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

We pick up on this volume of Excel Saga where the last one left off, with Excel and Hyatt going back to base to apologize for screwing up the package delivery. Unfortunately, when they get there, they find base isn’t there anymore – there’s just a blank wall. Excel goes to search for alternate entrances, while Hyatt just sits there… luckily for Hyatt, as a secret entrance soon makes itself known. Hyatt finally goes to get Excel, and all seems to be back to normal, though notably Il Palazzo is no longer wearing his long white robe, but simply a black military uniform. It’s implied here that the suppressed alternate personality that’s been talking to him in his head may have emerged to take over.

Meanwhile, Ropponmatsu (loli version) moves into the apartments, much to the horror of Iwata, who starts trying to drive her off almost immediately. (As a side note, this volume came out right about as the anime was finishing, and there are several anime in-jokes in it, notably seeing Excel (voice actress: Kotono Mitsuishi) trying to dress as Sailor Moon, with mosaicing over the costume to avoid lawsuits from nice Kodansha peoples.)

The next chapter is pure wacky, as Ropponmatsu invites her fellow employees out to lunch (at their cost) to celebrate her joining the agency. Sadly, they end up lunching at the same restaurant Excel and Hyatt are working at, a restaurant that misordered and thus needs to get rid of a lot of chicken fast (dangerous for a steakhouse), and having a problem with roaches. The highlight of the chapter is the owner telling Excel to be sure to call any roach she sees Taro-san, so as not to alert the customers. Having been unable to push the chicken on beef-loving Iwata, Excel is forced to go out and butcher a bull four times her size. Naturally, the bull goes on a rampage and destroys the restaurant. (Nice bit where Misaki, who had been in the bathroom and thus avoided the carnage, admits her luck is a bit scary. She managed to avoid the snowstorm in the previous volume as well.)

The next chapter is mostly a day in the life chapter, dealing with Ropponmatsu trying to sneak into Misaki’s room (and getting it wrong twice), Excel and Hyatt’s general poverty, and Kabapu showing us all the joy of a good workout. The most notable thing here is the beginning of the chapter, which begins with Il Palazzo ranting about nuclear power. This is a hot-button issue in Japan, and after Il Palazzo says that he feels nuclear accidents are irrelevant, The Will Of The Universe appears to reset the chapter and turn it into the slice-of-life we get. This is Will Of The Universe’s only manga appearance, also here as a shout out to the anime.

After Excel is almost hit by ANOTHER car (that makes 3 in 3 volumes, for those counting), and a title page shot of her dressed once more as Maki Umezaki from Geobreeders, we see them trying to rescue a young, airheaded girl from some shady yakuza types. Naturally, the shady yakuza types are actually her servants, trying to locate the lost girl, and Excel and Hyatt are now kidnappers. It all works out well in the end, however, and we get the glorious image of Excel hurling Hyatt off the edge of a high-rise and then following her down, as well as creepy Dr. Shiouji showing his love for 6-year-olds once again.

The next chapter takes us once again, deep into Excel’s insecurities. She accidentally eats some of Hyatt’s food at breakfast, and winds up in a drug-induced series of hallucinations. Hyatt gets replaced with an infinite number of robot doubles (which end up coughing up oil, collapsing, and exploding – no change there), and Il Palazzo says that it’s time for ACROSS to gain another member. Excel is horrified over this, and we note once more her absolute paranoia at other people horning in on her Il Palazzo. Her combination of utter devotion and repressed self-hatred can be difficult to watch at times. This turned out to just be a dream, but the need for a new member of ACROSS will come up again in Volume 7.

Meanwhile, Ropponmatsu (loli version) is having a few bugs, and thus has to go back to Shiouji’s lab for a bit. So we welcome back Ropponmatsu (adult version), much to Iwata’s delight. She doesn’t last long, though, as when they walk out of the building they are interrupted by Excel and Hyatt, who had been window cleaning about 25 stories up, plummeting to Earth after their platform snapped. Ropponmatsu catches both of them in her arms and then flip-kicks the platform out of harm’s way. It’s pretty badass, though she notes that it has affected her legs a bit, so she’s not indestructible. She then notices that Hyatt has fallen over dead, and bugs Excel to start resuscitating her.

This leads to the most interesting part of the volume. Excel reaches out to indicate that Hyatt being dead is nothing to worry about, and grabs Ropponmatsu’s shoulder as their eyes meet. There’s a crackle, and we then get a 2-page spread of Il Palazzo and Kabapu, in their respective home bases, looking at the city. Il Palazzo notes that it’s “the counterfeit” from last time… and then Ropponmatsu falls over, totally deactivated. Aside from confirming that Kabapu and Il Palazzo basically monitor their minions constantly, this also shows that Excel is somehow connected to Ropponmatsu, and apparently has the ability to deactivate her. This becomes far more important in Volume 14 and later.

However, back to reality… Excel now has a dead partner *and* a dead robot to worry about. Hyatt wakes up easily enough, but getting Ropponmatsu back online proves to be more than the two of them can bear. (I note that neither one are aware Ropponmatsu is a robot – they just think she’s a really heavy girl.) They put her in the wheelbarrow to cart off to the hospital… but the barrow ends up getting loose and colliding with a tanker truck. Whoops. Excel and Hyatt flee the ensuing explosion, but fear not – A fiery death was just what was needed to revive Ropponmatsu, who stands in the middle of the conflagration, mostly unharmed. (I say mostly as when she appears the following day, she accidentally shifts into the personality of her loli self, something that’s so disturbing that Misaki smashes her head deep into a cement wall to snap her out of it.)

This is a good but not fantastic volume of Excel Saga, notable for Il Palazzo’s personality change (though, his two personas being almost exactly the same, you won’t really notice it as much), and for Excel’s connection to Ropponmatsu. It does have one flaw – there are no notes from Carl Horn this volume, only the sound effects and a brief letter column. This was apparently a last-minute error, but they are dearly missed.

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.

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

There’s a lot going on in this volume, which lays out a lot of the questions regarding Il Palazzo and Excel’s past. Questions which, I note, are still unanswered in the current run 13 years later. Though we at least have a few more ideas…

The first chapter wraps up the sewer infiltration arc from Volume 3, showing that Excel is still a bit of an idiot when it comes to actually listening to people, and we first see Matsuya’s desperate attempts to avoid falling further into the batshit insaneness that her life has become, as she lies point blank to Kabapu about having seen anyone down there. We also have Watanabe trying to figure out if he actually saw Hyatt/Ayasugi-san down there, and a wonderful moment where Matsuya rips into him for being passive.

The next chapter was, I believe, also adapted for the anime. Hyatt is accidentally kidnapped by two Yakuza wannabes, and Excel has to go chasing off after her on a bike. It’s hard to top Hyatt’s trail of dead animals for pure comedy fun, I will admit, and we note that Excel is starting to get used to Hyatt’s occasional deaths. There was one thing I disliked about this chapter, though, one of the few issues I have with the translation. At one point, the elder yakuza wanna be shouts ‘kono amaa zettai!’ at Hyatt. It’s apparently very strong Japanese, and Carl and Dan translated it as ‘you cunt!’. This is a T-rated series, not an M one. I think they could have found another way to put it.

The funniest chapter in the volume is the one where Excel has a toothache, and goes to see the dentist. Of course, this series only has one doctor, and he’s now doing dentistry. It’s very amusing to see Excel as the sarcastic snarker and (mostly) straight man, and almost a foreshadowing of the sort of person she’d become when Elgala was introduced. The doctor, meanwhile, just wants to start yankin’ out teeth, regardless of whether they may need it or not.

Dr. Kabapu’s secretary, Momochi is introduced here. She continues to appear through the series, but we still know next to nothing about her. The very definition of a cool, competent secretary (and she hasn’t opened her eyes either. We also start to see Matsuya spying to get more info on Kabapu, and she definitely finds something – pictures of him in an album looking much the same as he does now, but standing in a Fukuoka with no skyscrapers.

The swimming chapter that follows was very loosely adapted for the anime. It should be noted that the manga version does actually show its male characters. :) Watanabe finds that you should never drink from anything Hyatt has already sipped from, and Matsuya finds that she may have been a national-finals swimmer in high school, but that’s nothing against someone like Excel. (Matsuya still doesn’t recognize Excel, and Watanabe has not put two and two together either.)

And then we have the two-parter where Excel is hit by a car. This was a stunner when it came out in Japan, mostly as it has the series’ first semi-serious cliffhanger. Excel’s accident is short and brutal, and Hyatt, standing there trying to take it all in (complete with a math equation!), faints. When she wakes Excel is gone, having woken and wandered off with no memories of who she is. There are flashes of recognition – notably, when desperate, she wants to cry out to a ‘Lord’ somebody. She then walks by the hospital, where Dr. Not-Blackjack has just tossed a syringe out of an upper-story window. It doesn’t hit her, but she looks up to see it coming at her point-first and has flashes of memory that seems far older than what we’re used to. “Something sharp… something scary… it hurt, it was hard, it was scary…”. Accompanying this are shadowy drawings of Excel being stabbed in the head by something, and her hands covered in gore, followed by Il Palazzo with his head lowered into one hand. Excel comes back to reality to find that she’s crying, and isn’t sure why. Chapter break.

The second chapter features Excel trying to get herself out of the crying jag by slamming her head against a wall, which only increases her injuries. Dazed, she walks randomly through the city, finally collapsing in the arms of what she feels is Il Palazzo. Ironically (BOY, is it ironic – see later volumes), it’s Kabapu, who was on his way to see Watanabe, hospitalized after drinking Hyatt’s drug-laced cocktail in the swimming chapter. They get Excel tended to… and then leave her on a bench. In passing, Momochi asks if Kabapu knows Excel, and he replies that “she bears some resemblance to an old acquaintance of mine.” Finally, Excel runs into Hyatt, who unfortunately dies in front of her so is no help at all. Excel then tears off after Menchi, who is panicking, and ends up leaping into a canal. Falling into water is exactly what her brain needed. She comes to, murmuring about how she wants to follow Il Palazzo forever and begging for forgiveness… and then snaps back to the Excel we know.

There’s one more chapter, dealing with Watanabe leaving the hospital and getting revenge on Iwata, who wrote on his face in permanent marker. But the highlight of the volume is definitely that 2-parter beforehand. We’d seen hints that Rikdo had more going on here than just ‘wacky schtick’, but this is where we start to get a lot of the series’ mythology. It’s completely opaque, and 17 volumes later we still don’t know a hell of a lot more about Excel’s past, but it keeps the fans speculating. Next volume we see the intro of two of the more important cast members, Dr. Shioji and Ropponmatsu.