is a
manga
Manga (Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is u ...
series written and illustrated by
Kōshi Rikudō
is a Japanese manga artist. Rikdo is a graduate of Kyushu Sangyo University and lives in Dazaifu, Fukuoka. His most popular work is ''Excel Saga'', a manga which he describes as a work dealing with the everyday aspects of living in Japan. The ...
. It was serialized in ''
Young King OURs'' from 1996 to 2011, and its individual chapters were collected and published in 27 ''
tankōbon
is the Japanese
Japanese may refer to:
* Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia
* Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan
* Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or cultur ...
'' volumes by
Shōnen Gahōsha
is a Japanese publisher
Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printe ...
. The series follows the attempts of Across, a "secret ideological organization", to conquer the city of
Fukuoka
is the sixth-largest city in Japan, the second-largest port city after Yokohama, and the capital city of Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan. The city is built along the shores of Hakata Bay, and has been a center of international commerce since ancie ...
as a first step towards world domination. The title character of the series,
Excel
ExCeL London (an abbreviation for Exhibition Centre London) is an exhibition centre, international convention centre and former hospital in the Custom House area of Newham, East London. It is situated on a site on the northern quay of the ...
, is a key member of the group who is working towards completing this goal, while the city is being defended by a shadowy government agency led by
Dr. Kabapu.
The manga was adapted into an
anime
is Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japane ...
television series by
Victor Entertainment
, also known as in Japan, is a subsidiary of JVCKenwood that produces and distributes music, movies and other entertainment products such as anime and television shows in Japan. It is known as JVC Entertainment in countries where Sony Music Ent ...
, which was taglined . Directed by
Shinichi Watanabe
is a Japanese anime director and voice actor. He is best known for his over-the-top adaptation of Rikdo Koshi's ''Excel Saga'', in which he appears as the character Nabeshin.
Watanabe stated that the nickname Nabeshin (a name blending of ...
and featuring animation from
J.C.Staff
, is a Japanese animation studio founded in January 1986 by Tomoyuki Miyata, who previously worked at Tatsunoko Production. The studio's first release was ''Yōtōden'' in 1987. They have produced several well-known anime series, such as '' Food ...
, the series premiered on
TV Tokyo
JOTX-DTV (channel 7), branded as and known colloquially as , is a television station headquartered in the Sumitomo Fudosan Roppongi Grand Tower in Roppongi, Minato, Tokyo, Japan, owned and operated by the subsidiary of listed certified b ...
in 1999. TV Tokyo only aired twenty-five of the series' twenty-six episodes, with the finale having been intentionally made too violent, obscene and long for broadcast on Japanese TV. As such, it was only included in the DVD release of the series, although it has since been broadcast in other markets.
The series has enjoyed some critical success coupled with respectable sales.
Plot
Believing the World to be corrupt, the secret organization Across plans to conquer the world. The first step in the plan for world domination is to begin by focusing on one city in order to minimize setbacks. Across consists of the leader of the organization,
Il Palazzo, and his young adult officers: the enthusiastic and energetically devoted
Excel
ExCeL London (an abbreviation for Exhibition Centre London) is an exhibition centre, international convention centre and former hospital in the Custom House area of Newham, East London. It is situated on a site on the northern quay of the ...
and the soft-spoken
Hyatt
Hyatt Hotels Corporation, commonly known as Hyatt Hotels & Resorts, is an American multinational hospitality company headquartered in the Riverside Plaza area of Chicago that manages and franchises luxury and business hotels, resorts, and vacat ...
, who is prone to fainting and losing lots of blood at a time. Excel and Hyatt live in an apartment building in the city, along with their pet dog
Menchi, who they have deemed their emergency food supply. Excel and Hyatt are later joined by a snobbish but equally clueless rival officer of Across named
Elgala.
Living in the neighboring apartment are three guys:
Iwata,
Sumiyoshi and
Watanabe
Watanabe ( and other variantsSee #Miscellaneous) is a Japanese surname derived from the noble and samurai Watanabe clan, a branch of the Minamoto clan, descending from the Emperor Saga (786-842), the 52nd Emperor of Japan, and refers to a locat ...
, who along with apartment neighbor and co-worker
Matsuya, work for the Department of City Security. The Department's leader,
Dr. Kabapu, also has a grandiose plan on stopping Across; he has the City Security workers dress in
Super Sentai
is a Japanese superhero team metaseries and media franchise consisting of television series and films produced by Toei Company, and Bandai, and aired by TV Asahi ("Sentai" is the Japanese word for "task force" or "fighting squadron"). The sho ...
-like uniforms and sends them on different missions. Supporting Kabapu is an inventor
Gojo Shiouji who
likes little girls, and his
gynoid
A gynoid, or fembot, is a feminine humanoid robot. Gynoids appear widely in science fiction film and art. As more realistic humanoid robot design becomes technologically possible, they are also emerging in real-life robot design.
Name
A gynoid ...
Ropponmatsu, who later is deployed as two models.
The series follows the daily interactions among the two groups. Il Palazzo would send the girls on their missions but the results are usually a failure with some explosive or catastrophic damage to the city. Kabapu would send the City Security workers on some equally ridiculous assignment which would also go wrong. Eventually Il Palazzo and Kabapu become aware of each other's manipulations and escalate their plans. Excel finds herself being replaced by an impersonator who heads the ILL Corporation. Massive amounts of money is spent on elections and politics. Eventually the members of Across begin making appeals directly to the City's citizens before Il Palazzo publicly declares the existence of Across and its intentions to the public. Hyatt is captured and Excel and Elgala are later held in an immigrant detention center before being rescued by Il Palazzo, who begins the new phase of his plans.
The anime adaptation introduces some original characters: immigrant worker turned wandering spirit
Pedro
Pedro is a masculine given name. Pedro is the Spanish, Portuguese, and Galician name for ''Peter''. Its French equivalent is Pierre while its English and Germanic form is Peter.
The counterpart patronymic surname of the name Pedro, meaning ...
; alien mascot-like creatures called
Puchuu; and
The Great Will of the Macrocosm, the last of whom occasionally resets the storyline. The anime director
Shinichi Watanabe
is a Japanese anime director and voice actor. He is best known for his over-the-top adaptation of Rikdo Koshi's ''Excel Saga'', in which he appears as the character Nabeshin.
Watanabe stated that the nickname Nabeshin (a name blending of ...
cameos as an afro-wearing guy named
Nabeshin
is a Japanese anime director and voice actor. He is best known for his over-the-top adaptation of Rikdo Koshi's ''Excel Saga'', in which he appears as the character Nabeshin.
Watanabe stated that the nickname Nabeshin (a name blending of ...
, and a caricature of the manga artist also makes appearances.
Production
The series was created by
Rikdo Koshi and based on a
dojinshi
, also romanized as ', is the Japanese term for self-published print works, such as magazines, manga, and novels. Part of a wider category of '' doujin'' (self-published) works, ''doujinshi'' are often derivative of existing works and created b ...
he had previously created while in high school named . ''Excel Saga'' was created as an evolution of ''Daitenzin'' in order to develop the character of Excel, as well as to laugh off the vision of a depressed and pessimistic view of the world.
''Excel Saga'' is set in
Fukuoka City
is the sixth-largest city in Japan, the second-largest port city after Yokohama, and the capital city of Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan. The city is built along the shores of Hakata Bay, and has been a center of international commerce since ancie ...
and the names of characters and organisations are derived from local locations and buildings.
Victor Entertainment
, also known as in Japan, is a subsidiary of JVCKenwood that produces and distributes music, movies and other entertainment products such as anime and television shows in Japan. It is known as JVC Entertainment in countries where Sony Music Ent ...
contacted
Shōnen Gahōsha
is a Japanese publisher
Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printe ...
about adapting ''Excel Saga'' into an anime, and the two companies approached Rikdo.
Shinichi Watanabe
is a Japanese anime director and voice actor. He is best known for his over-the-top adaptation of Rikdo Koshi's ''Excel Saga'', in which he appears as the character Nabeshin.
Watanabe stated that the nickname Nabeshin (a name blending of ...
was chosen as director. Watanabe added his own alter ego, Nabeshin, and expanded several elements. He says that the Great Will in the manga was "conveyed just as words", and he himself developed its appearance, eventually settling on the "swirling, talking cosmos". He also increased Pedro's role in the story from a single frame in the manga. Watanabe says he was pleased with that aspect of his work, noting that "Pedro's situation was considered unsuitable for broadcast in Japan".
The anime production staff was given the freedom to do anything they wanted as long as they kept the theme of the series intact, and Rikdo requested they created a separate timeline. Rikdo would later become influenced by the anime series due to its quick broadcast in comparison to the monthly schedule of the manga.
The anime makes frequent use of
parody
A parody, also known as a spoof, a satire, a send-up, a take-off, a lampoon, a play on (something), or a caricature, is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satiric or ironic imitation. Often its subj ...
and in-jokes as
comedic device Comedic device refers to a kind of device used to make a statement more humorous. In layman's terms, it is what makes things funny.
List of comedic devices
Repetition
Repetition is the essential comedic device and is often used in combination with ...
s, with each episode having a
genre
Genre () is any form or type of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially-agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other for ...
-based theme. This extends to the animation, with several characters designed in the style of other works, such as those by
Leiji Matsumoto
is a Japanese mangaka, creator of several anime and manga series. His wife Miyako Maki is also a manga artist.
Early life
Matsumoto was the middle child of a family of seven brothers, and, in his early childhood, Matsumoto was given a 35m ...
.
Kotono Mitsuishi
is a Japanese voice actress, actress, singer, and narrator. She was affiliated with Arts Vision and Lasley Arrow, but is now freelance. Mitsuishi lived in Nagareyama, Chiba. She graduated from high school and entered the Katsuta Voice Actor's Ac ...
was chosen to play the role of Excel, and Watanabe was impressed with Mitsuishi's rapid delivery of her lines, saying that "she really pushed herself to the limit and beyond". He also says, "at times she was too fast, and there was plenty of time left to match the lip-synch". In such cases, either he would add new material or Mitsuishi would
ad-lib
In music and other performing arts, the phrase (; from Latin for 'at one's pleasure' or 'as you desire'), often shortened to "ad lib" (as an adjective or adverb) or "ad-lib" (as a verb or noun), refers to various forms of improvisation.
The r ...
.
At first Rikdo felt stunned and uncomfortable at hearing Excel speak, but he called the casting "amazing" and was pleased to hear his favourite voice actors read lines from his work.
Media
Manga
The series began serialisation in Japan in 1996 in the monthly anthology ''
Young King OURs'' and finished in August 2011. The individual chapters began being collected and published in ''
tankōbon
is the Japanese
Japanese may refer to:
* Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia
* Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan
* Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or cultur ...
'' format by
Shōnen Gahōsha
is a Japanese publisher
Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printe ...
in April 1997 and volume 27 was released on October 29, 2011.
Viz Media
VIZ Media LLC is an American manga publisher, anime distributor and entertainment company headquartered in San Francisco, California. It was founded in 1986 as VIZ LLC. In 2005, VIZ LLC and ShoPro Entertainment merged to form the current VIZ M ...
licensed ''Excel Saga'' for an
English-language
English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the is ...
release in North America and the first volume was released on August 13, 2003. Initially the series was published on an approximately bimonthly schedule, however the series had caught up with the Japanese release and the publishing schedule for volume 12 onwards was changed as a result. Volume 27 was released on January 14, 2014. The Viz edition includes a section called ''Oubliette'', which consists of a sound effects guide and production and cultural notes.
The series is also licensed for regional language releases in France by
Kabuto
' (兜, 冑) is a type of helmet first used by ancient Japanese warriors which, in later periods, became an important part of the traditional Japanese armour worn by the samurai class and their retainers in feudal Japan.
Note that in the Jap ...
and in Italy by
Dynit
Dynit Srl is one of the main Italian manga and anime publishers. Its head office is in the Cadriano ''frazione'' in Granarolo dell'Emilia, Province of Bologna. .
Anime
![Shinichi Watanabe](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/Shinichi_Watanabe.JPG)
An anime adaption was produced by
J.C.Staff
, is a Japanese animation studio founded in January 1986 by Tomoyuki Miyata, who previously worked at Tatsunoko Production. The studio's first release was ''Yōtōden'' in 1987. They have produced several well-known anime series, such as '' Food ...
and directed by
Shinichi Watanabe
is a Japanese anime director and voice actor. He is best known for his over-the-top adaptation of Rikdo Koshi's ''Excel Saga'', in which he appears as the character Nabeshin.
Watanabe stated that the nickname Nabeshin (a name blending of ...
. Twenty five episodes were broadcast on
TV Tokyo
JOTX-DTV (channel 7), branded as and known colloquially as , is a television station headquartered in the Sumitomo Fudosan Roppongi Grand Tower in Roppongi, Minato, Tokyo, Japan, owned and operated by the subsidiary of listed certified b ...
between October 7, 1999 and March 30, 2000. At the publisher's request, the anime series follows a different storyline from the manga, however Rikdo was pleased with the adaptation.
Victor Entertainment produced the music of the series, which was composed and arranged by
Toshio Masuda and directed by Keiichi Nozaki. Director Shinichi Watanabe wrote the lyrics for the opening and closing themes,. The opening theme which were performed by
Yumiko Kobayashi
is a freelance Japanese voice actress from Chiba Prefecture. She was formerly affiliated with Arts Vision until August 2007. She made her voice acting debut as Mita in '' Kirara'' while still in college in 1998, and her first lead role was as Ken ...
and
Mikako Takahashi
is a Japanese voice actress and J-Pop singer from Chiba Prefecture, Japan. As the ''Excel Saga'' character Mikako Hyatt, she forms one half of the voice acting duo ''The Excel Girls'' (the other half being Yumiko Kobayashi). She is employed by I ...
who were credited as ''The Excel♥Girls ''. The lyrics for the opening theme were written "on the train, five minutes before the deadline".
The closing theme was The two themes were released together as a CD single on November 3, 1999.
A 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. Watanabe commented that it "felt good to go past the limits of a TV series", although he thinks it "is not something that you should do too often".
In Japan the series was released on 12 DVDs between March 1, 2000 and January 24, 2001.
The series was licensed for an English language release in North America and the United Kingdom by
ADV Films
A.D. Vision Holdings, Inc. (known simply as ADV and also referred to as ADV Films) was an American multimedia entertainment distributor headquartered in Houston, Texas, and founded in 1992 by video game fan John Ledford and anime fans Matt Gre ...
and in Australia and New Zealand by
Madman Entertainment
Madman Entertainment Pty. Ltd., also known as Madman Films, is an Australian distribution and rights management company headquartered in East Melbourne, Victoria, specialising in feature films, documentaries and television series across theatri ...
. The English adaptation initially starred
Jessica Calvello
Jessica Calvello is an American voice actress and production assistant primarily known for her anime voiceover work, particularly with ADV Films, Seraphim Digital/Sentai Filmworks, DuArt Film and Video, Media Blasters, Funimation, Central Park ...
, with Larissa Wolcott taking over the role after episode thirteen after Calvello had damaged her voice during production. In North America, ADV released the series on six DVDs between June 11, 2002 and April 8, 2003. A complete collection of the series was released on July 6, 2004 as ''Excel Saga - The Imperfect collection'' and re-released in different packaging on August 1, 2006 as ''Excel Saga - Complete Collection''. In the UK, the series was first released between May 19, 2003 and March 15, 2004. A complete box set was later released as ''Excel Saga - Complete Box Set'' on July 2, 2007. The UK license for the series expired in January 2008. The series was broadcast on UK TV channel ''Rapture TV'' from January 2, 2007.
On October 30, 2010, Excel Saga was re-licensed in North America by
Funimation Entertainment
Crunchyroll, LLC, previously known as Funimation from 1994 to 2022, is an American entertainment company owned by Japanese conglomerate Sony as a joint venture between Sony Pictures and Sony Music Entertainment Japan's Aniplex that specializes ...
, who re-released the complete series to DVD on May 17, 2011.
Soundtracks
Several albums were released featuring music from the anime. () was released on January 1, 2000. The album was later released in North America on August 9, 2005.
This was followed in Japan by () on March 23, 2000. A North American release followed on November 1, 2005.
Reception
Since its August 2003 release in North America, the manga has been among the 50 top-selling graphic novels on three occasions.
The English-language reviews of the ''Excel Saga'' anime were broadly positive and enthusiastic. Mike Crandol of
Anime News Network
Anime News Network (ANN) is a news website that reports on the status of anime, manga, video games, Japanese popular music and other related cultures within North America, Australia, Southeast Asia and Japan. The website offers reviews and oth ...
puts it in the same class as ''
Airplane!
''Airplane!'' (alternatively titled ''Flying High!'') is a 1980 American parody film written and directed by the brothers David and Jerry Zucker, and Jim Abrahams in their directorial debuts, and produced by Jon Davison. It stars Robert Hay ...
'', ''
National Lampoon'',
Tex Avery
Frederick Bean "Tex" Avery (February 26, 1908 – August 26, 1980) was an American animator, cartoonist, animation director, director, and voice actor. He was known for directing and producing animated cartoons during the golden age of American a ...
, and
Monty Python
Monty Python (also collectively known as the Pythons) were a British comedy troupe who created the sketch comedy television show '' Monty Python's Flying Circus'', which first aired on the BBC in 1969. Forty-five episodes were made over four ...
, adding that the "combination of character-based humor, outrageous slapstick farce, and a plot that is engaging if only for how weird it is make for a thoroughly enjoyable comedic experience".
A contrary opinion is expressed by Joel Pearce from DVD Verdict, who says the series is "occasionally clever and funny," but that "much of it is gratingly obnoxious".
Many reviewers express displeasure with middle and later episodes, saying they were "more of the same," that they had stale humor, that they were tiresome, or even painfully unfunny.
Episodes fourteen through sixteen, starring the Ropponmatsus, bear the brunt of this criticism, but several reviewers consider episode seventeen, ''Animation USA'', to be one of the best.
Reviewers also agree that the series suffers from too much filler in its later episodes, with Crandol describing the show as spinning its wheels.
Yegulalp reserves his harshest words for the unaired ''Going Too Far'', calling it "pure, idiotic, wretched excess." He goes on to say that the episode has "the feeling of trying to deliberately enrage the audience by resorting to the only tactics left: genuinely offensive subject matter." Joel Cunningham at Digitally Obsessed disagrees, saying that the episode succeeds just in time, "with one of the series' funnier sight gags".
The series generally receives high marks for technical aspects. Cunningham feels the animation is flat-out gorgeous, but Crandol considers it merely above average. In the latter's opinion, its quality wanes as the series progresses and increasingly relies on
super-deforming the characters for comedic effect.
ADV's release earned praise for the quality of the video transfer and the DVD extras (particularly the Vid-Notes).
Reviewers especially appreciated the English voice acting: Crandol calls it brilliant, and several note that Calvello and Wolcott were each able to capture
Mitsuishi's Excel.
Pearce, in contrast, found the English cast to be pretty bad and its Excel to be "dental drill shrill".
Akadot's reviewer of the manga writes that "some of the strange events go on a little too long and do not have the impact that they do animated," but that Rikdo's ''Excel Saga'' is "graced with fantastic visuals and a hilarious story," and that the English edition is "a masterpiece of the translator's skill."
Barb Lien-Cooper from Comic World News concurs that the manga cannot keep pace with the anime, but she finds Excel herself to be wittier in the manga and that the manga's plots make more sense than the anime's. A reviewer of the French edition also praises Rikdo's work, noting that it is an "...easy read without problems of clarity".
[Full quotation : "En ce qui concerne la mise en page, celle-ci est particulièrement dynamique avec un enchaînement impressionnant de cases les unes sur les autres et qui laissent, malgré le nombre, une lecture facile et sans problèm de clarté." ]
Notes
References
External links
Official manga websiteof
Viz Media
VIZ Media LLC is an American manga publisher, anime distributor and entertainment company headquartered in San Francisco, California. It was founded in 1986 as VIZ LLC. In 2005, VIZ LLC and ShoPro Entertainment merged to form the current VIZ M ...
Official anime websiteof
Madman Entertainment
Madman Entertainment Pty. Ltd., also known as Madman Films, is an Australian distribution and rights management company headquartered in East Melbourne, Victoria, specialising in feature films, documentaries and television series across theatri ...
*
{{Young King OURs
Excel Saga
is a manga series written and illustrated by Kōshi Rikudō. It was serialized in '' Young King OURs'' from 1996 to 2011, and its individual chapters were collected and published in 27 ''tankōbon'' volumes by Shōnen Gahōsha. The series fol ...
1995 manga
1999 anime television series debuts
ADV Films
Funimation
J.C.Staff
Parody anime and manga
Science fiction anime and manga
Seinen manga
Shōnen Gahōsha manga
Surreal comedy anime and manga
TV Tokyo original programming
Viz Media manga