Contains the chronically over-challenged and understaffed secret ideological organization of ACROSS (total membership: 2), whose goal is to conquer the city of F. Also contains your complete daily requirements of Martian Princesses, afro-wearing Action Heroes, Mysterious Governmental Agencies, Space Butlers, deranged Comic Book Authors, Androgynous Prisoners in Iron Masks, Annoying Roommates, Removable Moustaches and a generous supply of Adorably Cute Aliens bent on Galactic Domination. Also contains one (1) emergency food supply/dog and one (1) Excel, the most certifiably insane teenage girl to ever walk the face of the planet.

Rikdo: I, Koshi Rikdo, give my permission to turn this episode of the excel saga anime into an anime web site review.

If you haven’t guessed it, or just plain don’t know how to read, you have come across, (remember this word Across), the excel saga review. Which is quite possibly one of the most extreme, wacky and parody-filled anime out there.

As you may know, the excel saga anime is about Excel and her quest to realize Ilpalazzo’s dream (a stupid one at that) to conquer F city.

Through out the series, Excel meets numerous characters, like her partner Hyatt a space princess from Mars. And goes through numerous ordeals, such as being shot in the head or hit by a truck, in her numerous missions to conquer F city. I would say more but Rikdo mentioned that I shouldn’t spoil anything for anime fans.

The first DVD of this series comes with 5 great and extremely hilarious episodes, which makes me want to give ADV hugs and kisses for putting that many on the disc, then again this seems to be standard for many of their releases. After watching the first 5 episodes, hell after watching the first episode you’ll get a feel for what the excel saga anime is all about. TOTAL MADDNESS! This is an enjoyable anime for those who love comedy and is great for anyone to watch, just as long as you can tolerate the stupidness and the vulgarness that is used to make the jokes so funny.

The animation used in excel saga I found to be great. Not exactly I would call the best but it is far from being the worse. When you watch the anime take notice of the rich colours used for the characters especially during close ups, action, romantic, and character development scenes. Mainly 2D animation is used for the episodes on this disc so don’t expect to see any CG animation. Another thing you should know about the animation of this series, is the little things that the animators put in. For example, in one episode, there is a part with Excel ranting about the conquest of the city and for a brief moment; you see the swastika in both of Excel’s eyes. Even though it just a harmless item put in to add flavor to the anime. Viewers should note these little bits in the animation and be ready for them because there are a few that are vulgar and might be offensive to some viewers.

The video quality of this DVD I found to be excellent. In my opinion this was a great video transfer that ADV did. While watching the DVD I did not notice any video problems, like macro blocks, skipping, lost frames, and those ugly colourful blotches that pop up from bad encoding. It has more or less prefect video.

The audio quality of this DVD was something that was something that could have been a bit better. Do not get me wrong, it sounded. No noticeable problems that would make you want to take the disc out and use it as a coaster. No degrading sound quality, no skipping, missing audio nothing that would ruin the anime experience for the viewer. The audio is offered in English 2.0, English with song titles 2.0, and Japanese 2.0. The sound was encoded in Dolby digital surround sound but it was missing the 5.1 channel encoding. So you hardcore anime watchers who like their 5.1 surround sound will be disappointed when you see that there is no 5.1 option. Something I believe should be standard on any DVD. Another thing that should be standard as well is 5.1 channel Japanese audio, another thing that is lacking on most anime DVDs. Hopefully ADV will add that in future releases and maybe even add in DTS and Dolby digital 6 channel surround sound for those anime ballistics who have a home theatre system solely for watching anime. Okay maybe that’s asking for too much.

ADV was nice enough to add some extras on this DVD. Nothing fancy but what they did add in was pretty good and somewhat useful. The extras that are found on this DVD are: AD Vid-notes, the clean opening and closing scenes, the Japanese opening and closing scenes, video piracy warning, original Japanese trailer, production sketches, and the ADV previews. What I liked about the extras were the AD Vid-notes. These notes will come in handy when they mention things in the series that you may not understand. The sketches were a nice thing to add in, especially for those who are curious on how they drew the characters. It would have been nice if they added in some interviews with the voice actors or production staff, but overall it was decent with what they had on the disc.

When all's said and done, this DVD had a good amount of episodes, great audio and video quality, fairly good selection of extras, and great 2D animation. I recommend Excel Saga for anyone who likes a good laugh and… something... out of the ordinary to say the least.