This world is corrupt In order to prevent further degeneration the natural order must be put to right. And yet Should the human race be unified under one rule the ignorant masses would doubtlessly experience untold trouble adjusting to the new status quo. Revolution though necessary should not happen all at once for such a thing would overwhelm the very problem it was created to solve. Nay like the proverbial toad in hot water the world must be conquered gradually so the ideals of the future can have time to settle in the minds of the people. Thus rather than aiming to conquer the entire world or even an entire country an act that would most assuredly be met with violent opposition and unflattering propaganda a more prudent first step towards overall domination would be a much more reasonable goal The conquest of a single city Yes this far more modest approach will allow the population to acclimate to our presence while also giving us some very lenient room for setback. Oh and we also dont have much of a budget so kindly see yourself to a part time job or something. These are moreorless the words that greet new recruits of the highly ideological organization Across While the majority of this organization remains shrouded in mystery but we can at least indulge in some insight into the situation of the F City F Prefectural branch which may or may not be the only one in existence and is overseen by the ambitious and campy Lord Ilpalazzo a man who rarely ever leaves his lofty throne while giving orders to his minions the dysfunctional duo of Excel a hyperactive zealot and Hyatt a demure beauty who would sooner spit blood on you than say hi to you. With their forces combined along with a pet dog ans emergency food supply named Menchi these two constant failures are at the forefront of the battle for city conquest when theyre not battling to pay the rent and put food on the table all while living right next door to the opposition thats trying to stop them. As the battle heats up between the forces of Across and a brigade of underpaid civil servants whose side will you choose? Or rather with all the wacky and nonsensical comedy going on will you even bother to pick one? Ive probably talked about JC Staff the second most out of any other animation studios right behind Studio Gainax and Ive made a habit of saying that its visual style is inconsistent. Well inconsistent is the word of the day here because Ive seen them put out a bunch of different looking anime but Ive never seen anything else in their library that looked like Excel Saga. This is probably because they shared production duties with another Studio namely Studio Shaft and to call this an unholy union would be an understatement. Shaft has always been really weird visually and when their sensibilities are combined with the animation of a company that cant seem to stay consistent from scene to scene let alone from episode to episode Excel saga is probably the strangest looking anime that Ive ever seen. And to put that into context I posted a review over three years ago of the series that ripped this one off Panty and Stocking. At least in that show the visual changes were intentional and artistic. The animation quality here is indescribable. Thats not to say its good beyond words its to say that I literally cant describe it. I honestly cant even figure out what kind of budget it had or how it managed said budget because the level of quality goes up and down more often than your mom making the rent money. There are scenes that flow beautifully with graceful animation and smooth movements and then there are moments where movement becomes stilted and stiff with long periods of talking heads periodically interrupted by bits of movement. There are two clip shows that obviously exist for budgetary purposes Both of them even spend a lot of time recapping the same character arc And then there are scenes where the action is happening so fast that youd swear it was going at a million frames per second. I can only assume the budget was so high that the studio also high didnt give a shit how it was used and the clip episodes were done more so to make up for a lack of ideas than a lack of funds. The characters whose images were bought to life in Koshi Rikdos original manga have been given a massive cartoony upgrade Or downgrade depending on the scene And while they dont look too unrealistic for the most part they still look like anime caricatures of real people. These designs are mostly reflective of the original manga but with the aforementioned cartoony upgrade presenting them as more polished and malleable making them ideal for the animes screwball comedic style. The backgrounds on the other hand are much more stable and consistent and theyve been endowed with way more detail than they actually needed as the director makes use of very short cuts. The lighting can at times remind you of an actual stage play as even an episode taking place in a sewer can be more than bright and open enough for you to enjoy the action without ruining the illusion of a claustrophobic environment. The set pieces are also incredibly diverse as the characters venture out into an untold number of unpredictable locations and they clearly had a lot of fun bringing them all to life. : The music is just as bizarre as the visuals but personally I like it a lot better. I own a couple of CDs from this shows soundtrack and back when I had a car that had a CD player I would often steal tracks from both of them if I felt like making an Instrumental mix. The music was produced by Victor Entertainment and they get a much higher billing in the series than most music producers ever do. They totally deserve it too putting out a soundtrack full of instrumental and synthetic sound which work both as standalone tunes and occasionally as parodies of the musical convention of other shows. A good example would be the bland repetitive track it attached to a literal dating game which was somehow able to sound good while still capturing the cringe of the harem genre. They forego the synthetic tunes completely in a later episode focusing on a rock star character and it winds up sounding legitimately badass. Id keep going naming off good tracks and why I like them but its probably better to just say that its a really diverse really weird soundtrack. The opening Love/Loyalty is also one of my favorites. The song itself sounds like something from Michael Jackson which isnt surprising if youve seen some of the directors other works. Its sung by The Excel Girls a fictitious band made up of two idol singers pretending to be members of AcrossThey appear as characters in the series too and they seem to have a lot of chemistry together. The video is basically what youd expect from an anime The main characters being shown in different situations with the rest of the cast getting highlighted in brief shots only its done with that special brand of Excel Saga insanity. Its skippable but the ending theme isnt. They being the dog character Menchi on screen to sing about how shes resigned herself to being eatenIn barks while a woman translates which is amazing in its own right but then you have the dub where they stuck a lot of jokes in the credits some of them actually being funny. If youve forgotten the list I posted a few years ago of my top ten favorite English dubs then let me get you up to speed: Excel Saga has one of the best dubs ever. Period. It was one of ADVs attempts to translate Japanese comedy for American audiences while still retaining the spirit of the original and since Stephen Foster wasnt involved at any point they pulled it off beautifully. Every performance is either good in all the right ways or bad in all the right ways with very little room for error For the most part. It was I believe almost perfect and if you know the series well you pretty much know what Im referring to. Jessica Calvello who disappeared from the business for nearly a decade before recently making a triumphant career resurgence plays the title character of Excel and Im going to stake my reputation on the claim that its the single best performance in anime dubbing history. Her role was an extremely demanding one but she still owned it and Id even argue that she did a better job than the original seiyuu. Due to the translation differences between the two languages the English dialogue would often be a lot longer than the source and instead of making changes to shorten it Calvello just ran with it talking way faster than her Japanese counterpart without ever diminishing the quality of her performance. Even during her most rapid speeches you could feel how devoted she was to Ilpalazzo how enthusiastically zealous she was for Acrosss cause and how little she cared for anything else. She could portray pain and suffering even better than Brittany Karbowski can and get this she even spoke with a perfect Kansai accent well as perfect as the English language can convey. She plays it like shes tried to get rid of it but its still kinda there and it only comes out full force when shes shocked or emotionally overwhelmed. The amount of control she had over her voice was insane andwell it took its toll. Youve probably heard about this as its kind of a famous story in the industry but Jessica Calvello put so much raw energy into this role pushing herself so far beyond the limit that she wound up injuring her throat and had to be replaced by Larissa Wolcott halfway through the series and its a noticeable step down. Larissa didnt do a bad job or anything To be fair she did an admirable job matching the pace of Calvellos performance and anybody who can motormouth like that deserves recognition for it But she just didnt have the acting chops to measure up. It felt wrong. It was kinda like when Dan Castelanetta played the Genie Yeah he did a fine job but hes no Robin Williams. On a side note Calvello also had a knack for Adlibbing that helped to Americanize the humor in some neat ways which is probably why some of Excels dialogue gets stranger after the switch. Thankfully there were a bunch of other really good performances that we didnt have to lose. In addition to a handful of heavyweight voice acting veterans proving their ranges by playing an unbelievable number of characters Like John Swasey Spike Spencer Tiffany Grant and thennewcomer Kira Vincent Davis They even got great performances out of two of my least favorite voice actors Mandy Clark and Mark Laskowski. Clark did an amazing job on the tragic pintsized assassin Cossette Sara and Laskowskis knack for sounding stiff and hammy at the same time was a perfect fit for the goofball Iwata. Its a lot of fun hearing Chris Patton play a rock star as he actually got to sing the translated songs and he fucking nails each one. Its a shame he wasnt in Beck. Rob Mungle uses an overthetop latino accent to play the immigrant Pedro and while I was never a huge fan of that character/story arc his commitment to the character was impressive. Brett Weaver was also impossible to ignore as Nabeshin the parodic avatar of director Shinichi Watanabe playing him as a kind of white Richard Roundtreehis words not mine. Rounding out the main cast this anime was my introduction to Monica Rial whose portrayal of Hyatt is probably one of the best in her repertoire. Taking a step up from her Seiyuu counterpart she incorporates the characters anemia and weak constitution directly into her speech as she perpetually sounds like shes on the verge of fainting. She also has no problem at all with all of Hyatts Well lets just say her bodily malfunctions. Jason Douglas takes the flatvoiced one note character of Ilpalazzo and seems to channel Maximilian Pegasus to create a more foppish melodramatic shine that the character was so sorely missing. They really didnt have any need to redub the character of Menchi as shes a freaking dog whose only lines consist of dog noises and they could have easily just kept the Japanese performance like Pokemon did with Pikachu but they cast Hilary Haag anyway and her dog noises are almost as funny as Luci Christians duck noises. Even if youre a hardcore sub fan this is one exception I highly recommend you make. If the name Shinichi Watanabe means nothing to you it means youve never seen one of his anime. If you had trust me youd know it. Watanabe or Nabeshin as hes also known is something of an auteur as his work generally has a distinct style and personality to it thats directly reflective of his influence on it. This can be a good thing or a bad thing as any follower of Akiyuki Shinbou or Hayao Miyazaki will tell you and for Nabeshin its kind of both. He often gets praised for his work in the genre of anime comedy as well as for his flare for satire and genre parody and the results have been Well mixed. His work tends to consist of lightning fast pacing rapidfire jokes and constant references to other anime and thats pretty much Excel Saga in a nutshell. Granted hes worked as episodic and storyboarding director for a lot of other peoples projects but hes taken on very few himself so its easier with him than it is with most directors to examine what it is that hes all about. His work particularly in reference to Excel Saga has garnered a reputation for being insane and random and its here that I feel I have to disagree. The Excel Saga anime is not the work of a madman or an unhinged mind. The writing on this show is in fact very calculated. With examples of genuine insanity and randomness out there like FLCL and Rejected Excel Saga skews closer to one of those focusgroup facades of insanity and randomness like and I am so sorry but you know its true Invader Zim but with an extra bit of conceit and arrogance hiding behind it. Nabeshin took the premise and characters of the manga saw how offbeat it all was and used it as an excuse to just not give a fuck. Yes Excel Saga is one giant bag of fucks not being given and by God does it show. Its so easy just to write whatever you want make fun of whats popular and do constant pop culture references Thats why Family Guy does it. Excel Saga is at its core the true anime version of Family Guy. Moreso than Lucky Star will ever be. And for those of you getting annoyed at me for interpreting the intentions of a creator that Ive never met before Im not just talking out of my ass on this. I know that the anime wasnt a product of actual insanity or inspiration because I know what those things look like in a narrative I have after all read the original manga. The Excel Saga manga created by Koshi Rikdo in the 90s is an example of what true insanity looks like Its not unhinged and disconnected ramblings of randomness its a genuinely batshit narrative that reads like it made perfect sense to the person writing it. Yeah it looks bonkers from the outside looking in but it still gives off a sense of consistence and intention. It was a grand sweeping epic with foreshadowing themes depth smart callbacks and meticulous attention to detail. Its like if Lord of the Rings were written by a mental patient. I dont know how Rikdo actually feels about Nabeshin getting all the popular credit for his work I mean he DID take a couple of ideas from the anime long after the fact but I still dont picture him looking upon it fondly. One of the biggest downsides to this is in terms of characterizations. Nabeshin didnt just bastardize the original concept he also turned almost the entire cast into onenote jokes and shallow gimmicks. Theres almost no character development in the entire series outside of a few plotspecific changes and a few early actions taken from the manga. Aside from these their actions are largely interchangeable. Theres not a whole lot I can say about that as I dont really want to give away too many spoilers about either entityespecially the manga but there is one character I might be able to offer up The fourth Civil Servant and later Municipal Force member Misaki Matsuya. She starts out in the manga as a bit of a tsundere spurning the annoying advances of Iwata and in the anime thats basically where she stays A violent and ultracapable stick in the mud with stilted speech patterns and a nononsense demeanor. She even legitimately tries to kill Iwata in one episode but cant because her gun misfires. In the manga however she gets a lot more development and feels a lot more like an actual person. She becomes friends with her teammates and shows at least enough compassion towards Iwata to care whether he lives or dies. Did you know shes a hardcore gamer in her free time and that she wanders over to her coworkers apartments to hang out if shes feeling goofy from losing sleep to a gaming session? Did you know she forms a bond with computer geek Sumiyoshi by helping him to test out his elaborate computer setups? Did you know that when their boss Kabapus plans get out of hand she actually attempts to leave the country to avoid getting dragged into them? No you dont know any of that because Nabeshin did jack shit with her character. And shes not a special case either. Every single character in this series has expansive development that far outshines anything they did in the anime and yes I mean literally every character from the pedophile scientist to the illfated dog Menchi. If I told you what was supposed to happen to Iwata down the road youd seriously think I was fucking with you. And I know its tacky to judge an anime by comparing it to the original manga but Im not doing this to condemn it for being inaccurate but as a device to show you just how lazy it is. Yes thats right the Excel Saga anime isnt crazy its lazy. It takes what it needs to from the manga and then just puts no effort into anything that it did with it. Dont get me wrong the music and animation clearly had a lot of love put into them but in terms of writing and storytelling and especially with the comedy Nabeshin just did the easiest things he could at every turn. Breaking the fourth wall is easy. Random gag humor is easy. Parody or at least Nabeshins brand of it is easy. Justifying your shows problems by having characters complain about them and having meta characters talk about the production is taking the easy way out. Having your Lupininspired standin complain about the lack of story and plot doesnt create a story or plot. You can only wring so much of an excuse out of calling your show Experimental before people start to wonder what substance youre actually experimenting with. And I cant just shut up and turn off my brain and enjoy it as a goofy comedy because about 90 of the time I just dont find it funny. Ive heard people refer to it as satire Are you kidding me? Satire has a point. Satire has logic. Satire has intentions. There is no satire in this show. The closest it gets to satire is picking a vague genre blatantly calling out whats wrong with it exaggerating a few cliches and then just adding some weird shit like monkeys to the mix. The very idea of an existing internal logic is completely absent. If theres any satire in it and if any of the comedy in it is smart in some way then its buried under culturally impenetrable Japanese references. Theres a rule in comedy that if youre going to do a reference joke it has to work as both a reference and a joke so that people who dont get the reference can still enjoy the joke. I first saw this series almost fifteen years ago and I still dont think Ive seen a quarter of the anime Id have to in order to fully enjoy the experience. Excel Saga was originally available from ADV Films but after they went under this property was one of the many they wound up selling off. Its currently available from Funimation and while the form theyve released it in isnt as visually impressive as its previous forms it is more affordable and easier to obtain. The original manga by Koshi Rikdo is available stateside from Viz and while a couple of volumes were impossible to find a few years back its all readily available nowadays for some decent prices. An extra episode called Going too Far serves kind oif as the true ending of the series and it can be found on most DVD sets. A spinoff series called Puni Puni Poemy is also available and it actually IS genuinely insane. I feel like the reason Excel Saga is looked upon so fondly is because people generally havent read much of the manga. This is also probably why Nabeshins adaptation of Hayate the Combat Butler wasnt as well received because people actually cared about that manga. As for me Im not gonna lie and pretend that its a good show but I do I have a soft spot for it. Its mostly because of the dub but its also because it was one of my formative anime. When I decided to venture beyond what was available on TV this was one of the manga that my local library introduced me to along with Love Hina Chobits and Azumanga Daioh. I cant out and out hate it but I do consider it to be something of a guilty pleasure like how I occasionally might get bored fire up Netflix and watch a Family Guy episode. Its crap but once in a while crap is comforting. Theres some good here but its all taken from the manga and NOT a product of mad genius from the talentless hack who directed it. I give Excel Saga a 4/10.