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

Having spent the previous volume indicating that there’s a serious plot somewhere behind all these gags, Rikdo Koshi returns in Volume 5 to (mostly) flat-out laughs. What advances we get in this volume are character-based – one minor recurring character and two major pivotal characters are introduced in this volume. (Incidentally, after Volume 4 Viz apparently decided Excel Saga was not selling well enough to justify original cover art for North America, and the covers quietly reverted to being based on the Japanese originals.)

We get the minor recurring character first, in the first chapter. Excel and Hyatt are at a lodge in the mountains, acting as waitresses/hired help for the Owner (who I don’t believe ever gets named), a burly bald-headed Russian-looking man with a cane and a scar, who keeps having flashbacks to tragic times in Afghanistan (it’s never named as such, but come on). Excel attempting to use automatic machine guns to hunt rabbits is interspersed with the 3 male members of Kabapu’s team going to the lodge for training… and getting utterly lost in the snow. Naturally, everything ends in a giant explosion. The Owner will crop up again later.

The next chapter is merely a Valentine’s Day one, with the usual chocolate shenanigans (and Excel’s flushed face indicating she’s overdone it), but does have one of the more telling character moments in the volume. At the end of the chapter, Matsuya walks by and gives Iwata one of her chocolate Pocky. He is, needless to say, in seventh heaven. But the final page shows her in her kitchen, staring at the ruined remains of her stove, showing she had actually been trying to bake him Valentine’s chocolate. Admittedly, she was almost goaded into this by Momochi, but it’s an important first: it’s the first time we realize that Matsuya maybe does kind of like Iwata after all.

We then get one of Rikdo’s longest and most obvious shout-outs to date. Excel, working in a restaurant, is dumping trash out in the alley when she comes across a gun in a paper bag, dumped there by yakuza. She thinks it’s a fake (real guns are almost unheard of in Japan), and so fires off a shot – which leads to everyone and their brother, on both sides of the law, out searching for the gun. Complicating this is Hyatt falling over dead again, and Excel’s need to get out of her apartment and get medicine. This lads to a several-pages long riff on the manga Geobreeders, which runs concurrently with Excel Saga in Young King Ours. (It’s even a little older than ES, and is the longest running manga in Ours at the moment, though I believe the author is on a brief hiatus.) Excel imagines herself as a gunslinger in a white suit, a clear homage to Maki Umezaki, and starts blowing things up and making improbable leaps.

(I miss Geobreeders, which did not sell well when CPM tried to release it here, partly due to censorship, partly due to poor art quality (the original Japanese tankobons are much clearer than CPM’s 3rd-gen xeroxes), but I suspect mostly as the manga is a serious action story with a comic coating, as opposed to the anime (which came out here first), an action comedy with little seriousness. The eventual body count in Geobreeders might warn off potential licensors. Still, I’d love to see someone else give it a try. Also check out the anime, as it brought us Dynamite Mambo, one of the most addictive ED songs ever.)

Meanwhile, back in Excel Saga, we finally meet its resident mad scientist and lolicon, Gojyou Shiouji. For those who want to note that he’s less exaggerated than in the anime (true), and that his lolicon tendencies get a plot explanation once his mother and childhood friend are introduced (also true), I note that he is still, when first introduced, squatting down near the ground to try and see up the skirts of the 6-year-old schoolgirls walking by. This is his schtick, and I freely admit it will disturb people, but it’s clear Rikdo means it to be disturbing, and that he’s also mostly using it for comedy ‘ew’ factor. Shiouji is introduced by slamming into Excel (who’s just having bad luck with cars) with his auto-controlled van, which then decides to get jealous of Shiouji talking with another woman and attempts to kill itself and everyone in it. Of course, the remote-control van is the least of Shiouji’s inventions…

Enter Ropponmatsu, who I had completely forgotten was first introduced as a typical robot girl. There’s little indication that she’s anything other than a prototype created by Shiouji using Kabapu’s money and normal Japanese resources. This will turn out to be (mostly) very wrong, as we’ll see later on. She’s introduced as a tall, sleek, and emotionless young woman, who Iwata immediately falls for. Sadly, their first mission involves defusing a bomb, and she gets completely blown to pieces. Luckily, there’s Shiouji returning the next day with Ropponmatsu the 2nd!… who is built around his fetishes and is a loli robot with a totally different personality. (Note that, unlike the anime, the two Ropponmatsus never appear together.)

And as if there weren’t enough in this volume, we get a chapter devoted to an ‘alternate universe’ fantasy RPG world, where Excel and Hyatt are traveling warriors searching for a quest. It’s actually the weak point of the volume, as it’s not all that interesting and the archaic speech can be confusing. But overall, this is an important volume of the series, and we’ll see lots more of Shiouji and the Ropponmatsus in the future.