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

So yes, it’s been a few months. I got distracted by other things, and honestly the Teriha storyline is not filled with Excel goodness for obvious reasons. But even a non-Excel Excel Saga volume is still great, so let’s look at what’s going on here. We have four plot threads that run though this volume…

First, we have the continuing adventures of Kabapu trying to regain his power and prestige. He notes that Il Palazzo is running for Mayor of the prefecture, and immediately announces his own candidacy as well, despite the fact that only a volume ago he was arrested on about 147 fraud and conspiracy charges. Needless to say, the public has a short memory, and the resulting race is actually quite close. Best part of this chapter is the posters each candidate uses to promote themselves, all of which parody various anime movies. Kabapu tells Watanabe and Sumiyoshi to try to sabotage Il Palazzo’s campaign somehow. Watanabe, still in his new ‘evil’ persona, decides the best way to do this is by a car bomb. Sadly, he only takes out Elgala (who’s hospitalized) and Hyatt (who’s absolutely fine).

Rewrite line of the volume, courtesy Carl Horn, regarding Elgala’s opinion of Hyatt’s recuperative powers: “What are you, Steel God Jeeg?”

Kabapu wins, surprisingly (possibly as Il Palazzo gives the impression of a ‘foreigner’). We don’t have time to pay attention to his antics, though, as Elgala, drugged up and with a broken arm and leg, is having fantastic dream sequences. This is the second long dream sequence in 2 volumes, and is far more cracked-out than Teriha’s. Elgala is reimagining her own life while parodying The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, and we can see that she enjoys making her past memories better in her head, as we see memories of her giving perfect snarky comebacks to Excel (she didn’t), or dragging Excel naked through the streets (it was the other way around). Oh yes, and Hyatt hanging out at the forest just before the lands of death, noting that Elgala shouldn’t be here as she isn’t used to it. All this leads to Elgala coming to a stunning revelation – President Excel is a different person from the Excel she remembers!

Having come to that conclusion, and realizing that she can’t pretend to make nice with President Excel due to her bad habit of saying her thoughts out loud, Elgala waits till Excel is away and then goes right to Il Palazzo himself. This is a mistake, naturally, as Il Palazzo is well aware of exactly who President Excel really is. Elgala quickly finds herself transferred to the 5th subbasement, where she does meaningless busywork that then gets shredded, and realizes that she has made a ghastly mistake.

This also contains the sweetest scene in the manga, which features Hyatt. Elgala has told Hyatt about her suspicions, and notes the main difference between the Excels – this impostor is perfect and superhuman. Hyatt is rather puzzled by this, and notes when talking with Menchi (who is terrified at the mere mention of Excel’s name) that “Senior Excel has always been a hero since the old days.” In a manga where people’s allegiances tend to fall into the ‘me-first’ category, it’s lovely to see Hyatt’s simple admiration of her best friend.

Next up, Iwata and Misaki go on a date. Yeah, I’m as surprised as you are, and it takes Misaki a while to even realize that’s what it is. I like the fact that Misaki has actually progressed to not minding that she’s on a date with Iwata when she realizes it – in fact, her main concern is that she has no idea how to behave on a date. We’re so used to Misaki being the normal one of the group that we forget that her social skills suck just as badly as the others. On the date they run into Umi and Teriha, and Misaki gets a strange feeling she’s seen Teriha somewhere before… but with Teriha’s shy, passive personality, Misaki is unable to place her. The date ends badly as Iwata runs out of power – he’d been ignoring all efforts to warn him about it as he was in love Misaki mode – and has to be rescued by Shiouji and Ropponmatsu 2, who is wearing a vaguely pornographic nurse costume.

Shiouji and company then go off to the baths, where we discover that Teriha can’t stand being in hot water for more than a few seconds before she completely overheats (Umi notes she has an aversion to water in general), and that Shiouji is still a pedophile no matter how much backstory he’s given to explain it. The main final plot, though, is that Ropponmatsu has broken out of Shiouji’s base and attached herself to Sumiyoshi. And what’s worse, she’s accidentally downloaded Sumiyoshi’s H-games into her system. So now she’s trying to sexually assault him while calling him “big brother”. Watanabe just laughs (Sumiyoshi asks what happened to the old, pure Watanabe, to which the response is “Oh, he’s dead”), so it’s Misaki who comes to help, despite finding Sumiyoshi and Ropponmatsu 2 in a very compromising position. Sadly, Ropponmatsu is SUPER STRONG, so they can’t really do anything. Iwata to the rescue! After much breaking of robot neck, and trashing of Sumiyoshi’s apartment, peace is restored once more.

I greatly enjoyed this volume while reading it, but can’t help but be reminded that this series is still greatly missing its lead character. And we still have at least one more volume of amnesia to go. Still, any Excel Saga is good Excel Saga, and I definitely recommend this to any fans of comedy.

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

It’s another volume of Excel Saga, and Teriha still hasn’t recovered her memories. She’s clearly still influenced by them, though, as she tells Umi that she has to get a part-time job to help pay for expenses, as she feels a distressing need to work and get cash. She actually proves to be fairly good at waitressing, which shouldn’t be too much of a surprise given that she no longer has the hyperactive destruction personality of old. The cafe she works at is not only more otaku mockery, but also features a character who’s a lookee likee of Karin Kanzuki from Street Fighter.

We do get two chapters which feature her amnesia, and attempts to reverse it, prominently. In the first, she’s kidnapped by goons, who mistake her for “President Excel” of ILL – a place, of course, currently being held by RopponExcel. There’s no bounty coming from ILL, who look over at their own Excel and reason she hasn’t been kidnapped. So it’s Ropponmatsu II to the rescue! Yes, Shiouji has finally managed to activate her, though she’s a lot more robot-like and less genki than she was before.

The second chapter, and one of the best parts of the book, is her dream sequence after reading about “President Excel” in a magazine. Teriha knows the name is important, but not why. She then has a dream where the sound and picture keeps flickering in and out of focus, featuring Elgala and Hyatt (whose names she doesn’t remember); Shiouji, Umi, and her new life; Menchi (who is terrified of her, which makes Teriha sad); and finally a loud, obnoxious blonde with a long braid. “Who is she? So loud… and violent. She’s intimidating… but… it feels like I’ve always known her.” And then, finally, we see Il Palazzo, whose face is black with shadow, crying out “THIS WORLD IS CORRUPT!” and she wakes. Sadly, she still doesn’t have her memories, but it’s a terrific sequence, and I’d love to see it animated.

Meanwhile, back with our friends at the government, Kabapu is not doing well. In fact, he’s pretty much dying. And he keeps getting arrested for fraud and tax evasion. Needless to say, things are looking bad, but then, a miracle! It’s the gold bar! Remember the gold bar? For those who don’t, this is the gold that Elgala retrieved from her adventure in order to pay back the money she’s taken out of an ATM in a drunken stupor. Hyatt then wanted to use it to pay back Watanabe, but never did. When the apartment complex burned down, the bar got stored with other possessions, and they’ve found it now.

This allows Momochi to gain access to Kabapu’s secret bank accounts, and restore his wealth. Now rich and (semi)-powerful again, Kabapu recovers, in a scene that is so awesomely silly and perverse I don’t dare spoil it. Carl Horn notes in the Endnotes that it’s the volume’s finest moment, and he’s right. Now the security force can once again fight as AGENTS OF JUSTICE! Yes, it’s the return of the sentai suits, only now they come with a naked transformation scene, much to Misaki’s horror and outrage. Though, with Kabapu having wealth but not power, and vowing to destroy Il Palazzo by any means necessary, it’s quickly pointed out that they are in fact terrorists now.

And like all terrorists, they need a secret base! Of course, Kabapu has forgotten the security codes, meaning they will have to break in. This is easier said than done, especially when one of the people breaking in is Iwata, who’s gotten increasingly goonier ever since he got his new robot body. Needless to say, they trigger the self-destruct, which is very difficult to countermand. We are briefly reminded of Misaki’s feelings for Iwata when she seriously asks Shiouji if he can do anything, and he (equally serious) apologizes, noting he can’t. Iwata demands that Misaki confess her love before he dies. Which she does! Granted, it’s in a sort of deadpan monotone, but with Misaki, you take what you can get.

Of course, they don’t die. A mysterious person (who is clearly Miwa) stops the self-destruct at the last second, and they now have their base. Because Miwa is no longer using it as her OWN base. I have to say that Miwa is really shaping up to be the true villain of this series, despite her large-breasted come-to-Mommy facade. At the end of this volume, she asks Teriha if she has regained her memories, and notes (staring right at the reader) that getting memories back might not be as pleasant as she thought. Is she talking about herself? Teriha? Excel? We know that the Excel we know and love ALSO has buried and repressed memories…

In any case, now that Kabapu is back in action, the story looks to step up again. Teriha is still Teriha, though, so I think we need a new chew toy for the manga to play with starting in Volume 18. Hrm… Miss Elgala? Are you free?

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

Welcome, my friends, to the Teriha arc! Excel Saga has turned another corner, and now we get to see whether it can do something it’s never really tried to do before. Namely, whether you can have 4 1/2 volumes of Excel Saga without Excel.

We left off in Vol. 15 with the realization that Il Palazzo had kidnapped Ropponmatsu I and is using her core with an Excel body as his company president. Sadly, the people closest to Excel, namely Hyatt and Elgala, don’t notice the difference, despite the complete personality change. Meanwhile, the real Excel has managed to escape from her hellish priestly torments, only to be near-dead in a gutter, where she is found by Umi. Umi takes her back to Shiouji’s, and it becomes rapidly clear that Excel has lost her memory.

This is not the first time we’ve seen memory loss as a plot point in Excel Saga, and it’s not really a surprise. Il Palazzo has had holes in his memory the entire series, and it’s been implied that Excel herself in ‘normal’ mode is also forgetting a lot of her past, whatever that may be. Unlike the 2-chapter memory loss in Volume 4, however, this one is a biggie. She not only can’t remember who she is, but her personality is totally different. Meek and introverted, she is the diametric opposite of the Excel we all know.

Eventually it gets out that Umi has brought home a ‘stray’. Shiouji wants her thrown out, but Miwa overrules everything, and enjoys groping Excel’s breasts just as much as she does Umi’s. So Excel stays, and is given the name ‘Teriha’ since she can’t remember her own. (To avoid confusion in future volumes, I’ll continue to call her Teriha as long as she’s lost her memory, and will call the fake Excel ‘RopponExcel’ to emphasize who she really is.)

This is not to say that Teriha is a complete blank slate. She clearly has the memories, buried beneath the surface. Watching a shot of Il Palazzo on TV (advertising his company) leads to a major freak out, as she knows he’s important but can’t recall why. We also see that she’s still hardcore about saving and/or rescuing any money she can find, and is very good at selling merchandise, even to otaku. Excel is there somewhere, buried under Teriha’s memory fuzzed persona.

It’s not all Teriha this volume, though. Kabapu and his team are at a low ebb, as he’s lost all his power, influence, and money. The shock of this seems to have a physical effect on him, as he ages rapidly throughout the volume, to the point where he’s a shrunken, wasted old man at the end. The security team are sticking by him, but that’s more due to inertia and the need for paying jobs than any loyalty. Momochi DOES have loyalty, and is worried about him, but she’s Momochi, so we really know nothing about her and her inner mind’s workings at all. IN a real sense, Kabapu spends this volume alone. And really, he sort of deserves it. I’ve noted before that he does villainous things, and we see many of those here in flashback, showing his bribery and dirty tricks.

RopponExcel, Hyatt, and Elgala are still living the high-powered exec lifestyle, although Elgala is bitching about it, to no one’s surprise. We also see how unobservant both Hyatt and Elgala are when a giant power failure shuts down the city. They’re in a glass elevator on the outside of the building at the time, and not only does it stop, but RopponExcel collapses as well. Elgala tries to lift her, but finds she now weighs almost a ton (herniating her disc as she tries it, too). Eventually, RopponExcel wakes up and manages to save them by ripping the elevator to the correct floor with her brute strength. Elgala stares, wondering when her sempai got superpowers. (She clearly needs to read previous volumes, but even Excel was never THAT strong.)

The power failure also catches Iwata & company, who are out celebrating New Year’s and destroying priceless national treasures for the lulz. And, for once, we actually get a little revelation, as we see the cause of the whole thing was Miwa, in her own underground base, attempting to power… something. Or, more likely, someone. Miwa once again manages to be the closest this series will have to a final boss character. What’s more, due to Kabapu’s flashbacks, we see that she was a meek, shy young woman 20 years earlier. Something happened after her husband disappeared to make her what she is today.

(The fan theory is that she is her husband in some way, be it bodyswap, mindswap, or what have you. This is easily the most popular Excel Saga fan theory out there, topping all the Solaria stuff, and as has been noted, it’ll be more of a surprise if it’s NOT true.)

Rest assured, by the way, that there is still a lot of comedy in this volume. The entire chapter featuring Iwata and Sumiyoshi having an eating contest, run by Ms. Manager (still not Emeraldas, in case you were wondering) is hysterical. Watanabe has completely turned to evil, and is all the funnier because of it. And Teriha is dragged to Comiket by Umi, and forced to dress up as Cure White (man, this came out back when Pretty Cure’s FIRST season was new!). She’s a little freaked out by it all, but does note that the uniform is… the wrong color somehow.

I’ll be honest, I love all of Excel Saga, but this arc has issues. Notably, Teriha is so passive that it makes you long for her memory to return with the fire of a thousand suns. She’s really far better being manic. Still, it’s not happening anytime soon, so instead we’ll prepare for Excel Saga 17, where Kabapu may actually die!