When Excel Saga was released directly to home video in 199X (because no self-respecting station would broadcast such stupid Japanese cartoons, not even in Japan), it was a sign of the fact that the Japanese cartoon industry is going to hell in a handbasket. This series, rife with cliches, borrowed dialog,idiotic visual humor and stupid Japanese puns, was based on a comic book by a man named Koshi Rikdo, a complete hack. The director, another inept hack, was Shinichi Watanabe. Both of these idiots put themselves in the "plot" because they didn't have enough imagination for real characters. The show is a comedy, like a lot of bad Japanese cartoons. Or at least, it was intended as a comedy, because it's really an antidote for laughing gas more than anything.

The characters include:

Koshi Rikdo, the man responsible for this whole mess. At least we can know who to blame.

Nabeshin, a stunt double for the director, who was too chicken to fly a Mitsubishi himself.

That Man, a guy who was supposed to appear once, but kept coming back. What bad planning.

Il Palazzo, a wuss who sits on his chair all day playing games. Doesn't know how to pick up chicks, even if they throw themselves at him.

Excel Excel, a self-proclaimed idiot. She dies many times throughout the show, but comes back through deus ex machina every time.

Hyatt - an alien princess who tends to steal Excel's complete lack of thunder. Dies even more than Excel, and always comes back for no reason at all - not even deus ex machina.

Will of the macrocosm - the deus in the machina. Enslaved by a mere human. Pathetic.

Pedro - a Hispanic immigrant worker (from Pogota) who mixes Japanese with Engrish (not Spanish). His wife cheated on him because he didn't do much to stay in contact with her.

Sandora - Pedro's son, who thinks an *American* can draw *Japanese* cartoons with outdated technology.

There are some other characters, but they don't merit mention, because they're outright detestable. Plus I'm tired. Excel Saga doesn't really have a lot of characters, maybe enough for a claymation short, but describing them is such torture that even this few is too many.


Those who bought the series on video believe that there were 25 episodes. That is incorrect. There is also a 26th episode, which was too horrid for video. It was distributed for free exclusively over Bittorent, but few people could download it because nobody wanted to seed it. Even the studio, JC Staff, stopped seeding it after a few weeks when they realized that it's just humiliating. I managed to download it over a few months (god know why, I don't) and saw that, having exhausted their miscreantivity on humor without any sign of success, Rikdo and Watanabe tried to appeal to various perverts (including pedophiles and fans of beastiality), and managed to fail once again - this time completely, because the target audience turned out to be smaller than they estimated based on their own recent purchases.

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