Review: Excel Saga

The secret idealogical organisation of ACROSS, led by the Lord Ilpalazzo, has world conquest as its ultimate goal. However, choosing to start small, initially their goal is to conquer just the city of F.

Ilpalazzo's first recruit is Excel Excel, a hyper "genki girl" who speaks at about mach three, but never seems to get the job done the way Ilpalazzo wants. His second is Hyatt, who seems to be an alien princess with the odd habit of dying and returning from the dead shortly thereafter.

Excel Saga consists primarily of a long series of episodes each of which makes fun of a particular kind of show - detective shows, dating simulations, "animal" shows, postapocalyptic dramas... if you can think of it, it's probably there. Everything is poked fun at.

Probably the best single word would be "wacky". Nothing is sacred; everything gets poked fun at, not least the creator of the original manga (who usually shows up in an introductory "approval").

Each episode generally picks a basic theme and the episode then uses that theme, bent utterly out of shape. The alien invasion has the Yamamoto (Star Blazers), Harlock and Emereldas up against the Gamelon fleet. The Dating Sim episode naturally has "kill her" as an option for Ilpalazzo (which leads to a quick Game-Over). The detective drama has the main detective as a bright young girl who adopts the mannerisms of her father when she puts on a haunted hat...

Excel, always willing to put a thousand percent into anything Ilpalazzo asks her to do, drives most of the show. She speaks incredibly quickly - I would frequently rewind a little trying to catch something I had missed. The "AD Vid-Notes", a special feature included on all the DVDs, very helpfully explains many of the more obscure references.

There are also a number of odd "side characters" including Menchi, Excel's dog (and emergency food supply) and a team of people (mostly Excel's next-door neighbours) who seem to spend most of their time tidying up the messes that Excel makes...

The result is a rollercoaster ride of bizarre fun that will leave you gasping and probably wanting more... though I'd advise an occasional break. Swallowing the entire series in one hit is not likely to be healthy.

It all terminates in episode 25... then episode 26 is reserved for maximum outrageousness. It goes out of its way to offend everybody. It's gorgeous in its own way.

Animation is brilliantly varied, frequently following in style the show being parodied; at times primitive but always startlingly effective. It's not gorgeously detailed (eg. as Spriggan) but it's extremely effective.

Voice acting is brilliant, particularly Excel of course; unfortunately Jessica Cavallero had to take a break after doing the first couple of DVDs as the part was destroying her voice, but I didn't particularly notice the break in voice actors. The Japanese track I didn't listen to, much, but seems to follow a similar standard. Following the subtitle track *and* the frequent "vid-notes" would have been next to impossible...

Other audio was again nicely varied and thematic.

Packaging was basically standard DVD cases with a yin-yang hub clip - basic, hard to break, usable. Cover designs nicely colourful and varied.