plots, anyway?

Quick Review

Rating: 4 / 5
Reviewer: Marc
Review Date: 2006-08-17

Excel Saga is the penultimate example of hyperactive, disturbing, free-associative comedy. It's weird (actually, I think it stands at the pinnacle of the weirdness category), repetitive (the situation changes, but the joke is the same in every episode), and for the most part horrifically wrong (it's basically an extended parody of tragic death), and it willfully refuses to be bettered in those categories. The animation and frantic acting is every bit as rapid-fire as the unending stream of parodies, so the only real question is whether this brand of comedy is your thing.

If you can't handle utter, random, manic, and extreme insanity, not to mention merciless parodies of a variety of extremely tragic situations, don't even stand too close to the box. If that sounds like your cup of overcaffeinated beverage, it's not going to get any better than Excel Saga.

US DVD Review

AD Vision went all out with the DVDs of this series. From the appropriately strange comments on the packaging (for once, ADV's over-hyped ad blurbs are entirely deserved), to the severely screwed-up copyright screen (you simply must read it in its entirety), to the strangely minimalist menus, everything about their handling of it shows that they understand this series, and are trying their darndest to do it justice. The 4 or 5 episode discs have sharp, bright video transfers, and nice crisp audio in both languages. Almost more importantly, the subtitles are accurate, funny, and keep up with the dialogue. Best of all (for the dedicated insanity-watchers), in lieu of liner notes explaining the wide variety of parodies and cultural references in the series, you can turn on a separate text track that pops up little word bubbles on the screen pointing out jokes that the average non-Japanese viewer might have missed, as well as a few other random comments. They're interesting, funny, and worth reading, but they also appear more or less in the middle of the picture (there's a lot of text), so it's probably a better idea to watch it a second time with that feature turned on (on the other hand, they're available with or without the rest of the subtitles--nice touch). Oh, and there are a few Japanese trailers and a small collection of other bonuses on each disc that are pretty darned funny in and of themselves.

Incidentally, there are so many language tracks because one of each (English and Japanese) includes the little "pop" sounds tha accompany the on-screen commentary; if you're the sort that skips the language select screen and just uses the remote, keep this in mind if there are funny noises at random moments. Also on that note, you do not want to see the background of the language select screen on the final disc. Consider yourself warned.

Content Guide

Other than bordering on horrifying most of the time, there is a lot of relatively graphic violence, some nudity, and a lot of crude jokes, so ADV did right in rating it 17+. Then there's the bonus episode 26, which is worse on every count, and is definitely adults-only.

Violence: 3 - Bloody for sure, and it'd be even higher if everything wasn't so silly.

Nudity: 2 - Nothig terribly graphic. Episode 26, however, probably merits a 4 (though some of the nudity is so horrifying you'll wish there was less).

Sex/Mature Themes: 3 - Nothing graphic, but some highly tasteless jokes, and a lot of very, very wrong things. Then there's episode 26, which qualifies as a 4.

Language: 2 - Some relatively strong language. Again, episode 26 includes enough dirty talk to merit a 3.

Notes and Trivia

Based on a comic series by Koshi Rikdo, which plays a role in the story a few times (they murder him, among other things). The comic is available in English from VIZ.

Be sure to watch the credits--ADV got into the spirit and every episode's crawl has a number of gags.

Availability

Available in the US from ADV on bilingual DVD in three forms: Most recently a thinpak complete set, previously an "IM-Perfect collection" box set, and before that on six individual discs. (Buy from Rightstuf: ThinPak Set, or individual volumes on closeout: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.)

Looking to buy? Try these stores: RightStuf (search) | AnimeNation | Akemi's a(nime)Store