By Rikdo Koshi. Released in Japan by Shonen Gahosha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Young King OURS. Released in North America by Viz.

This is probably one of my favorite volumes of Excel Saga, if only as it shows Excel at her absolute best. Excel’s personality has been slowly shifting for some time now, but the presence of Elgala not only allows her to play the straight man, but allows her to prove that no, ACROSS would not be better off if Excel were simply fired.

Not that you’d know that from the start of the book, which mostly deals with Excel’s insecurities and lack of self-confidence. Now that ACROSS is out in the open (somewhat), Excel and Hyatt are trying to get the word out to the heathen masses. It’s hard, though, given they choose a derelict department store with no customers. On, and Iwata the Sentai Ranger shows up again, and is just as destructive as last time. He is at least joined by his colleagues this time, but they mostly stand around and watch Iwata be stupid.

Sadly, things are complicated once Elgala gets back. She’s still not revealing what secret tasks she’s doing for Il Palazzo. What’s more, she talks about her skills with a sword. Then Hyatt mentions her skills with ranged weapons (at least when she’s not coughing up blood). Things Excel never knew about. Now Excel is trying to think of what *her* specialty is, and the best everyone can come up with is her insane endurance. She takes it badly, and decides to run away to train harder so that she can be worthy of Il Palazzo. (Il Palazzo merely notes that her note saying she’s running away is formatted poorly.)

While Excel trains hard, Elgala is settling into life with Hyatt, and has started to become used to her falling over dead every once in a while. Meanwhile, we meet Sumiyoshi’s sister, who looks like a cute meganekko, and we’d never associate her with her brother except they both speak in captions (and in a heavy Geordie accent). Naturally, everyone shows up to either a) mock Sumiyoshi being a incestual pedophile, or b) no, there is only a). Even Misaki joins in on the mocking, mostly as she stayed up all night playing games and isn’t thinking straight. (Misaki’s hardcore gamer personality comes up every now and again, usually when Rikdo wants to show her as something less than perfect.)

Unfortunately, Excel comes back from training to find… everything’s fine without her. What’s more, she’s done a little bit of training in everything, but still isn’t an expert in anything. She regards jack-of-all-trades as a pejorative. And Elgala and Hyatt are now at the World Cup, broadcasting ACROSS’s message to a huge stadium of people. What room is there for Excel? Coming to an epiphany, Excel realizes that she doesn’t need any glory or recognition, and has forgotten that all this is for Il Palazzo, not for her. Strengthened, she runs to join the others…

And a good thing she does, too, as Elgala and Hyatt lose control of the situation very quickly once Iwata shows up. After posing and making a short speech, he then accidentally fires a laser weapon right at Hyatt. something which surprises even him. “Mom, is your cyborg son a murderer?” He is not, as who should emerge from the flames and wreckage, kicking Iwata out of the way while clutching an uninjured Hyatt? Why it’s Excel, and she is BADASS here. Quickly commandeering the PA, she gets the crowd to turn against Iwata (the others have stayed behind, not wanting to deal with football hooligans) and then cutting and running when the entire stadium is blown to bits. Even Il Palazzo realizes what’s happened, giving Elgala the pit while singling Excel out for praise. Of course, she then gets the pit for being AWOL for weeks, but hey.

The last regular chapter in the book deals with Excel & company getting a gift of some expensive sake from Watanabe, who is celebrating Hyatt finally remembering his name. Excel tries to be frugal, but Elgala, who tends to be craftier than our heroine, suggests they drink in honor of their lord Il Palazzo. What follows is a typical humorous chapter, with no real surprises. Hyatt can drink like a fish and not show any signs. Elgala gets randy and starts grabbing boobs when she’s drunk. And Excel passes out and has a very weird dream. It’s clear by now that the dream is actually a flashback to her past life. We see Il Palazzo talking to her, noting how perfection cannot last, and how they need to give themselves to Chaos to survive. Sadly, Excel is too busy going “Oh wooooow, Il Palazzo looks gorgeous!” to take any of this in, but we the reader appreciate it. Sadly, reality returns, and shows us that sometime during the night, someone withdrew $983,000 from their account. TO BE CONTINUED!

…wait, not quite yet. As we also have a side-story alternate universe thing here. And it’s better than the fantasy one we saw earlier. This starts as your typical high school romance, with Excel having a crush on her sempai Il Palazzo and willing to do anything for him. Sadly, this means dying her black hair blonde and participating in every sport known to man in an attempt to win a competition. She’s even joined by her “long lost sister” Elgala. Seeing Kabapu and Il Palazzo try to lie and cheat their way to a sports title amuses me (and is not too far off, frankly). Sadly, Excel and Elgala must face off against the Ropponmatsu sisters, experts in beach volleyball… and robots. They basically get their asses handed to them… until Ropponmatsu 1 is struck by lightning, and therefore now loopy. Excel and Elgala come back… only for a tidal wave to take out the entire match.

(Incidentally, in a ‘spot the cameo’ part, a future main character is introduced in this side story. I did not initially recognize her as Viz mistakenly uses Ropponmatsu 2’s cutesy font for her dialogue. But Shiouji’s exasperated reactions, as well as “Um… waaah, I spilled it!” confirm who it is. We’ll meet her in Volume 12. This is also around where Rikdo decides to, if not drop, at least quietly play down the nastier parts of Shiouji’s pedophilia. He’s clearly lusting after Sumiyoshi’s underage sister here, but once we hit Volume 12, he’ll turn more serious and the worst of it will be gone.)

A terrific volume, especially if you love Excel kicking ass. The good times roll with Volume 11, so let’s keep going! For the greater glory of ACROSS!