Fourth Recommendation

Alright guys, this is a special recommendation. It's my first recommendation on my ThatGuyWithTheGlasses blog! And I just want to say, thanks for the warm welcome! It's refreshing after being on BlogSpot.

With that out of the way, let's get to business. This weeks recommendation is:

Excel Saga

Excel Saga, which premiered October 7, 1999 and ended March 30, 2000, is based on the manga of the same name, which is based on the doujinshi Municipal Force Daitenzin by Rikudo Hoshi. It was directed by the man with the world's coolest afro, Shinichi Watanabe. The studio was J.C.Staff, who have anime like Revolutionary Girl Utena and Azumanga Daioh under their belt. And finally, it was licensed by Funimation.

Random Tidbit: The manga actually just ended this year!

But enough about production and backstory, time to get into the plot! Excel Saga is about the titular character Excel,

an energetic, klutzy, orange haired girl who happens to be the only member of ACROSS, a super-secret organization run by Ilpalazzo.

  What are his goals? He wants to take over the world, of course.  

And for most of the anime, that's the plot. Other than introducing a bunch of other characters over time, a bunch of side-plots, and having a super-serious plot during the last few episodes, Excel Saga is mostly about, well, Excel. And it's one of the funniest anime I have ever seen.

Random tidbit: Both Rikudo Hoshi and Shinichi Watanabe are characters themselves in the show! In the first episode, Excel has to kill Rikudo. And the recurring character Nabeshin is based on Shinichi Watanabe, afro and all.

The opening and closing songs were both written by Shinichi Watanabe and are pretty memorable, if only for the strange lyrics.

Now, I have to recommend the subbed version. The dubbed version is great, don't get me wrong. The actress they got to play Excel is pretty much the English equivalent of her Japanese counterpart. But there are a lot of jokes that only make sense in Japanese.

There isn't a content warning this time around. Except for the infamous episode 26, "Going too Far". The name really explains it all, but if you must know, there's a lot of nudity and gore in it.

So, here's episode one, ready for viewing! You're going to have to watch it on YouTube though. Funimation disabled embedding. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFzFkL_X49Y

You heard the lady! Get to watching!