Excel Saga

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Template:Infobox television Excel Saga is a comedy anime, directed by Shinichi Watanabe, and is based on a manga series written by Rikdo Koshi. The complete Japanese title is へっぽこ実験アニメーション　エクセル・サーガ/Heppoko jikken animēshon Ekuseru Sāga, translated as Quack Experimental Anime Excel Saga. This series is also known as Weird Anime Excel Saga, as the word translated as "quack" (heppoko) can also mean "weird," "silly," or "light-hearted," all in keeping with the series' self-deprecating and self-aware humor.

Excel Saga the anime is available in North America on VHS and DVD from ADV Films, and on DVD in Australia from Madman Entertainment. The English-language manga is published in the United States by VIZ Media.

Contents

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Overview

First created as a manga by Rikdo Koshi, the anime series Excel Saga aired from October 7 1999 to March 30 2000 on TV Tokyo. There are 26 episodes, but only the first 25 were aired because the twenty-sixth, Going Too Far, was intentionally made to be too controversial for public broadcast. The series was produced by J.C.STAFF.

Whereas the original manga is more of a satire of life and culture in Japan, the animated series relentlessly parodies various films, games, dramas, and other works of anime, especially including Sailor Moon, Dragon Ball, Superman, Doraemon, Fist of the North Star, Resident Evil, Lupin III, Mobile Suit Gundam, Captain Harlock, Space Battleship Yamato, Aliens, Love Hina, Mickey Mouse, Titanic , Super Sentai , and Star Wars. Excel Saga is very much an absurdist gag-based comedy a la Airplane!. AD Vid-Notes are a feature of the ADV Films DVD release.

Excel Saga is very self-aware, and for many gags relies on appearances from Rikdo Koshi, Shinichi Watanabe (the anime's director, more commonly referred to as Nabeshin), other members of the J.C. Staff production crew, and the singers of the theme song - the 'Excel Girls'. In a parody of many manga-to-anime translations (including Sailor Moon), Excel Saga, the anime, has very little to do with Excel Saga, the manga, a fact constantly acknowledged (and in turn parodied) in the anime itself.

Excel Saga manga are based on the dojinshi comic Municipal Force Daitenzin, also by Rikudo Koshi, who notes in an interview with ADV (included in volume four of the DVD release) that he created Excel Saga as a way to explore Excel's character in a way he had not in Daitenzin. The Japanese voice actress of Excel, Kotono Mitsuishi, plays Misato Katsuragi in Neon Genesis Evangelion and Usagi Tsukino, the central character of Sailor Moon, a fact which is acknowledged at least once as part of a joke. Nabeshin also directed an OVA called Puni Puni Poemy, something of a spinoff or followup to Excel Saga. Puni Puni Poemy was frequently advertised, referenced and lampooned in Excel Saga.

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Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Both the manga and the anime follow the trials and tribulations of the Organization for the Promotion of the Institutionalization of the [Supreme Ideological] Ideal [on Earth], ACROSS, in its quest to conquer the world and rid it of corruption, starting with just one city, "F City, F Prefecture" in the anime; this is short for Fukuoka, Fukuoka. ACROSS is lead by the Lord Ilpalazzo, who justifies his one-city-at-a-time strategy by saying that "[c]onquering one city is a reasonable plan that allows some leeway for setbacks."

However, ACROSS consists initially of only Lord Ilpalazzo himself and Excel ("First name 'Excel,' last name 'Excel'"), a quick-but-dim-witted strawberry blonde, whose main virtues are loyalty, energy and determination. Before long, Excel is joined by ACROSS' second hire, Hyatt, who, while smarter than her sempai, has an unfortunate tendency to abruptly die, and equally abruptly revive for no apparent medical reason. Excel and Hyatt are often accompanied on missions by their pet and "emergency food supply", Menchi ("Mince" in the English translation of the manga). In later volumes of the manga, ACROSS gains a third hire in the form of Elgâla, whose inability to conduct an internal monologue without broadcasting her thoughts to all in the vicinity often becomes a source of tension among her co-workers.

Most action in Excel Saga revolves around the conflict between ACROSS and the Daitenzin, but the anime introduces a significant - if meandering - subplot that occasionally overlaps with the main story. This subplot consists of the attempts of Pedro the ghost to regain his life and his family and those of Nabeshin to avenge his friends - goals that coincide, since both men were wronged by the same archvillain, That Man, who we learn is one of the leaders of ACROSS even above Lord Ilpalazzo.

Although there is only modest continuity between episodes for most of the series - each episode being an "experiment" in parodying various genres of anime and other media - elements from the experiements build slowly into the main story, which culminates over episodes 22 through 25 in the battle for F City. At the time of this writing, the manga is still on-going.

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Characters

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
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ACROSS

  • Elgâla, a.k.a. Kasumi Munakata: Appearing only in the manga, Elgala is the third girl of ACROSS -- Excel's rival for Ilpalazzo's "affection," Elgala is a bit of a snob with refined tastes, despite the girls' desperate living situation. She also has the odd habit of having a fully audible inner monologue. She often goes on secret missions that she is not allowed to talk about (or think about) with the other girls, and seems to like Menchi as an actual dog, instead of as food. She is always being bossed around by Excel, and like Excel, Ilpalazzo often punishes her by dropping her down the pit. In her opinion, she is ultra resistent to alcohol hangover. She is a katana expert, expecially proficient in iai technique (although we haven't seen her in sword combat yet).

Image:Excel-saga-excel.jpeg

  • Excel a.k.a. Hanako Dosukoi, a.k.a. Pseudonym Undercover: The fast-talking, wise-cracking heroine, who was initially the sole minion of ACROSS, joining immediately after graduating from high school, dying, and being resurrected several times. Excel approaches her work with a combination of extreme determination, excessive enthusiasm, and an utter dearth of foresight and understanding. A Pollyanna who is in quick succession impossibly lucky and impossibly unlucky, she never manages to complete a mission without help, and even her successes, such as they are, are usually completed by happenstance. She's hopelessly in love with her master, Ilpalazzo, and will do almost anything for him. Excel blindly and joyfully follows Ilpalazzo's orders. For example, when ordered by Ilpalazzo to liquidate the entire race of manga artists, she proudly marches down the street swinging a scimitar and singing, "Genocide, without even asking why!" Excel seems to lack any and all sense of reasoning and appears to act solely on her base impulses, as best evidenced by her frantic attempts to eat the dog Menchi in the first episode and her subsequent references to the poor creature in all later episodes as her "emergency food supply."
  • Hyatt, a.k.a. Chihaya Ayasugi. A Camille-like figure, anima, and thoroughgoing narcoleptic, in the anime Hyatt is first shown in suspended animation on an alien space ship, literally a sleeping beauty. She is saved from the clutches of the cute-but-evil Puchuu race, and inadvertently comes to at ACROSS headquarters. (In the manga she is simply a new hire after an interview with Ilpalazzo). She professes to be anemic, and is often so weak that she crawls like an inchworm, her face planted to the ground. These aspects of her character parody an anime tradition of attractive heroines with weak constitutions who more often than not faint at the slightest display of emotion. (Compare Hyatt with Mutsumi Otohime from Love Hina, whom Hyatt not vaguely resembles.) She frequently coughs up blood -the classic sign of T.B.; this blood can cause extreme illness in others if ingested, the basis for the plots of at least two episodes. Prone to fainting, and coughing up blood even whilst singing in the opening credits, Hyatt is thus a parody of the wan, romantic, consumptive heroine. While her constant illness and ability to revive despite apparently being dead are not explained in either format, it should be noted that in the manga Hyatt takes large amounts of prescription drugs, whereas in the anime Hyatt may well be from another world. In both the anime and the manga, she is noticeably Ilpalazzo's favorite staff member, usually receiving lighter punishment than Excel and being promoted above her nominal senior: being named Staff Officer in the anime and Inspector-General for Information Affairs in the manga. Little is known of her origin, although she is referred to as a princess by the Puchuus and is somehow linked with the Puchuu overlord who invades Earth in episode eighteen. In the manga it is said she is a firearms expert (although we haven't seen her skills in action so far).
  • Lord Ilpalazzo: The leader of ACROSS, Lord Ilpalazzo often prefaces his orders and speeches by proclaiming, "The world is corrupt!" He has little patience for Excel and her antics, preferring to delegate complex operations to Hyatt. A recurring gag during the series is that, despite all his scheming, Ilpalazzo really has nothing to do while Excel and Hyatt are out on missions: he is often seen pursuing surprisingly ordinary hobbies, such as playing dating simulation games, reading teen magazines, learning to play the guitar, or arranging domino blocks. These notwithstanding, Ilpalazzo is no ordinary human being, as testify his yellow, cat-eyes and seemingly supernatural powers exhibited most clearly in Episode 25. However, in both the anime and the manga, it is clear that Lord Ilpalazzo suffers from severe psychological disorders, most notably multiple personality disorder.

Image:Excel-saga-menchi.jpeg

  • Menchi (Mince in the English manga): In the anime, Menchi was sent away by her caring owner who hoped she would have a better life than he could provide; unfortunately for her, Excel found Menchi first. In their first meeting, Excel frantically chases after Menchi in an insane attempt to eat the poor creature. She does not succeed, but keeps Menchi as a pet, frequently referring to her as her "emergency food supply." Despite numerous threats, Excel never does need (or work up the courage) to eat Menchi, and actually begins to care for her, after a fashion, as the series progresses. The plots of several episodes of the anime revolve to greater or lesser extents around Menchi, her past, and her quest to escape her miserable existence in the clutches of Excel. Her life in the manga is slightly better, insofar as she gains something of an ally in Elgâla. There is some dispute as to what kind of dog Menchi is, or if she even is a dog at all: volume one of the manga shows her as a very intelligent and very valuable mammal that may be some kind of hybrid between a cat and a dog, but Excel is unaware of this; in the anime, Menchi is only referred to as a dog. There is some claim that she is a Chow-Chow, but there is no known, official evidence to support this contention. The anime's closing theme song consists of Menchi singing in dog of her horrible relationship with Excel while a woman on the side coldly translates the song into Japanese, with Excel's hand reaching on-screen periodically to sprinkle some pepper on Menchi. The extended version of the song involves Menchi becoming increasingly more frantic to the point where she is blindly barking, presumably at Excel, with the song ending with Menchi supposedly being cooked and eaten (though most contest this theory harshly, saying that the cooking noises in the background are merely meant for shock value). In the final episode, these roles were reversed, with the woman coming in on all fours and singing the song in proper Japanese, as Menchi translates into dog. The meaning of the song's lyrics become unmistakably clear when the translator sings.
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Department of City Security

  • Norikuni Iwata: Infatuated with Matsuya, Ropponmatsu 1, and having tried once to make a move on Excel, Iwata is generally disliked but tolerated by his neighbors and co-workers. His penchance for hitting on any woman, except Ropponmatsu 2, always ends up slammed into a wall, drenched, or otherwise beaten up. In Volume 8 of the manga, Iwata suddenly dies of colon cancer, but is promptly resurrected as his brain is recovered and is given a new cyborg body by Shiouji. This new body looks exactly like his original, and it doesn't seem to offer too many new abilities, other than a resistance to damage. His name is officially changed to Mitsukoshi, since Iwata was considered legally dead, but few people besides Kabapu call him that.
  • Kabapu: A large man, with a very strange hairstyle and a handlebar moustache (which is detachable in the anime), Kabapu seems to hold a position of extreme and shadowy power which is never fully explained in the anime. The Mayor and other leaders of F City defer to his wishes, as Kabapu has no qualms about silencing dissent by explosive or by assassination. Although he seems to be a villain at first, his zeal is a result of his genuine desire to protect the City from all dangers. His trump card is his newly founded Department of City Security, the front for his Municipal Force Daitenzin, into which Watanabe, Iwata, Sumiyoshi, Misaki, and Ropponmatsu are drafted. In later volumes of the manga, Kabapu reveals himself as a member of an ancient city called "Solaria," similar to Atlantis, which had brought about its own downfall. He proclaims that his mission is to destroy any remaining Solarian technology so humanity can't misuse it. Whether or not this is the truth is yet to be seen, but it's clear that he and Ilpalazzo are old acquaintances.
  • Misaki Matsuya: The attractive, intelligent, one-quarter English female recruit to the Department of City Security. She is very task-oriented but pragmatic and fiercely independent. She is also talented and vicious at repelling Iwata's (and the cameraman's) frequent leers and advances. She also hates being called by her full name. In the manga, we learn that she and Iwata were college classmates and that she bears him some genuine affection - perhaps even romantic.
  • Ropponmatsu: A beautiful bomb-disposal expert who happens to be a robot. After failing in her first mission, she is given an additional form, which can be employed as needed: her normal, adult body and that a perky young cat-girl. In the anime, Ropponmatsu is two distinct robots, but in the manga, she's technically a single system core that gets switched between the two bodies. In the manga, the vast difference in mass and functionality of the two bodies leads to some tension between Kabapu and Shiouji: both incarnations of Ropponmatsu have a tendency to fail in the course of their duty, due either to extreme mass or lack of appropriate functionality. In the anime, both Ropponmatsu 1 and 2 are often destroyed while trying to complete their missions.
  • Dr. Shiouji: Shiouji is the brilliant creator of the Ropponmatsus and of Kabapu's "mecha." Throughout Excel Saga, his pedophilia is veiled with gossamer: He leers at little girls in a playground and has a favorite robot "daughter" roughly the size and apparent age of a toddler. In episode twenty-six, the veil is thrown back and he is an outright pedophile, taking Cossette Sara to a sex-hotel for an abortive tryst. In the manga, his family seems to be an important factor in the plot. His father, Tenmangu Shiouji, was lauded as one of the world's most foremost scientists, but vanished when Gojo was young. His mother, Miwa Rengaya, suffered a severe behavioral change after Tenmangu disappeared, acting heavily oversexed, whereas his 18-year-old, airhead cousin, Umi Rengaya, who interns in his laboratory, loves to cosplay.

Image:ES Ronin.jpg

  • Daimaru Sumiyoshi: The only really intelligent male in the group, Sumiyoshi is a fat guy who communicates by text floating through the air, using the Kansai dialect (in the manga, he has an Okayama accent, which is translated in the English-language manga as the Geordie dialect of England). The manga showcases Sumiyoshi's hobby and greatest feat: documenting all dating simulation games on his complex PC system. The manga also features the rest of his family. His 13-year-old sister, Kanal, also speaks in the "floating subtitle" accent, but is adorable and looks nothing like Daimaru. His mother and father also appear, his father appearing normal but with accent, and his mother looking very much like Daimaru, but speaking normally.
  • Tooru Watanabe: An out-of-work Japanese twenty-something, Watanabe lives in the same apartment building as Excel and Hyatt, who are his nextdoor neighbors. Two other neighbors are Norikuni Iwata and Daimaru Sumiyoshi, men who hang around Watanabe for no apparent reason, and whose company he dislikes in the extreme. Watanabe is infatuated with Hyatt, who seems unaware of his weak advances. In order to impress her, he claims to be a civil servant and undertakes a position at the Department of City Security to redeem his lie. Much to his consternation, Iwata and Sumiyoshi are hired by the Department at the same time as he.
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Inhabitants of F City, F Prefecture (anime only)

  • Daiuchuu no Ooinaru Ishi: The Great Will of the Macrocosm, a.k.a. Iz-chan, appears in the form of galaxy with arms (and lips, when necessary), and acts as a kind of a reset button to revive Excel and other characters upon death (a frequent occurrence, although she doesn't seem to actively reset Hyatt). She falls in love with Pedro, but is torn between her love for him and the power over her held by That Man. We learn that she and Pedro's wife are actually (or perhaps different aspects of) the same being, the reason being they share voice actresses.

Image:Excel-saga-pedro-iz.jpeg

  • Pedro Dominigo: The unluckiest man (later ghost) on Earth, Pedro is a South American immigrant living in F City. Having died while working on a construction project alongside Excel, he wanders the earth as a spirit, trying to return to his "sexy wife," who has shacked up with Gomez, Pedro's ostensible friend and co-worker, who is really That Man in disguise. Nabeshin later explains that Pedro's ultimate purpose is become an "Afro-Warrior" under his tutelage, and to fight That Man for the fate of the world. It could be argued that Pedro is the true hero of the series as he is destined to do battle with That Man who can be considered as the archvillain because he (along with his five cohorts)is the mastermind behind ACROSS. Pedro's catchphrase is "No!" cried at a high pitch and volume. For some reason his background music is based on the opening guitar riff from House of the Rising Sun by The Animals.
  • Nabeshin: Also known as Afro-man, and the director, and the coolest man alive, Nabeshin is dressed like Lupin III, and, in the english version, speaks in a cajun accent. This is the anime's director made incarnate in the show. Being the director, he is the personified deus ex machina, and appeals are often made to him in that capacity, but apart from odd cameos in Ilpalazzo's throneroom and bowling-alley womensrooms, he generally keeps himself relegated to his own subplot with Pedro and That Man. In that sense, he focuses on training Pedro and Sandora to fight That Man and leading the final showdown himself. Nabeshin can sometimes be seen driving around in his souped-up Mitsubishi Lancer which is capable of launching itself into flight. After the ending credit of episode 25, he becomes a target of Excel's assassination, sharing the same fate of Rikudo Koshi in episode 1.

Image:Rikdo koshi.jpg

  • Koshi Rikudo: The author of the Excel Saga manga has only one appearance in the story proper of the anime - namely, when he is killed in the first episode by Excel under orders from Lord Ilpalazzo. Although this is undone at the commercial break by the Great Will of the Macrocosm, it is unclear whether he survives (for the purposes of the main story) Excel's second attempt on his life at the end of the episode. He does, however, appear at the beginning of every episode, voluntarily -usually- giving his approval to the episode's ostensible genre. Also, as a parody of the struggle manga artists often find themselves in with anime adaptations of their work, Nabeshin and Rikudo come to blows, especially towards the anime's end.
  • Puchuus: Aliens from outer space who invade Earth in the second and eighteenth episodes, with other frequent appearances. Puchuus have an extremely cute, teddy bear-like appearance that few can resist - only Excel and Misaki are known to be immune to their cuteness. Physically, they are not very robust, only requiring a mere kick or shove to the head to kill. Once defeated, they often let out distressed interjections such as "You make-a me bleed!", or "Ouch!", secrete a purple liquid, and always reveal their true 'not-so-cute' form: Their faces are that of Golgo 13. After Excel repelled their initial invasion force, Puchuu forces remained on the planet, living with humans either as pets or as helpers (like maids; they even come with their own futon beaters) and waging underground operations against humanity. It's unclear if it is representative of the entire Puchuu race, but the social structure of the ground force (seen in episode seven) seemed hive-like, with an Aliens-style queen. When the main Puchuu invasion fleet arrived in Earth orbit in episode twenty-two, it was repelled by a desperate alliance of ACROSS (i.e., Excel) and Puchuu rebels. Debris from the decisive space battle, however, fell to Earth and utterly destroyed F City.
  • That Man: Pedro's and Nabeshin's archnemesis, who masquerades as a friend and seduces both Pedro's wife and the Great Will. His real name is never given, and he is therefore referred to simply as "That Man." (The official reason for his lack of a name being that he was not originally intended to be anything but a walk-on character in one episode.) That Man is part of, and presumably leads, the ACROSS Six, the governing body of ACROSS, and longs to use "the power of the Great Will and the devilishness of the woman" to take over the universe. In the form of Gomez, That Man seems to have a gambling addiction and seemed to be the butt of jokes as an immigrant construction worker.
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Other characters

  • The ACROSS Six: Referred to once by That Man episode twenty-four, the ACROSS Six were apparently the ruling body of ACROSS known only to Lord Ilpalazzo and the staff of ACROSS Headquarters (which Ilpalazzo refers to in episodes two and twenty-one). In reality, it was likely another ad-hoc, "experimental" device created by the production staff in order to make That Man a credible megalomaniac in comparison to Lord Ilpalazzo. After the defeat and death of That Man, the surviving members of The ACROSS Six renamed themselves the ACROSS Five and are only distinguishable from That Man and from each other by their scarves. They only have a brief cameo appearance in episode 26, introducing themselves as This Man, That Man Over There, That Man Over Here, This Man Over There, and This Man Over Here. After vowing to avenge That Man, they are promptly killed by Nabeshin.
  • Sandora Dominigo: Pedro's son, a soccer fan and promising otaku, after Gomez' faults as a husband and father become apparent, Sandora leaves his Andean home for America and starts selling his drawings of anime characters: He does this to eventually become a "Japanimator" and to send money home so that his mother can continue "doing nothing but goofing off." However, unbeknownst to him, the pictures are being sold to the Mafia. This discovery costs him his life, and he becomes a ghost and "Afro-Warrior" like his father and helps fight That Man.
  • Nurse Shiki Fukuya: Stuck with Dr. Iwata for life, it seems, this well-meaning nurse spends most of her time with a golf club in her hand, waiting to bash Dr. Iwata's head open for his malpractices. The manga reveals that she was assigned this role by the Iwata family to guard it against embarrassments caused by Dr. Iwata. She appears twice or three times in the anime, but with very few lines but has a little more to say in the manga.
  • Dr. Iwata: Norikuni Iwata's cousin, who rose through the ranks of the medical profession mostly being related to the man in charge. A horrible doctor with questionable practices and tendencies, his most distinct feature is the X-shaped scar across his entire face, which was given to him by Norikuni Iwata (then aged four), who was practicing Kikaider's finishing move on him. His likeness and character as a doctor is based on Osamu Tezuka's Black Jack. He is a more important character in the manga than the anime.
  • Hiyoko Iwata: Granddaughter of the chairman of the Iwata Medical Association (thus a distant relative of Dr. Iwata and Norikuni), Hiyoko is extremely spacey and often gets lost from her bodyguards. She appears only in the manga.
  • Space Butler: A man who has some past connection to Nabeshin and Hyatt and perhaps also to Ilpalazzo. He has multicolored hair and is so entranced by the Puchuus' cuteness that he became their servant, although he defied them to save Hyatt. Although he died in destroying the Puchuus' ship in the second episode, he returns in spirit form in episode 25 to help Nabeshin, Pedro and Sandora defeat That Man. He's a spoof of the 'Garrison' character from Daitarn 3. (Garrison was an Alfred-like butler and handyman for Aran Banjo, pilot of the Giant Robot Daitarn 3 and suave 70ish man of mystery).
  • Tetsuko: Nabeshin's long-lost love, who has been trapped in a slimy pit in the Guerilla camp for the last 25 years, her face concealed by an iron mask (possibly because she too closely resembles a certain Leiji Matsumoto heroine). Although killed by an anaconda in episode 3, she, like Space Butler and others, returns in spirit form in episode 25 to help defeat That Man.
  • Cosette Sara: First encountered in episode eight, Sara is a small, deceptively cute, pink haired girl who is in reality a ruthless assassin. Sara is taken with Hyatt, seemingly viewing Excel with lethal amusement and condescension. We learn that her mother died while she was young, and she took up assassination as a means to survive. The Great Will takes pity on her and resets her mother at the end of the episode. However, in episode twenty-six, she becomes a special member of ACROSS, having learned that she could not so easily forget her bloody past. She appears only in the anime. Cosette is named after the character Cosette from the book and musical Les Misérables.
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Anime vs. Manga Characters

Broadly speaking, all the characters in Excel Saga the anime can be divided into one of the two storylines: the ACROSS-Daitenzin storyline and the Pedro-That Man-Nabeshin subplot. Despite some narrative overlap at points, the two entirely separate. As a rule, all characters in the first appear in the manga, although their personalities and roles are somewhat changed or exaggerated in the anime, whereas the characters in the second are creatures of the anime and thus never appear in the manga. The Puchuus defy this easy classification, insofar as they influence both storylines to some degrees, but they are unique to the anime. Other characters unique to the manga or anime are noted as such.

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Codenames and Name Discrepancies

The codenames for most of the main characters in Excel Saga are derived landmarks in Fukuoka (especially its downtown, the Tenjin district) and elsewhere in Japan. For instance, Excel, Il Palazzo, and Hyatt are named after Tokyo's three largest hotels. Early on in the manga series, a photograph of the Fukuoka Elgâla Hall is used as a background image, foreshadowing the codename of the third lady of ACROSS. These are simply the codenames of the officers of ACROSS; their real names are never revealed. Moreover, ACROSS itself is named after the ACROS (Asian CrossRoads Over the Sea) Building in Tenjin, Fukuoka. In a similar vein, it should be noted that "Solaria" is both the name of Kabapu's city of origin (in the manga) and the Daiten codename given to the Ropponmatsus in the anime, and is likewise taken from the name of a hotel in the Tenjin. Ropponmatsu, Iwata, and Sumiyoshi are all neighborhoods in Fukuoka.

One of the few characters whose name does not come from a Fukuoka landmark is Doctor Kabapu; according to a VIZ endnote, he's named after the mascot of the 1989 Asia-Pacific Expo.

Please note that ADV transliterated "Il Palazzo" as "Ilpalazzo" for the purposes of the anime's subtitles, whereas VIZ chose the former for the manga. Similarly, the American English translation of the manga to refer to Menchi as "Mince," although ADV retained the Japanese "Menchi," which is itself a pun on Menchi's role and existence, since her name is Japanese for "Mincemeat." Gojo Shioji, Gojou Shiouji, and Gojyou Shiouji are all acceptable and frequent transliterations of Dr. Shiouji's name. And while Rikudo Koshi is the more precise transliteration for the original author's name, ADV and VIZ adopted "Rikdo" for their purposes, presumably because its English reading would be closer to the Japanese pronunciation of his name.

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Character Voices

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Episode guide

See main article: Excel Saga episode guide.

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Opening and Ending

  • Opening: Ai (Chuuseishin) - Love (Loyalty)
  • Ending: Menchi no Aishuu no Bolero - Menchi's Bolero of Sorrow

The opening sequence is Excel and Hyatt singing about their loyalty to ACROSS and Ilpalazzo, interspersed with odd sample scenes mostly (seemingly) related to the series. The singers speculate as to the nature of their love, eventually proclaiming that it's "a kind of love called loyalty."

The closing sequence is Menchi, limelit, alone on a stage, singing her sorrowful song in her language: its final line is, "If you're going to eat me, do it quickly so that this meat does not get hard." While she sings, an inset translator reads the lyrics in Japanese. Throughout the song, a hand comes in from offscreen and sprinkles salt on Menchi, finally pulling her away at the end. In the OST, it has two other verses in addition to just the one in the anime, the last of which ends with Menchi getting cooked and presumably eaten.

Episode 26, while using the same songs for the open and close, has more extreme animations. The opening animation has more blood, and violence (cooked Menchi) and pixelated nudity, while the closing sequence features a role reversal: the translator, on fours and wearing a collar, sings Menchi's Bolero in Japanese, while Menchi is on the side, translating the song into dog language.

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External links

es:Excel Saga fr:Excel Saga it:Excel Saga ja:エクセル・サーガ pl:Heppoko jikken animēshon Ekuseru sāga pt:Excel Saga sv:Excel Saga zh:迷糊女戰士

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