Heppoko Jikken Animation Excel♥Saga (Excel Saga)

It's hard to take over the world, and the enigmatic Il Palazzo, head of the ACROSS organization, knows this, so he aims to start small by conquering the city of Fukuoka. Two young officers, the Excel and her partner Hyatt, are tasked with executing this plan, but standing in their way are the City Security workers, a group consisting of three (mostly) normal guys, a very severe girl, and some robots. Regardless of simplicity, Excel and Hyatt always manage to screw up their missions, which usually result in death and lots of destruction.

Heppoko Jikken Animation Excel♥Saga chronicles the elaborate troubles that the ACROSS officers get themselves into, as Excel and Hyatt never fail to do their jobs improperly.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Background

At the publisher's request, the anime series follows a different storyline from the manga.

The twenty-sixth episode Going Too Far was deliberately created to be too violent and obscene for broadcast in Japan and was instead included as a DVD bonus.

(Source: Wikipedia)

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Related Anime

Adaptation:	Excel Saga
Spin-off:	Puni Puni☆Poemii

More characters

Characters & Voice Actors

Excel

Main

Mitsuishi, Kotono
Japanese

Menchi

Main

Koorogi, Satomi
Japanese

Il Palazzo

Main

Koyasu, Takehito
Japanese

Hyatt

Main

Minami, Omi
Japanese

Nabeshin

Supporting

Watanabe, Shinichi
Japanese

Domingo, Pedro

Supporting

Nagasako, Takashi
Japanese

Space Butler

Supporting

Takagi, Wataru
Japanese

Puchuu

Supporting

Okiayu, Ryoutarou
Japanese

Unit 2, Ropponmatsu

Supporting

Koorogi, Satomi
Japanese

That Man

Supporting

Takagi, Wataru
Japanese

More staff

Staff

Cook, Justin

Producer

Greenfield, Matt

Producer, Script, ADR Director

Kitayama, Shigeru

Producer

Matsukura, Yuuji

Producer

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Opening Theme

"Ai (Chuuseishin)" by Excel Girls

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Ending Theme

	1: "Menchi Aishou no Bolero" by Excel Girls (eps 1-25)
	2: "Menchi Aishou no Bolero (Gyakuna)" by Excel Girls (eps 26)

Reviews

Jun 9, 2008

kawaiimisato

Recommended

This show is one of the definitions of random. I will say right now, if you demand structure or linear plot lines, turn back now.

Excel Saga actually not only tells the story of Excel and her escapades, but it is actually three different story lines going at once.

We have the tale of Excel, Pedro, and The Neighbors that work for the city.
With that said, the story is not easily reviewable but here goes.

Well to tell the truth, there really is no story (aside from trying to take over the city) until the last few episodes when random twists of fate bring all three story ...

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Aug 25, 2007

Ranivus

Mixed Feelings

Excel Saga is a pure slapstick anime made to do nothing but try to produce a comedy satire of EVERY anime genre made. It actually does a pretty good job making fun of them all. The entire fact that they're just spoofing anime creates a very weak story line. But they do manage to keep a story to keep it all together, albeit full of holes and non seriousness.

Character
The story mainly follows 2 main characters as they're "trying to take over the world" for a company called ACROSS, i forgot what the acronym stood for. The two girls, Excel and Hyatt, all work under ... a man called Ilpalazzo. The great thing about the two main characters is that they're complete polar opposites of each other. Excel, is your typical over eccentric and stupidly ignorant girl, and Hyatt, is very under eccentric and is actually pretty smart. Its funny in a sense that they are Literally different from each other. They're not the only characters in the show tho. There are at least a good dozen characters that keep reappearing but always displayed in different situations.

Art and Sound
The art and animation is typical pre-2000 style artwork. Its all kind of lame in my opinion, but they do show their artistic variety in how they have to draw drastically different environments with every episode. The music is forgettable, although you'll laugh at the ED a few times it gets annoying after the 3-4th time listening to it. The op is a little catchy and its a nice touch to have hyatt cough during her singing.

Enjoyment
The best part of the anime is the line execution or the script. The use of the word "Shock" and the running joke of her eating her dog among all the other hundreds of jokes makes this show stand out so much. The simplistic lines flow very well with the simple artwork and characters. They even go far as copying characters from from digi charat, to fist of the northstar, to shinesman (you'll think its power rangers but its really a spoof off of Shinesman), really show the voice range and artistic range albeit a little simple.

Overall
This show does have its high points but its also with its downsides. If you're really into anime comedy, then this would be a good pickup, but even if you're not into the comedy genre it still would not be bad to pickup and watch since there is the possibility of you seeing one of your favorite "classic" anime or genre get spoofed. You'll see jokes coming from lolicon to androids, to poverty jokes, you'll see a little of everything here. It's definitely a different style of comedy and Nabeshin's comedy style transfers very well to his other work, Nerima Daikon Brothers. This anime is not for most people but you'll enjoy the ending

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Sep 15, 2010

5camp

Not Recommended

Watching Excel Saga prompted me to make a comparison between it and Seto no Hanayome. They both rely on a mixture of absurdity, parody and taking plot points to the nonsensical extreme to draw laughs from the audience. The only real difference between the two is Seto no Hanayome spends it’s time going to complete extremes with tropes, such as the schoolground division, while Excel Saga spends more time reveling in its lack of a fourth wall. Actually there’s an even bigger difference between the two. Seto no Hanayome is funny. Excel Saga just isn’t. In fact, I’m at a bit of a loss to ... say quite why Seto is funny while Excel Saga isn’t. Yes, comedy that often uses randomness to draw laughs can vary hugely from person to person. But let’s leave Seto aside for now and focus on why Excel Saga isn’t funny. It’s hard to put my finger on as to why put a large part comes down to the characters.

Excel is meant to be the character from which most of the punchlines come from. In that sense, a dubbed Excel would have worked better for comedic timing purposes but that wasn’t an option. Excel might as well been speaking in Klingon for all I knew, such was her incomprehensibility. Even if I understood Japanese I would have had to watch the thing subbed, and they were the most difficult subs to keep up with this side of a Shaft anime. There was also a lack of facial expressions. It’s not like they lacked the animation quality to do that. In fact, the artwork and animation in this series were of a very high standard (especially when you compare this series to GTO, which came out in the same year. God did GTO ever look awful). It’s just Excel rarely went beyond shouty loud face. Bloody Menchi had more variety of facial expressions than she did.

The rest of the characters were pretty much a one-trait bunch, which in itself isn’t a bad thing. But those one-traits weren’t funny. Hyatt’s constant deaths were only funny in the last episode where they took it to the nonsensical and hugely bloody extremes. Illpalazzo didn’t do much beyond have theme music and a piece of rope. None of the office staff were remotely funny (what the hell was with the guy who only spoke with writing?) and the mustache Mr.Kabapu was done better by FLCL. Pedro’s story was all a bit of a anomaly in the series that sat there and took up time from the main story, kinda like Chibitalia except nowhere near as bad (for one, the non-chibitalia sections are actually funny). Oddly enough, the star of the show was Nabeshin, the director turned anime character. It’s as if he saw that there was a total lack of other funny characters in the show so he decided to stick himself in to liven things up a bit. His pulling of machine-guns out of his ‘fro was one of the few highlights from the first half of the series.

One thing Excel Saga did have in it’s favour was that the girls were hot. I found myself wishing that they would have more fanservice orientated comedy. This feeling, I have noted before, is usually a sign that the show is failing in other areas when I’m looking towards sex appeal for entertainment (unless you happen to be a certain spin off from Full Metal Panic). Yeah, my mind kept wandering in Excel Saga as I looked for other things in the show to keep me entertained. I was so starved for comedy in what should have been a comedic series that I started finding laughs from parts that weren’t really meant to be for humour. I distinctly remember an episode where a few characters repeated the name ‘Mr.Kabapu’ a few times, something I inexplicably found to be the funniest thing of the series thus far and from then out found myself laughing whenver someone said his name. One thing that helped me continue was spacing the episodes with the occasional Gintama jaunt, which put Excel Saga to shame in every way bar having hot women (sorry Kagura but you stand no chance against Hyatt and Excel).

Because I was desperately looking for something different in Excel Saga, I really enjoyed the last few episodes and the total change in tone. Then there was the last episode which, after 25 previous episodes of relatively unfunny episodes barring the occasional mentioning of Mr.Kabapu, was a joy to behold. Asides from delivering the fanservice I’d been secretly hoping for the entire show, it finally took the show to the nonsensical extremes that it had yet to do.

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Poll: Excel Saga Episode 1 Discussion kie_ - Jun 21, 2009	30 replies	by Spaz_monkey »» Apr 13, 3:27 PM
Poll: Excel Saga Episode 10 Discussion Da_Nuke - Jun 27, 2009	14 replies	by Atavistic »» Mar 5, 11:30 PM
Poll: Excel Saga Episode 14 Discussion Da_Nuke - Jun 28, 2009	8 replies	by dreaming0 »» Jan 31, 10:59 AM
Poll: Excel Saga Episode 24 Discussion Da_Nuke - Jun 28, 2009	10 replies	by sandwich-boy »» Nov 10, 2023 5:37 PM
Poll: Excel Saga Episode 26 Discussion B25Mitch - Oct 20, 2008	34 replies	by eblf2013 »» Oct 1, 2023 7:35 PM

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Heppoko Jikken Animation Excel♥Saga

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Synopsis

Background

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Staff

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