By Rikdo Koshi. Released in Japan by Shonen Gahosha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Young King OURS. Released in North America by Viz.
(Quick note: This volume and the next are the hardest volumes of Excel Saga to find these days – they’re out of print, and used copies don’t come cheap. I checked prices for Vol. 7 earlier, and it’s selling for about $35. Just FYI. This is why people buy stuff when it comes out.)
This volume of Excel Saga has a bit of a transition feel to it. You sense that Rikdo knows where he wants to end up – he’s been foreshadowing a new member of ACROSS for a while now – but is not quite clear on how to get there. As a result, the end of the volume has what amounts to a false start.
But hey, at least we get the Manager introduced. The Manager is clearly meant to be a straight-up parody of Emeraldas from the Harlock series, and now that she’s arrived the Owner, who we last saw handing Excel machine guns and rambling about the war, is also free to become more like Harlock, complete with eyepatch. Still bald, though. The two chapters here don’t quite work as well as they should, possibly as he has too many things going on at once – the Manager/Owner and their Harlock parody; Excel and Hyatt being insane as always; and Excel’s trying to figure out who the third member of ACROSS that Il Palazzo sent them to fetch is. Most likely it’s the Maid with Princess Curls, but she barely acknowledges them. In the end, Menchi ends up accidentally burning everything to the ground anyway.
The best part of that chapter is seeing Il Palazzo, back at base, staring at cardboard cutouts of Excel and Hyatt, and dropping the Excel cutout into the pit. Poor Il Palazzo -so lonely!
The standout chapters in this book deal with a local glider building contest, with everyone at the beach trying to build a better aircraft. The comedy potential here is obvious, and it gets explored beautifully – from Ropponmatsu 2’s sad immediate crash, to Hyatt’s ecstatically happy face as she flaps her little fans, to Menchi sailing off into the sunset never to be seen again, and finally Excel’s desperate and powerful attempts to get the winning distance, complete with breaking the actual laws of physics. All this, plus swimsuits! (Though tasteful swimsuits – Excel Saga in the early days had little to no fanservice. This will change soon.)
The other chapters here are slight, but amusing. I liked the short 8-page special on Menchi running around town, right as the TV news comes on about an experimental dog gone missing – who looks just like Menchi. After much terror, Menchi realizes that being trapped as Emergency Food in Excel’s apartment is better than the alternative. And, in the biggest tragedy of the volume, Ropponmatsu’s power needs completely wipe out Sumiyoshi’s porn games. And another Geobreeders cameo on page 174 – plushies!
Still, this volume overall gave a sense of marking time. Luckily, it’s followed by one of the best volumes in the series, where we finally officially meet the third member of ACROSS.
