Xavier: Renegade Angel

I decided to write this review as a counterpoint to the one star review which was obviously written by someone who didn't quite get the show despite their insistence on understanding it.

Xavier: Renegade Angel (from the creators of MTV2's Wonder Showzen) is a show best described as the TV show Alejandro Jodorowsky would make if he was obsessed with wordplay. Every episode (with the exception of two) follows the title character, who is voiced incredibly well by series creator Vernon Chatman, NOT Jim Tozzi, as he tries to help people who he believes need help while causing a chain of events that only harm and frequently ruins the lives of those he is "assisting" all while searching for his father's killer and his missing mother. He is a character that was purposefully made as ugly as possible in order to show his inner wretchedness. He speaks mostly in wordplay in an attempt to appear more intelligent than everyone else. The wordplay is, for me, the highlight of the show and is by far some of the most clever I have ever heard. A favorite line of mine is (in reference to the Mayan God Quetzacoatle) "Let's give this sadis-dick Sun God a taste of his own meta-META- sin, man". A common problem amongst people who don't enjoy this show is not being able to see the multiple layers of a single line like that. And that lines a simple one...

The animation is also not as bad as detractors like to ascertain. The first season was very choppy and a bit clumsy but by the second season the animation improved drastically. Like Xavier the show was purposefully made to be ugly as another way for the creators to challenge the viewers and our often shallow perception. Theirs a reason that the show's writing is so good and that because it's the star of the show, not the animation. If you can't look past the animation you simply shouldn't be watching the show and if you enjoy ANYTHING else on Adult Swim you are a hypocrite for saying the animation effects your experience as it's the best animated show on the network (tied with Superjail).

Xavier was described as "a warning to children and adults about the dangers of spirituality" by the shows creators though it's other main focus is displaying ignorance as one of mankind's biggest flaws. Xavier himself is possibly the most ignorant character on the show though he perceives himself as a gift from God and the answer to stupidity. This again ties into the shows look which only exposes the ignorant among us. Speaking of "ties in", another major aspect of the show is the fact that every episode is insanely well constructed (something the other reviewer said the exact opposite about and more so than anything proves he doesn't quite understand the show and it's structure). The show normally starts with Xavier walking through the desert and speaking to himself about the topics we will come across during the next 10 minutes. It's very important to pay close attention to this as everything he says here comes back up in more wordplay and metaphors/visuals later in the episode. Each episode is very tightly put together and references to important issues and jokes are spread throughout. How someone can say "there is zero balance" to this show is absolutely beyond me.

If you need any more proof of the other reviewers ignorance of the show go watch the episode "Shakashuri Blowdown" on AdultSwim.com. He claims Xavier simply plays the flute on and on and on. Go watch it and see if thats a correct statement or maybe you'll see that flute part for what it is... A brilliant piece of animation that marries music and image incredibly well. Hope this helps. And as I said before, if you don't like the show then that's totally fine but don't judge something if you don't understand it for what it is. This review barely scratched the surface of what this show is so give it a shot. The whole first season is up on Adult Swim though it's far more tame than season two which is my favorite season of any animated show ever.

Xavier, the Renegade Angel will not be to everyone's taste. It can be ludicrous, lewd and is scatological and juvenile at times. But here also is deconstructionist combination of smart-ass street jargon and zen poetry diatribe. Xavier's rambling nonsensical musing are like a modern cultural melting pot, he talks from his unconsciousness, our unconsciousness. Some people don't want to go there. But I love it and I have re-watched this show twice and enjoyed it equally each time. Repeating review below to fulfill the 10 line minimum. Xavier, the Renegade Angel will not be to everyone's taste. It can be ludicrous, lewd and is scatological and juvenile at times. But here also is deconstructionist combination of smart-ass street jargon and zen poetry diatribe. Xavier's rambling nonsensical musing are like a modern cultural melting pot, he talks from his unconsciousness, our unconsciousness. Some people don't want to go there. But I love it and I have re-watched this show twice and enjoyed it equally each time.

When you were a kid did you ever have crazy, bizarre nightmares filled with images right of Salvador Dali's psycho-analysis sessions? Well, if you didn't, now you can pretend you did thanks to Xavier Renegade Angel.

Xavier Renegade Angel is an intensely surreal (even by Adult Swim standards) show from Wonder Showzen creators, PFFR. It's about a freakish man beast who is covered in fur, has 6 nipples, backwards knees, a third eye where his penis should be, a snake for a hand, an eagles beak, and Heterochromia, who wanders America trying to find spiritual fulfillment and the identity of the man who killed his parents. Unfortunately for Xavier and everyone with whom he comes into contact, he has no spiritual insight whatsoever, and remains totally oblivious to the fact that he was the one who killed his parents, even though their ghosts tell him so repeatedly. He most often ruins the lives of those he is trying to help while failing to grasp even the most basic truths about the world around him. At the end of each episode Xavier knows even less about the world than he did at the beginning.

I could write 1000 words on how Xavier employs Brechtian narrative elements and uses alienation to allow the viewer to perceive reality with disinterested contemplation. Or how it acts as a reader for the work of Jean Baudrillard. Or how it brilliantly remixes elements of Foucault, Judith Butler, Hegel, Marx, Kant, Nietzsche, Douglas Adams, Vonnegut, Gogol, Voltaire, Ginsberg, Beckett, T.S. Eliot, E. E. Cummings, and David Foster Wallace with an art style that is heavily influenced by the proto-Dada work of the Die Bruke and Blue Rider movements of the Weimar Republic. But it's one of those things where if you don't already know, I probably couldn't tell you.

Xavier is not a show for everyone, or even most anyone. It is vile, obnoxious, mean-spirited, confusing, and really ugly to look at thanks to CGI graphics made by a company that usually does economy class video game cut scenes. However, if you can see beyond the aggressively alienating exterior of the show you will discover a razor sharp Juvenilian satire of American Bourgeois values that makes salient points about the hypocrisy of mainstream and subculture ranging from hippies and environmentalists to neo-cons and fundamentalists.

The wonderful thing about Xavier is how high brow/low brow it is. The program goes well out of its way to ask complex, soul searching questions about the nature of reality and humanity's inability to perceive truth, but then asks these questions using the most base and puerile dick and fart jokes imaginable. During the best episodes of season 2 there are some 40 jokes a minute thanks to its triple and quadruple-entendre dialogue. And though the creators designed the show to look as unappealing as possible, underneath the hideous character design there is actually some really inventive and boundary pushing use of the camera going on.

Upon a first viewing, most will notice the sparse, clipped dialogue featuring words seemingly arbitrarily echoing into infinity, but after seeing a few episodes it becomes clear that this is a stylistic choice. Every time the vocals abruptly cut it signals the viewer to some type of wordplay within the sentence. Clips and phrases like "Take that! Taste the pain!" repeat in all 20 episodes in different contexts, sometimes dropped in in the middle of other words. It's really mind-bending stuff. Meanwhile, the echoing effect is most often used to recall a reference to a previous episode or else to highlight a piece of new age jargon that the show is mocking.

At first glance Xavier seems like a show with less plot than Family Guy, every two minutes or so there is a bizarre plot twist that seems to come from nowhere and lead nowhere. One of the best episodes begins with Xavier trying to sell road kill to a restaurant and ends with a prostitute aura (who provides aural sex to the point of soul-jaculation) causing the end of the world with a spiritually transmitted disease. Along the way the episode also touches on huffing glue (as well as snorting tacs and shooting staples), bestiality, cannibalism, and camels that open up to reveal machine guns. It's pretty abstract and incredibly weird, but upon second and third repeat each episode begins to come together. Instead of seeming random, the show's intricacies come into view, with each successive turn clearly foreshadowed and generally motivated by larger thematic elements. The show employs nonstandard narrative structure and deeply couched post-modern plotting that can be difficult to decipher, but is very rewarding if you're willing to put in the effort.

Basically, if you love An Andalusian Dog, Beyond Good and Evil and Freddy Got Fingered all in equal measure, then Xavier Renegade Angel is for you.

Surreal, bizarre, completely 100% nonsensical at times... but so, SO unbelievably consistently hilarious, intelligent, clever, and mindbending. This is an absolutely brilliant show, from top to bottom, and is probably way too intelligent for the average Adult Swim viewer. So, if you're the typical Hot Topic-shopping "oh man look how funny this is when I'm stoned!" Adult Swim fan, you may want to pass on this one...

...but if you're into the films of Lynch, Giuseppe Andrews, Jodorowsky, etc. or the music of The Residents, Harry Partch, Captain Beefheart... you know, the truly bizarre and "outside" part of the entertainment world... you will most likely love this exploration of existentialism and absurdity. This show is probably the most insanely and violently brilliant thing on modern television. Ever. So unbelievably packed with sight gags and clever quips, an 11 minute episode has more energy and ideas than an entire season of.. oh, I dunno.. Stroker and Hoop or whatever Adult Swim fans like.

So, yeah, this probably isn't for your typical AS fans, but personally I think it's the most brilliant thing I've seen in forever, and I've fallen so hard in love for it that it's ridiculous.

Don't worry, mattbromagin, I won't tell you you JUST don't get it. Because you went far beyond JUST not getting it.

The first brilliant thing about this show is that there isn't a bit of dialog that's throw-away. Every sentence, every word is carefully crafted in service of some point. Sometimes the point is as crass as a stupid wiener joke, sometimes the point is a genius bit of biting social commentary. Which brings me to the second brilliant thing about this show is that it is equally comfortable with the high brown and the low brow, recognizing that each has its place and that "smart humor" isn't about content as much as craft. It makes little distinction between the two and fluidly uses one in service of the other.

If you think the dialog is dumb or inane, you don't get it. If you think the content is pointlessly crude, you don't get it. And if you think the animation is crappy, you reaaally don't get it.