Excel Saga: Frivolous Absurdity OR ABSOLUTE HILARITY?

[ADXC]

Recently, I've stumbled upon a wonderful treasure which is Excel Saga. So far I've viewed about 8 episodes and it is IMO one of the funniest and most random off the wall anime I've ever set my eyes on.

So I thought that Bobobo-bobo-bobobo was the leader of this genre, but I think I may be wrong. Although ES is only 26 eps, so far it seems to be packed with craziness and humor.

Has anyone else vied ES and what did you guys think of it?


Also, if you believe there are some other anime that are much more off the wall, then pleeeeease mention them!

[Nate]

I watched the first three or four episodes of Excel Saga and went "Boy that sure was an anime." Then I watched something genuinely funny.

I think I laughed MAYBE twice in the first four episodes or so. And even then it was like a "Heh..." kind of laughter, I definitely wasn't laughing very hard. I just don't see why people like it. It's just...not really funny.

Excel Saga is the Tim and Eric Awesome Show: Great Job! of anime.

[Mr. SmartyPants]

It's an old favorite of mine.

And by the way... you might want to be careful with the last episode. It's certainly more risque then the rest of the series.

[KhakiBlueSocks]

[font="Trebuchet MS"][SIZE="4"][color="RoyalBlue"]"Excel Saga" is one of those anime programs that go beyond explanation. Each episode is it's own wild and crazy trip which, only towards the end, even resembles a coherent story.

I must also agree with MSP. The last episode is called "Going Too Far" and I would tend to agree--even the DIRECTOR said that it was too out of control and it didn't air on TV Tokyo during it's TV run.[/color][/SIZE][/font]

[TheSubtleDoctor]

A little of this show goes a long way for me. I like it if I'm getting a bit at a time. At the anime club I used to go to, we watched two episodes of ES a week, and that pace was A-OK. But, increasing the episode load killed the jokes and made the experience fairly irritating to me.

[Atria35]

I honestly didn't get any of it. I'm not much into physical comedy, and without much of a plot, I can't honestly say I enjoy it. I don't like random comedy, either. It annoys me.

It's just not my thing, and I didn't like it a bit.

[TWWK]

Excel Saga is amazing...well, what I've seen of it. I was buying the DVDs individually early last decade, and stopped - I only made it through half the series.

What really helped in the experience was these pop-up bubbles that the DVD distributors included in the series. Otherwise, I think I would've missed about half the jokes.

Oh, and Menchi is classic.

[Fish and Chips]

I dislike Excel Saga, but it's one of those things I don't complain about because I'm pretty sure I just didn't "Get" it.

Or maybe I did and didn't want to.

[LadyRushia]

Apparently, understanding the majority of the humor requires knowing about Japanese politics in the ten years before it was made. At least, that's what I've heard. Personally, I've found bits of it funny but other bits completely disgusting. I haven't seen it many years though.

[Hiryu]

I'm the type of person who likes the randomness, so it was good to me. Just don't watch the last episode. Has a lot of adult scenes from what I've heard.

[rocklobster]

I saw it illegally (I didn't know there was such a thing as legal anime then) and kind of liked it. I didn't get a lot of the jokes, but that was fine. I think Azumanga Daioh was better at the randomness, especially since I actually got the jokes.

[ADXC]

Yeah my friend and I definitely do not get all of the political jokes, but to us it's pretty crazy and that's why we like it.

Now this friend of mine doesn't typically like anime so I appreciate Excel as one that gave us something to agree on whether we knew what was going on or not.

@ Nate- Yeah I'd agree with that. It's just we watch it real late so that makes it even more bizarre so that's another reason why we watch it.

@ MSP, KBS, Kiryu- Yeah, we'll be extra careful about that episode.

@ TWWK-Nice. But we both kinda think Menchi is pretty sad. XD



To be honest though, our favorite part is Pedro.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IciH_Jgj9lw

[Nate]

Pedro was actually one of the biggest reasons I couldn't stand Excel Saga.

Ha ha! Look at this guy! He died and his wife forgot about him! Boy that sure is hilarious! Except it isn't. That's the problem is Excel Saga presented to me a tragic character, that I felt sorry for, that I sympathized with, but they didn't WANT me to sympathize with him, they wanted me to laugh at his tragedy and misfortune.

And that really rubbed me the wrong way. If you want me to laugh at a character's misfortunes, make his misfortunes funny. Seinfeld was excellent at making the misfortunes of the characters funny because the misfortunes were ridiculously stupid or because they brought it upon themselves. Pedro's misfortunes were neither stupid, nor were they karmic...so why was I supposed to laugh at them?

[Fish and Chips]

The difference between tragedy and comedy is sympathy with the subject.

[ADXC]

Yeah sure we did have sympathy for him. Did I say we enjoyed his going through rejection and his eyes crying waterfalls? No we didn't, but we could relate with him in his struggle (Because we both can sympathize.) so that's why we thought the addition wasn't horrible. And we both thought it was over the top which made it ridiculously unbelievable.

Also, having a random character from another completely area in the world does not make it that viable either. Honestly, Pedro's part does not follow. There really is no rhyme or reason for his being in Excel saga except just to add to the insane amount of randomness already present. Also, he's a completely fictional character in a fictional universe.

Last, I didn't say anything about you having to laugh at them, the statement I made in my previous post was that "our favorite part was Pedro." That sounds preeeeeetty subjective to me.

[ChristianKitsune]

There was a time when I thought this was an amazing anime, I had watched the first four episodes and laughed hysterically (I was 15) Then when I was a little older my friend and I marathoned it in 3 days..

I stopped laughing, and only the last three (out of 25, as I didn't watch the 26th) episodes were really engaging. Other than that, I kinda thought it was funny, but the more and more I think about it, it's like once you've watched it once, you'll probably not find it so entertaining if you watch it again. ^^;

[ADXC]

Yeah marathoning it is not advisable. XD

[Nate]

Yeah sure we did have sympathy for him. Did I say we enjoyed his going through rejection and his eyes crying waterfalls? No we didn't, but we could relate with him in his struggle (Because we both can sympathize.) so that's why we thought the addition wasn't horrible.

That's the problem though. The anime doesn't want you to feel sympathy for him. You're supposed to be laughing at him. The anime wants you to think it's funny and hilarious.

Otherwise you'd have me believe that Excel Saga, an anime that's supposed to be funny and satirical, was inserting a character who was tragic and played completely straight, and we were supposed to recognize this. Nope, sorry, don't buy it. The whole waterfalls coming out of his eyes and his over the top screams of anguish are enough to prove that the anime wants us to laugh at this man's misfortune, for no reason other than...cruelty, I guess?

And we both thought it was over the top which made it ridiculously unbelievable.

I'm not sure what you're referring to as over the top. If it's his reactions, okay fine, but then you still have the problem of the story of Pedro NOT being over the top, but horrible and sympathetic...in an anime that's supposed to be hilarious, which is either out of place or a misunderstanding of what the character is supposed to be.

If you're talking about the situation he's in, it's not really over the top. The whole "disembodied soul remaining after death" thing has been played straight considerable times. That's pretty much what ghosts are, after all, and there's plenty of dramatic, emotional movies of someone having exactly what happens to Pedro in the anime happen to them...except in those movies, they realize it's an unfair and tragic event, and treat it as such. Excel Saga just treats it as comedy, which to me is beyond distasteful.

There really is no rhyme or reason for his being in Excel saga except just to add to the insane amount of randomness already present.

That may be true, but again, the anime wants us to laugh at it, it's supposed to be funny, but there's no reason for it to be funny. It's as if I ran up to you and yelled "MONKEY" at you. It's "random," I want you to laugh at it, but there's no reason for it to be funny, and no reason for you to laugh at it. It's just stupid.

If they gave a reason for it to be funny, then that'd be different. Even if it's a stupid reason. He has a huge porn collection hidden in his closet and he didn't ever want his wife to find out, and he dies tragically, he sees his wife, realizes they can't see or touch him, starts to cry about how he can't be with her, and then slowly realizes...oh no, what if she finds the porn in my closet! That's not perfect comedy, but it's funnier than what Excel Saga, a supposed comedic show, puts forth.

Also, he's a completely fictional character in a fictional universe.

I'm assuming you're invoking this statement because of my complaints that he is a tragic character and that I shouldn't really "care" about his tribulations because "he isn't really real." Well yes, of course he isn't real, but you even said yourself you have sympathy for him, which immediately destroys the credibility of that statement...if he's just a completely fictional character in a fictional universe, why do YOU have sympathy for him?

No one who sees a fictional story, even a cartoon, believes it's real or that these are real people (at least not if they're mentally sound). But the show is supposed to make us accept them AS real. If we're just sitting there the whole time when we're watching Indiana Jones going "That's just Harrison Ford acting, these are special effects and he isn't really doing those things," then the work has failed to make us accept the events and characters as real, and therefore it sucks (unless of course it's a parody/satirical work).

So I accept Pedro as real. I sympathize with him, and find it mean-spirited and offensive that the show wants us to laugh at him and think the cruel things happening to him are hilarious...because as I said before, there is absolutely no chance that they intended for us to do anything BUT laugh at him, and that really bothers me.

[ADXC]

Well, if that's your stance, then ok.


Anyway, I'll still believe what I want to believe about it ( We will interpret how we wish to interpret it.), but I'm not going to argue over something as trivial as this.


We hope to see that Pedro gets a good ending.

[Nate]

I don't feel that a failure of the show on basic rules of writing is "not much." :p

Though it also doesn't help that I didn't find the show funny even if you take Pedro out of the equation.

[ADXC]

You see I edited it?

[Mithrandir]

I have to say I was much to old to enjoy Excel Saga when I finally watched it. That being said, I can certainly see how people could enjoy it much more than I. To this day, any time someone or something makes a slightly "howling" sound, I flash to Menchi in the closing credits. XD

[Fish and Chips]

Anyway, I'll still believe what I want to believe about it ( We will interpret how we wish to interpret it.)

This may be my favorite post in a long time.

[ADXC]

So, we finally finished Excel tonight and overall I rank as one of the most or maybe even the most random/funny anime that I've seen.

The last some episodes actually got somewhat serious and we enjoyed a little plot in there while the last episode was as risqué as ever. XD However, they only alluded to it and never actually did anything except for partial nudity. Soooo yeah.


As a whole, I thoroughly enjoyed Excel and now look for similar anime.


I liked the idea that was displayed. Excel changed the genre or rule of the show for each and every episode.


Note: This is only our (My friend and I) opinion on Excel and that's all it is.

[Falx]

If you truly enjoyed it a similar series is Puni Puni Poemi. It's done by the same people and is more or less the same approach to comedy.

I personally enjoyed both series when I first saw them, but as I grew older I found that the materials I found to be objectionable in them outweighed the enjoyment I got from watching them.

[Sapphire225]

Excel Saga makes FLCL look logical. I love ES though, its so hilarious and weird that the humor can't be missed.

I could never get into Puni Pumi Poemi though.