One of the funniest (and strangest) anime shows released last year was Excel Saga.  With every episode being a parody of a different movie or anime genre, Excel Saga managed to skewer just about every aspect of cinema and television.  ADV is following up the success of Excel with a very similar show, Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi.

It's Sasshi's summer break after finishing grade school, and things aren't going to well.   He has just found out that his long time (female) friend, Arumi is moving soon.  They both live in the Abenobashi Shopping Arcade, an area made up of many small shops and cafés, but the arcade is getting run down, and the stores are moving out.  Now most of the stores has been vacated, and fewer shoppers are coming to the area.  Arumi's father has decided to take a job as a chef in a resort hotel, and is preparing to close up the family restaurant.

For many years, there were four sculptures protecting the shopping arcade.  Sasshi and Arumi accidentally discover this fact and further discover that three of them are no longer around, the stores that they were in having closed.  The only statue left is above Arumi's families cafe.  They rush home just in time to see Arumi's grandfather accidentally destroy the statue.

Nothing seem to happen at first, but pretty soon Sasshi notices some strange things; flying dragons,  five foot tall dancing mushrooms and the like.   Eventually the whole area, except for Sasshi and Arumi, falls away and the two friends find themselves in another dimension.

This sets up the formula for the series.  Each episode from here on out the pair are thrown into a different reality.  In each one, they have to figure out how things work, and what the rule for that world are. Each reality is based on some video game or television genre, so they have an edge.  Every world has something that they have to do.  If they can figure out what it is, and are able to perform the task, they will get a wish.  They always wish to go home, but it never quite works out the way they hope.

In the second episode, they find themselves in a world based on fantasy role playing videogames.  The third show places them in a mecha science fiction show, and the last episode on the disc finds them in a world based on 70's Hong Kong Kung-fu movies.

Most anime series have a strong first episode that really gets you salivating for the rest of the series.  Not so with this show.  The first episode never grabbed my interest.  It was mostly set up, and the action didn't start until the last minutes.  It has a totally different feel from the rest of the series.  If you are put off after watching the first chapter, keep going.

Luckily, things pick up with the second show.  Having played my share of role playing videogames over the years, I understood all of the jokes, but I felt that most of them fell flat.  The third show, the parody of Gundam, was definitely the best on the disc.  The Neon Genesis music was a great touch!    Casual anime fans may miss a lot of the jokes relating to other anime shows.

All in all it was a good attempt, but it just didn't click with me.  The show has potential, but I'm not sure if it will develop much more than what I've seen on this disc.

You have the option of watching this DVD with a 2.0 Japanese language track, or an English dub in 5.1.  I listened to both tracks on different episodes, and I definitely prefer the Japanese track.  Apparently, according to the AD Vidnotes, the characters all have regional accents.  When making the English dub, the actors used southern drawls and other accents to mimic this.  It is really annoying.  The accents don't sound authentic, and listening to them gets old really fast.

The Japanese language track is very nice.  There is some use made of the soundstage.  Though there are not a lot of these stereo effects what they do use is effective.  There are optional English subtitles.
 

Video:

The video on this disc has an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 and is anamorphically enhanced.  The color tones used varies from episode to episode, but overall they are clear and bright.  There are some instances of aliasing, which show up in most animation, but these are minor and are only noticeable if you are looking for them.  A nice looking disc.

The Extras:

Though not really an extra, ADV did something neat with the FBI warning that pops up before the main menu appears.  They have a voice over that warns the viewer of dire consequences if the disc is illegally broadcast or copied.  There are a couple of different voiceovers with different scripts that pop up at random, so you never know what you'll get when you pop in the disc.  It's pretty funny.

Commentary:  Episode three has a commentary track by voice actresses Luci Christian and Jessica Boone.  I thought it was odd to have a commentary by the dubbing artists.  I mean, what are they going to be able to add?  Not a lot apparently.  They seem to have a good time, and they do manage to talk the whole time, but the content wasn't anything that I was interested in.  It reminded me of two friends talking during a movie.  They would comment on something on the screen and then go off on a  tangent.  They told a lot of jokes, and laughed at them quite a bit, but I wasn't amused.  I don't really think it was their fault though, they just didn't have many comments to make about the show.  I got the impression it was done as a novelty and so they could list it as an extra.

AD Vidnotes:   You have the option of watching the shows with these pop-up notes.  They explain jokes that American viewers might not get and clarify cultural references.  I really liked this extra on the Excel Saga DVDs, but ended up turning it off on this disc.  They popped up much too frequently and too often ended up explaining things that didn't need explaining.  For example, in one episode an old man states that a shopping arcade with only a few shops is a comb without any teeth.  The pop-ups explain that teeth can break off from combs, and when too many are gone it makes the comb useless.  They then inform the viewer that this is a metaphor.  (Luckily we are spared from being given the definition of a metaphor.)  The Vidnotes also try to add jokes to the show in some instances, none of which I found humorous.

Trailers: I really like the trailers on anime discs.  There's always something I haven't seen before.  This disc includes trailers for Super Gals, Azumanga Daioh, Angelic Layer, Kino's Journey, Cosplay Complex, and Nuku Nuku Dash

Also included on the disc are the opening and closing sequences without any credits.
 

Final Thoughts:

It's really hard to do comedy right, and this series is trying hard to be funny, but it just didn't work for me.  The Sliders like jumping to new worlds each show is a nice way to be able to parody many styles, but the gags they had just didn't make me laugh much.   The show did have it's moments with some chuckles in every episode, but no belly laughs.  Humor is very subjective though, and one man's guffaw is another man's titter, so anime fans might want to judge for themselves.  Rent it.