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"Today's experiment...Failed." Excel Saga [anime]

Started by Pedro_Bear, January 02, 2011, 05:42:16 PM

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Pedro_Bear



Seeing as we're between broadcasting seasons at the moment[nb] asxsfdasfdsaf Maria†Holic IS GETTING A SECOND SEASON!!![/nb] press play below, trust me, you will not regret it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzl-QPhondw

[noembed]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2p-HCFcmjJ8[/noembed]
[noembed]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOh7TfAN4Gw[/noembed]


E1 of Excel Saga from the 1990's there, I think the very genesis of contemporary anime comedy awesomeness. The first show to successfully fold the medium back onto itself to create something amazing. I can't tell you how much we laughed at this show. It's better than seeing Southpark for the first time.



Excel Saga is also biting satire from Japan's collapsed economic years. It sets about mocking the heavy-handed government propaganda and spiked initiatives that basically fucked over the equivalent of the working class out there in favour of the banks. This will account for some of the more specific WTF jokes as the show progresses, but it's so clever it's never difficult to imagine what was being parodied at the time. The sly delight Excel Saga takes in sticking it to The Man is palpable.



The set-up is very simple: each week the writer chooses a familiar tv theme or situation... and then utterly trashes it, dragging every single tired and overplayed element through the shredder, trailing visual jokes, clever puns and just absurdist, twisted creativity in its wake. E.g. the cute dog singing a lament into an old-fashioned radio microphone under a spotlight in the credits as she's being seasoned for roasting... just... isn't enough, is it? So she sings in melodious, melancholy barks, and there's an in-frame translator telling us the lyrics with the appropriate pause for translation. [nb]Spoiler: don't fret, Menchi is as immortal as Excel, but on the other hand, this just means she gets threatened with being eaten over and over and over again.[/nb]



The brick joke with Excel's tiny conscience angel suddenly being lead away in handcuffs for murder, interrupting the scene with an equally tiny police officer and vehicle is pitched perfectly. It's one of these shows where we can't list all the gags, there are too many of them. They keep it up for all 26 episodes, no filler, no slack, and even more impressively there is an over-arching absurdist narrative holding the heart of the show together.



It's also nice to see things were as batshit back then where comics and cartoons are concerned, the writer railing against the scapegoating of a genre in the middle of genuine social hardship. He even gets a dig in at Japan's international politics right at very, very end of the next episode stinger. Manga artists are always portrayed as scum, and drawn as a self-insert of the writer himself.

Personally, I think Excel Saga is the spark for everything that burns brightly in anime today. Excel herself is a totally blank Genki Girl canvas, perfect for trashing the medium. With "being absurdly enthusiastic" as her only dominant trait, she exhibits everything, and I mean everthing from anime archetypes at some point, even stuff that wasn't acknowledged as genre-defining at the time. This is the base which Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt built on. We can very easily see where Baka to Test to Shokanju got its breath-taking, laugh-a-second, overlapping humour pace from. Both Bakemonogatari and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya directly reference Excel Saga, and there's even a nod to Excel herself within the character of Haruhi. It's so dazzlingly funny, I can't type how funny this series is, or how often it effortlessly forces humour out of both the extraordinary and the mundane. It plasters the screen with jokes, and is constantly looking for ways to squeeze in more. It is unhindered by genre, which means it will appeal to damn nearly anyone who watches it. Don't like Excel? Way to miss an obvious joke, but cheer up, she dies immediately. And then repeatedly.




Giving anime's wide-reaching influence over the internet, I don't think it's going to far to type that without Excel Saga our New Media humour norms would be empoverished. Similarly, this was the bar that conscientious anime producers perceived had to be at very least met, if not raised, and our entertainment options are so much richer for this cartoon.

There's not a lot to tl;dr about beyond favourite joke-spotting. Each episode explodes and falls apart just like the first. Basically, if Dada has a legitimate legacy in the modern era, this show is it. This is the art of comedy writ big.

If you're still dithering, watch the first 24 seconds of E2:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9-NAka_9B0
Yeah, you know it. Stick around for "The Scream"... the downside to having an underground secret lair...
[noembed]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOFOWn0JUfg[/noembed]
... the second best use of Beethoven's Symphony No 9 in television history... followed closely by one of anime's most perfect reaction faces...
[noembed]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMijUTUw8ok[/noembed]
... and WHAT THE HELL IS IIIIIIT?! rejection of the moe invasion of manga and anime.



PS: amazingly there is an American dub torrent of this series that doesn't suck, right here in fact. I know, that most rare of rare events. The people dubbing it blatantly love it and are clearly having way too much fun for paid employment. For people who prefer to hear the original Japanese comedy voices, there is a subtitled torrent right here.

Consignia

One of my first and favourite series ever. I remember there not even being fansubs[nb]and these were from the days when fansubs were distributed on VHS, Excel Saga was done by Slow as Hell Fansubs BTW[/nb] of the last two episodes, so I had to get a really odd 2nd Gen translation from some Chinese subtitles which amongst others things spelt Excel as something weird like Xiyallo.

The psuedo-sequel Puni Puni Poemi is a great one to weird out people, because it's higher tempo than Excel Saga, and it's unforgivingly high number of references.

Pedro_Bear



"Who puts a bomb... in a dating sim?"

I can't imagine being at the mercy of VHS fansubs, how did you even find them without the internet? I am very lucky I do admit coming to all this during the era of broadband, no less for the ability to promote it when it's this good. This show predates the rise and rise of 2ch, and although I have no evidence for this, I recon one of the very first ever threads on their anime board was about Excel Saga.

This is the humour of the internet in an Old Media tv show. We have to get a copy of it to UK sketch show writers, with a note "like THIS please."

>PUT IT IN

madhair60

I'll have to give this another go, the first time around I find the CONSTANT YELLING really annoying.

Pedro_Bear



They mock-apologise for E1's focus on Excel, and then continually apologise for not pulling the rope on her in the underground lair until it finally happens. Skip ahead, it's well worth it, because although there is a over-arcing continuity, it is not limited to being played in a linear fashion... which sounds awfully familiar, no?

E1 introduces Menchi and her endless struggle to avoid her fate as ending up as dinner[nb]HUGE SPOILER:The FULL Menchi ED song, buried deep as the very last track on the very last OST album, for a reason, a covert, final, post-broadcast conceptual joke... This is the Karaoke version from OST 1. Yep, the only karaoke track on any of the albums, and it's so we can mournfully bark along.[/nb], Pedro and his plight, and explains the Will Of The Universe joke. E2 and E3 we get a feel for the aside characters, many of whom drop dead anyway, and by the dating sim episode we don't really need any more prompts.

Don't skip beyond E20, because the show begins to deconstruct itself even further, and there are genuine spoilers for the way that the formatting changes that are best experienced for the first time with full appreciation of what is being mucked about with.

Mister Six

Good call on this one, Pedro. I was introduced to Excel Saga around 2001 and I think it might've been the first anime series I ever properly watched.[nb]Not counting a couple of episodes of Guyver I got for joining a mail-order videogame club, back in the day when anime cost £20 for two episodes on VHS cassette.[/nb] It's a testament to the show that although much of its focus wass on taking the piss out of anime and manga tropes that I was completely unaware of, there ware enough sight-gags, physical jokes, wordplay (excellent sub-title worked helped this), running gags, character jokes and Western pop-culture references that I still found it an absolute hoot.

I wouldn't take Pedro's recommendation of just watching the first 24 seconds of that clip, though, because without context it just looks like a Star Wars parody. In context... well, it's mostly just a Star Wars parody but it's also a little running gag (the author of the original comic selling out and giving permission for his work to be turned into whatever it is the show wants to mock next week - anime series, videogames, sci-fi blockbusters...) that works really well.

Instead, download the first two episodes, find yourself a comfy chair and just give it a go. The series' Police-Squad!-level of devotion to piling in as many gags as possible will win you over.

Big Jack McBastard

Heard bits and pieces about it but have never seen any, yeah alright I'll give it a whirl and see what's what.

Big Jack McBastard

#7
Just a few in and I like it a lot already, rapid fire madness, so many anime cliches made light of in such short order, the self awareness of it is refreshing. Really enjoyed the obviously doomed attempt at a new life that Menchi got with the soldiers only to have it torn away and land back in Excel's grip, doubtless returning to her previous role as emergency meat.

The incredible motormouth at the very end of ep3 made my head spin.

Oh and the persistent "Put it in" option in the handheld game/in Watanabe's head in ep 4 made me laugh every time I saw it.

I shall be watching the rest of this in the coming days.


Consignia

I do love the galge episode, but in these days of developers outdoing each in extremeness, a game with sex flags at every turn, constant violent "Bad Ends" and even bombs wouldn't be seen as outrageous.

Pedro_Bear




That's the beauty of really good satire, it feels prescient in retrospect. Casting Excel as a bratty, tsundere dating sim little sister is obvious now we've seen it, and we're enjoying a similar joke now with Ore No Imouto over a decade on.

E10 is the cute talking animal episode, and it's horrific, a wholly satisfying take-down of a cynical genre. The idea that kids are stupid and will watch any old dumbed-down bollocks, or that forcing emotional responses out of a naive audience somehow gives such things a veneer of respectibility is rubbed in for the whole episode.

Obviously, I really like the Pretty Girl episode, and that's going to be one that people can appreciate what's being parodied without even having seen the target genre. And of course Excel is going to wear sukumizu in the pool scene, but even then it's the sheer brazeness of the joke that makes it work. It's her "little chat" with the audience upon the appearance of the swimsuit loli at the poolside that's similarly expected and then subverted when we realise she's talking about the weather.


Ditto we can all imagine how cynical and expoiltative Japanese late night tv must be to produce the parody "Bowling Girls", a show where pretty pop stars pretend to bowl over a mimed performance of their new single. That's E9, and it contains the beautiful fourth wall demolision line "Hey... you Main Characters over there!" with Excel's petulant retort "Eh?" like she's pissed off at being dragged back into her own show, and she'd rather stand in Reception all episode. It's a perfect expression of the resigned defeat of a low-waged peon nearing the end of our shift, on top of admitting that the plot has deviated wildly from the norm even by this show's standards.






Big Jack McBastard

Cheers Pedro, it's a  belter of a series. just finished the last of them, loved the twist of Menchi's interpreter all fours doing the final closing song!

Rapid fire Japanese is terrifying, the speed the subs move at times is crazy but well worth freeze framing for the nods and winks thrown in. Also just finished watching Puni Puni Pomei which was an appropriate second layer of insanity.

I am officially on a hunt for moar.

Consignia

Quote from: Big Jack McBastard on January 10, 2011, 09:38:50 AM
I am officially on a hunt for moar.

Have you tried the pseudo-sequel Puni Puni Poemi? Also, from the same director, check out Nerima Daikon Brothers, which is a comedy-musical and full of satire. In a similar vein, but with the tempo turned down a bit you might want to try Hayate no Gotoku (1st series only) or Gintama (you have to give this one a few episodes, the best ones are much later in the series).

Big Jack McBastard

QuoteHave you tried the pseudo-sequel Puni Puni Poemi?

#ahem#

QuoteAlso just finished watching Puni Puni Pomei which was an appropriate second layer of insanity.

Thanks for the tips, already got some of them downloading after seeing what else the director was involved in, I'll snag the rest of these before the day is out.

Consignia

Ah soz, just skimmed the post. I'd also recommend anything by Studio Shaft:

  • Pani Poni Dash
  • Negima!?
  • Hidamari Sketch
  • Mariaholic
  • Natsu no Arashi
  • Bakemonogatari (Not strictly a comedy, but worth watching)
  • Arakawa under the Bridge
  • Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru
  • Maho Shoujo Madoka Magika (Not a comedy, still airing, but ace)

Shaft tends to be a differently paced, but the density of them is really good. They also use loads of different animation techniques, and always have a very unique look.

Big Jack McBastard

Excellent!

That's the kind of post my piratey eye likes.

Flandre

InB4 off-topic tl;dr about Gosick. I'll lay money on it. I'll lay my money on it.

As noted above, Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu has the same sort of pace as Excel Saga. It takes the piss out of magical summoning anime, like Pokemon or Shadow Star Narutaru. It features tv's most delicious trap, Hideoyoshi Kinoshita, who is genre blind to the concept. He provides almost all the fanservice in the show, to his own bemusement. Every cast member is a parody of a parody like that. It's just silly stuff all the way through the series. E2 is non-stop laughs.

Maria†Holic gets another vote. It is very good. The second series is about to sweep the new season off its feet. It's more clever comedy than madcap parody, though.

Who has one of those charts for Spring 2011? What else is on? Other than Gosick, obviously...

Consignia

Quote from: Flandre on January 10, 2011, 04:17:07 PM
Who has one of those charts for Spring 2011? What else is on? Other than Gosick, obviously...

Gosick[nb]Bit of a disappointment in my mind[/nb]'s this season, Spring's far from finalised, so I don't think would be a decent chart yet. It's going to be huge. Loads of excellent stuff to look forward to.

If you're talking about this season, then off the top of my head:


  • Infinite Stratos
  • Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika
  • Gosick
  • Belezebub
  • Mitsudomoe - Part Deux
  • Freezing
  • Kore wa Zombie desu Ka
  • Fractal
  • Houko Musuko
  • Onii-chan no Koto Zenzen Suki Ja Nai Dakara Ne
  • Dragon Crisis
  • Level E
  • Starry Sky
  • Rio Rainbowgate
  • Kimi ni Todokte Part 2
  • Yumekui Merry
  • Somecard dueling shit
  • Wolverine

I think that's all 18 new shows this season.

Flandre

Thanks Consignia. I'm getting my seasons mixed up. We're still here-ish, then.

Other comedies vaguely like Excel Saga this season:

Haiyrou! Nyaru-ani: Remember My Mr Lovecraft is being perverse and broadcasting the 4komas before the anime. Or it's a joke. Which is funny. I guess? Yes, the episodes really are just over 4mins long, with half of them taken up by the theme tune. At the moment, at least. It's counting down with the spaceship approaching Earth each time, but that could mean anything.

Mitsudomoe is very funny. Southpark and Rugrats sewn together and Japanified. Nipple is mai waifu. I haven't seen the second series yet. Mistudomoe deserves it's own thread, or a proper tl;dr at least. I thought you were going to do Mitsudomoe, Shirai-chan?

And going back a bit K-ON!, but you've probably seen it. If you haven't, it's very funny. There's one of these threads here about the second series K-ON!! somewhere, which is better even than the first. And there's a Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt thread as well. I think you we're in that one, but even so, it's a great series to watch again.

Welcome to the disease, Big Jack McBastard. Pick and choose, basically. Then squabble endlessly about the various merits of your personal taste in cartoons on anonymous imageboards forever.

Still InB4 Gosick.

Pedro_Bear

I'm glad you enjoyed it Big Jack McBastard. I have a recommendation, it's not exactly... well... anything like Excel Saga, but it is very good...

It's called Go...
Quote from: Flandre on January 10, 2011, 04:17:07 PM
InB4 off-topic tl;dr about Gosick. I'll lay money on it. I'll lay my money on it.


It's called Gos...

Quote from: Consignia on January 10, 2011, 04:51:01 PM
Bit of a disappointment in my mind


The name of the show is Gosi...

Quote from: Flandre on January 10, 2011, 06:07:29 PM
Still InB4 Gosick.


IT'S CALLED GOSICK, AND IT'S THE ANIME OF THE SPARSE SEASON, GODDESS FUCKING DAMMIT!!!

Pearls of beauty before swine of abomination!

E1 Gosick (streaming)

Victorique is a prickly little tsundere Sherloli Holmes swanning about in glorious gothic lolita dresses solving occult-related mysteries in this romantic costumed drama mystery horror comedy, aloof and perfect and ever so bored because she's so much cleverer and just better than everyone else around her. I know exactly how she feels. She lives in a hothouse botanical gardens on top of a library, and she looks like all the best Rozen Maiden dolls blended together. No, mai waifu is nothing like a Mary Sue. That's jealous fighting talk. That it's set in a school for royalty and nobility, and she's probably a princess too boot adds nothing to that slanderous and ignorant dismissal of such a beautiful tv show, aimed squarely at the fun (no, not casual, fun, these are cartoons, not lifestyle choices) Shounen market.

When a show features HNNNNNNGHHHHH fanservice by merely having the protagonist roll about on the floor (fully clothed thank you, this show is about ankle-length dresses and haughty, defrosting ice queens, a better class of emotional masturbation) because she's so bored, we know it's aimed at us Type B anime fans, need I type, the best sort. Victorique yawns and gurns and scowls and tsuns her way through backdrops of stunning beauty, dragging her hapless male side-kick through closed room mysteries, and from the delicious OP, there's likely a main villain to test her powers of perception along the way to boot.

The Japanese capture hauntingly aesthetic, imaginary-European settings the way only a fresh pair of eyes and a naive historical conscience can. They lavish this mythical fantasy land with mahogany and gold trim and ceiling paintings. Victorique lives in a hothouse botanical gardens on top of a library. Scenery porn has just had the bar raised.

InB4gosickindeed... PHILISTINES!!!


Flandre



Poor ronrey Shirai-san. Always seeking affirmation that being tsun-tsun irl isn't freakishly weird. I d'awwwd through Gosick just thinking about you watching it. It's exactly the sort of cartoon you'll produce in the not-so distant future. All graceful aesthetics and smart-arsed heroine fanservice where the plot usually goes.

Why width=595, btw? That seems a bit... specific?

We've had a letter from a Oriental  theatre performer who performs naked in front of a blindfolded audience, he works for the NOH PEKING THEATRE COMPANY (I Sangaku)[nb]That is your actual racist humour there[/nb], who had this to say

Did none of you fuckers watch THE WATER MARGIN????

Pedro_Bear

Oh no...

No, no, no...

I'm starting to read them in his voice... GET OUT OF MAI HEAD


Quote from: Flandre on January 11, 2011, 11:31:43 PM
... [blatantly calling Victorique, mai waifu, a slut]...



*hrrumph* I like being me. It's not my fault I'm surrounded by such wanton laziness and wilful ignorance that everything I do seems dazzling by comparisson. I can't help but edge people in better directions; I can hardly make them worse, can I? They all raeg and snipe and sneer, and then pretend they figured it all out for themselves, like it would  kill  them  to credit the person who forced-marched them through the difficult first steps, ungrateful bakas. I should have been born American, I'm convinced. I'd be a cult leader by now, in the most beautiful, delicately aesthetic, heavily-armed compound.

And oiiiii, you're mai sockpuppet account, less of that sort of thing. Goddess fucking dammit. It fits the screen at 1024 resolution with a tiny leeway for positioning in a table. I think we can go to 600px on the default forum setting without generating a scroll bar.

Flandre

Quote from: Points of View on January 11, 2011, 11:46:38 PM
(I Sangaku)[nb]That is your actual racist humour there[/nb]

That was clever. Unless you're one of Pedro's real socks. Then... that was shit.

Pedro_Bear





Pffft, not one of mine, my dear. That one tells funny jokes and slips in bang on, on-topic content to threads by slyly wrong-footing readers. In character, no less.

I choose to deliberately misinterpret the post up there, and now consider The Water Margin to be an exotic anime recommendation, a review of which will maintain this one joke throughout the entire tl;dr. Here's hoping it has a tsundere in it.

madhair60

Thanks for the Mitsudomoe recommendation, I've seen two episodes now and am really enjoying it.

Big Jack McBastard

Thanks for the continued recommendations everyone!

Jesus my HD is already two thirds full with series[nb]A sharp reminder that I need get Nero installed on this comp pronto[/nb], I've clearly left this goldmine untapped for too long.

Just got started on Maria†Holic [nb]fantastic opening sequence[/nb] which is looking good, the internal narration and switching of animation styles to give expression to Kanako's thoughts has been bang on so far.

Consignia

#26
Quote from: Big Jack McBastard on January 15, 2011, 09:20:30 PM
Just got started on Maria†Holic (fantastic opening sequence)

Typical Shaft, all their OPs are excellent.

It's probably worth pointing out that the whole series is roughly a parody of Maria-sama ga Miteru. It's not really something easily recommended, although I enjoyed it, but you are probably missing a bit of the effect by not watching that before you watch Mariaholic.

Flandre

I did not know that about Maria†Holic. Look at those pre-moeblob noses! Oh lawds, do they keep up the unsubtle, blowing leaf motif for all four series whenever a lily couple make eye contact?




Oh noooooooo... E2 of Gosick is really good. Lucky guess, Shirai-san.

Suppose it's redundant to InB4 "Hah- hah- hah- hah- hah- hah"?

Pedro_Bear



Suck it up, bandwagon jumpers. Mai waifu will dominate this season, on reaction faces alone, thermonuclear moe moe kyHNNNNNNNNNNGHN.

And yeah, the old-fashioned visual innuendo and somewhat earnest tone of Marimite marks it clearly as lilies'n'roses sinister agenda, rather than confident contemporary comedy lesbian sidekicks, or being matter-of-fact about teenaged interest in same-sex attraction. As ever, we wouldn't be enjoying any of this today without the swirling leaves and lingering looks back then, and as an example of successful pink Japan, it was quite an achievement. Not to mention its slice of life focus and insistence that the mundane is as relevant and revelatory as the extraordinary paved the way for the likes of K-ON! without which the human spirit would be lacking. I wouldn't rush to watch Marimite again though, put it like that, and never picked up the final series.


2010 anime suffered a lot from E1-itis, didn't it? Like they knew where shows were going, and that things were going to be awesome once the characters met up and got down to it, but they didn't seem to know how to go about opening episodes at the same level of delivery? Highschool Of The Dead in particular demanded that we watch E2 first, almost. Gosick seems to have taken note of this trend and just floored it, sweeping away secondary characters, pedal to the metal to force the meeting bewteen Kazuya and Victorique. They let the stunning backdrops dazzle in place of exposition in the more traditional, boring manner, and E2 was revealed like a magic trick, the characters in their places and storming ahead.
Quote from: Flandre on January 10, 2011, 06:07:29 PM
Haiyrou! Nyaru-ani: Remember My Mr Lovecraft is being perverse and broadcasting the 4komas before the anime. Or it's a joke. Which is funny. I guess? Yes, the episodes really are just over 4mins long, with half of them taken up by the theme tune. At the moment, at least. It's counting down with the spaceship approaching Earth each time, but that could mean anything.
I think you're correct here, and this is another, more creative way of avoiding E1-itis. By the time this actually gets round to showing us an episode, all of the characters and settings will be familiar via their self-parodies, and the show can relax and get on with it.


Anyway, we'll definitely do Maria†Holic a proper thread, 'cos I can tl;dr about Maryia's school uniform all by itself. And probably Mitsudomoe too, which only got bumped because of K-ON!! last time, and it's one of those shows with plenty of Western humour appeal, once we gloss over the whole, you know, sexual banter in a junior school setting thing?

Quote from: Consignia on January 10, 2011, 02:01:42 PM
Maho Shoujo Madoka Magika (Not a comedy, still airing, but ace)
I'm hesitant about starting this, I've read it's a tragedy? Like, bad ending tragedy? Going to lurk around until the final episode just in case, Shaft are sneaky.

madhair60

QuoteAnd probably Mitsudomoe too, which only got bumped because of K-ON!! last time, and it's one of those shows with plenty of Western humour appeal, once we gloss over the whole, you know, sexual banter in a junior school setting thing?

Should probably save it for the thread, but I thought the sexual banter/behaviour in Mitsudomoe was quite refreshingly in how accurately it portrays young children's obsession with genitals and pants.

I am reminded of a friend of mine who watched Azumanga with me and found the whole thing "massively dodgy", because of the girls being accurately portrayed as pubescent, but without an overt sexual theme.  I've never understood.