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

I tend to divide the Excel Saga manga into 5 parts. Part 1 are the first 6 books, establishing characters and featuring Excel and Hyatt getting into wacky situations. Part 2 is Books 7-11, and introduces Elgala, changing the dynamic of the main heroines. Part 3 is about to begin here, with Books 12-15, which starts to actually advance the main plot. Part 4 I call the “Teriha” arc, for reasons I won’t spoil, and is Volumes 16-20. And the likely final arc is currently going on, and is Volumes 21-present.

However, we don’t begin Excel Saga 12 immediately. Indeed, Viz’s credits for the volume don’t even appear until Page 50! (Which is a great touch). Instead, the first quarter of this volume is devoted to the wacky, lovable adventures of Umi Rengaya, an 18-year-old dojikko who acts as assistant and dogsbody to our favorite loli-lovin’ mad scientist, Gojyou Shiouji. Umi is cute, and very busty (the notes helpfully tell us her 3 sizes, 98-58-82), and eager to please, and sadly has a brain the size of a peanut. Her scientist father (who we don’t actually meet here) has sent her off to work with Dr. Shiouji, presumably to try to make her slightly more capable.

These quick, 6-8 page chapterlets take place at approximately the same time as Volumes 9 and 10 of Excel Saga proper, and indeed we see some of the phone calls between Kabapu and Shiouji from the other side of the conversation, now realizing why they cut off so abruptly. I’m not sure if they ran as special extras in Young King OURS proper, or if they ran in the side magazine which also runs Rikdo’s softcore comedy Holy Brownie, Young King OURS+. They’re cute, if slight, and help us realize the basics of their relationship: Umi loves Shouji, but is dumb as a post and the clumsiest girl in the world; Shiouji is exasperated by Umi but tolerates her due to their past and a sort of grudging duty.

We get a flashback in Excel Saga proper explaining their relationship; they first met when Shiouji was 14 and Umi was 6, at a party given by her father. He was entranced by her innocent beauty, she was just happy to meet someone new. Unfortunately, even at 6 years old she seems to have a developing bust, and it just keeps on developing. This is possibly the first time that we see Shiouji’s lolita complex to not just be a love of young girls, but equally a hatred of large-breasted women. WHY he hates them will be left for Volume 13, but for now let’s just say Umi’s chest growing but her IQ staying the same has removed any infatuation he once had, though he does still seem to try to protect her innocence (which has only grown more shiny over the years.)

Meanwhile, Excel, Hyatt and Elgala are at the beach! They’ve signed on as waitresses at a beach cafe being run by Miss Manager, the Emeraldas-alike we met in Volume 7. Mister Owner is still off fighting the war, but no worries, as she has enough German jokes for all of us. (Including one very disturbing one where she asks Hyatt to clean the showers and the ovens, and Hyatt immediately drops dead after turning on the shower. I’m not sure if it’s deliberate or not, but if so it probably ranks as the most distasteful Excel Saga joke ever. Especially since it comes about 3 panels after Miss Manager saying “Tomorrow Belongs To Me.”) A lot of beach jokes follow, as Excel and Elgala provide fanservice and accidentally blow things up, and Hyatt dies, fries, and goes on a boat ride with Watanabe.

Meanwhile, Kabapu is increasingly disturbed at the series of intentional blowing things up that Excel and Elgala did in Volume 11. It’s terrorism, sure. but boy it sure did help out the city. It’s what HE would have done had he been less ethical. (And man, arguing the ethics of Kabapu is an essay in itself.) He decides to try contacting Shiouji’s mother, Miwa… something he is very apprehensive about. Shiouji, meanwhile, refuses point blank to contact her. What we do find out is that Shiouji’s father (the creator of the Ropponmatsu core) disappeared 20 years earlier, and that after his disappearance Miwa… changed. She used to be so quiet before. Even Umi seems terrified of Miwa showing up again. Luckily, she doesn’t appear… yet.

Sadly, Watanabe’s boat ride turns disastrous, and though he manages to be rescued, he’s in a near-coma due to thinking that his beloved Miss Ayasugi has perished. In fact, Hyatt merely drifted until she washed up on the shore of the beach, with Excel noting that she passed through the inter-tidal zone. Misaki and company find her walking by the hospital, and arrange for her to visit Watanabe’s room, as they think that he’s having delusions. Her assurance that she fell into the sea then woke up on the beach do reassure him, but don’t help the others believe that he was telling the truth.

Meanwhile, as sort of a cliffhanger ending, we see Il Palazzo having an internal monologue in the middle of a vast sci-fi-ish control room. He admits that things are progressing very slowly (in point of fact, ACROSS has done almost nothing to take over the world the last 12 volumes), and seems to give his alternate personality permission to shake things up. This is good news for ACROSS, but not necessarily for Excel; Il Palazzo is passive-aggressive towards her when he’s himself, but positively horrid when he’s in his other guise. Will she be OK? And how bad could Shiouji’s mother be, anyway?

Find out in Volume 13! As always, highly recommended.

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

There really aren’t any revelations, for once, regarding hidden civilizations and the past lives of Excel or Il Palazzo in this volume. What, then, does it have to offer? A whole heaping helping of humor, as this is one of the funniest books yet.

Elgala is a terrific addition to the cast, as her interaction with Excel is hysterical. On the surface, she and excel are very similar characters, being outgoing to the point of chatterboxey, as well as prone to failure. However, Elgala actually manages to one-up Excel in the failure sweepstakes, as she also has a ‘refined taste’ (read: she likes to spend money), which gets her in to big trouble here when she goes out drunk and accidentally spends 10 million yen… the entire contents of their savings account Il Palazzo gave them.

So Elgala goes off to try to earn back the money (in a nice contrast to Excel’s journey to find herself in Vol. 10) and Excel and Hyatt are back to part-timing it. Luckily, Hyatt has a lovestruck benefactor! Watanabe’s crush on Hyatt is starting to reach its apex, and he goes to incredibly stupid heights to save her from the life of sleazy prostitution he imagines she will end up in. (The mind reels at the thought of Hyatt the hooker…) So, after a discussion with Kabapu, their bank account is full again. And all it requires is for Watanabe to work without pay for the next 200 years or so.

In the interim, we have one of the more surprising chapters of the manga to date. The City Security employees are on another training trip in the middle of winter in the mountains… only this time Misaki and Iwata have actually gotten into trouble, getting lost in a blizzard and falling off a cliff, leading to her breaking her leg. Iwata, surprisingly, is being less of a retard than usual, possibly as he’s devoting his cyborg body to keeping her warm. Most of the chapter is Misaki talking to Iwata and herself as she slowly freezes to death. We get a few flashbacks to her college days when she met Iwata… these are from her POV, so they’re more accurate than Iwata’s earlier ones. Most surprisingly, she notes that Iwata’s sheer lovable goofiness drew her out of her shell and enabled her to make other friends. And she reveals that the chocolate on the pocky she gave him for Valentine’s Day *was* homemade. It’s a rather touching scene…

…which is then followed by the brilliantly hysterical ending. She only told Iwata this as his battery had run down and she figured he couldn’t hear it. After being rescued by Shiouji and Ropponmatsu II, she’s informed that he still actually heard every word… as did the doctor, who was listening in. Misaki begs him to erase Iwata’s memories… which he’ll do for the right price. This is great stuff in two ways. First of all, Misaki is perhaps the first female Shiouji has shown any interest in at all who isn’t 9 years old or lower. It’s not a romantic interest, but the mere fact that he’s talking to her at all is something. Secondly, I love the way Rikdo handles the artwork. When Shiouji reveals that Iwata heard her confession, Misaki clearly turns bright red. But we only see this from the back, and barely on her ears. He draws her with her back to the reader the entire time, so we can’t see her humiliated face. It works really well.

The rest of the volume is pretty much business as usual, with Elgala bringing back a bar of gold to pay back what she lost. It’s questionable whether her Indiana Jones-style story is entirely accurate, though. Sadly, Il Palazzo is not happy with her for being AWOL, nor does he like her blurting out her internal monologue where she reveals she spent all his money. One of the oddest moments in the manga comes when he berates Elgala for losing sight of the mission, and tells her to look to Excel’s example. This is the second time in two volumes that he’s praising Excel. Excel’s face realizes this, and looks very uncertain. (Poor girl, she’s so used to abuse…)

Also, I note that this volume has Hyatt catching fire, in one of the more disturbing scenes to date. Excel and Elgala are both now wondering if ANYTHING can actually kill Hyatt. Of course, Excel has already shown herself to be hella tough… and we’ll see evidence of her own quick recovery from severe burns in Vol. 20. As well as the end of this volume, where she and Elgala decide to please their lord by burning down and bombing a bunch of abandoned buildings and bridges that are there as the city is too lazy to tear down and rebuild. Luckily, they’re only severely burned and in traction.

Also, at one point Kabapu calls Shiouji, and a cute perky yet utterly ditzy voice answers the phone. Once again, they give this the font of Ropponmatsu II. It isn’t, but I can’t blame Carl & Yuko for assuming it is. This is more foreshadowing, and we’ll finally meet the owner of that voice in Vol. 12. Meanwhile, Vol. 11 is really funny. Check it out.

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!