released 04 apr 03 / last mod 01 jun 07 / greg goebel / public domain
* There is an old saying that I made up myself: "Every generation reinvents Dadaism and thinks it's something new." The fact that hardly anybody knows what "Dadaism" means only proves this point.
Well, EXCEL SAGA defines the term about as well as any. This anime video concerns the efforts of a clandestine organization named ACROSS to conquer the world (or, as a first step, the local city). ACROSS consists of Lord Ilpalazzo, a classic self-important and humorless (is there any other kind?) anime megalomaniac villain, and Excel, a perfectly unhinged teenage girl who does all his dirty work.
Now add to this mix various elements such as a Martian Princess named Hyatt, for whom the word "sickly" would be an understatement; Nabeshin, a B-movie action hero; a Space Butler; cutesy aliens (who reveal themselves as ugly when hit over the head by Excel); three slacker roommates; a despondent South American guest worker named Pedro; disreputable geek manga artists; and Menchi, Excel's catlike dog, who regards his mistress with dread and terror and with very good reason.
This is the sort of comedy that throws everything including the kitchen sink at the viewer, parodying a half-dozen anime subgenres, TV melodramas, Hollywood blockbusters, and who knows what else. There is a plot of sorts, or maybe a dozen of them, with, say, an action-movie plot crossing paths (or colliding) with a romance plot on occasion, but whatever plot there is doesn't prevent new elements being thrown in rapidly, more or less at random, and with no great concern for logic or continuity. In the 1960s this is what would have been called "gonzo humor". It is old as dirt. It is a bit puzzling as to why it keeps being reinvented over and over again, and even more puzzling as to why anybody thinks it's original, much less clever.
Still, I would be mean to pick on EXCEL SAGA too much. The production values are reasonable, it is clear that the production crew is kind of doodling and having a lot of fun with inside jokes and the like, and if you're a die-hard anime fan -- an "otaku" -- you will likely find this good fun too. It probably goes over very well at anime conventions.
On the other hand, if you're like me, who tends to find anime something of a guilty pleasure and doesn't believe that most of it is five-star material -- indeed at its worst it's shoddy, stupid, and sleazy -- EXCEL SAGA is tiresome. If you're not particularly into anime, EXCEL SAGA absolutely won't make a believer out of you.
Enduring absurdist humor -- DUCK SOUP, Looney Toons, Douglas Adams, Monty Python, or for that matter even LOVE HINA -- has a clever skewed logic ("If a woman weighs as much as a duck ...") that sets the gears going in your head in all kinds of strange ways in an attempt to follow the mad logic of the people who created it. In contrast, kitchen-sink humor is pretty stale if you've seen it before, and even if you haven't, it doesn't age well. I think this is why it keeps being reinvented -- it's quickly forgotten and then somebody reinvents the square wheel again under the mistaken belief that it's a new idea.
Who but old-timers remember the Firesign Theater? Whose style, now that I think of it, perfectly matches that of EXCEL SAGA. I suppose I do have to make an exception for Mark E. Rogers' infamous SAMURAI CAT series, which are so determinedly stupid that they can be a real riot.
I did kind of like the fact that Excel gets killed off every now and then. If you listen to her for a while, it just seems to be the thing to do.