Excel Saga, Vol. 26

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

In between all the body swaps, and personality wipes, and past lives, and pure hostile mind takeovers, it’s become increasingly apparent that one of the core themes of Excel Saga (the manga) has been identity. What is it that makes us who we are? Is it the bag of meat we currently inhabit? Is it that we think, therefore we are? What if we have amnesia? What if we’re put into a robot body? What if we are a reincarnation of someone else with similar memories? Lately it seems that our cast, especially Excel, need to have this question answered. And while I’m not sure this volume gives us anything definitive, it is one of the best at showing just how complicated this can actually be.

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Let’s start with Excel, who is now back in her regular old human body after a couple volumes as a Ropponmatsu. Of course, ‘regular old human body’ has never quite applied to Excel, given she is capable of lifting several hundred pounds if she doesn’t think too hard about it, can open doors to ancient civilizations, and clearly has a past which Doctor Kabapu is trying hard to deny. (Kabapu and Shiouji’s greek chorus is one of the more frustrating things going on in this volume, mainly as Kabapu clearly has the answers but doesn’t want to say them out loud, and Shiouji doesn’t care enough.) Unfortunately, Excel, newly invigorated and with Hyatt and Elgala by her side, runs into Il Palazzo, and the shock causes her to have a mental breakdown for the last half of the volume.

Because of course that isn’t really Il Palazzo. Oh, it’s his body, all right. This is actually a major reason why Excel breaks down, as she can’t get over how Il Palazzo-ish he really is… until he speaks. And we finally get to see the truth about Shiouji’s father, Tenmangu. I’ve gotta say, we’ve been expecting him to be possessing Miwa’s body since about Vol. 13, which is… sort of true, only not. No, he’s now in control of Il Palazzo, and Miwa is a Ropponmatsu – one far more powerful than anything Shiouji could ever invent. Of course, this may not really matter all that much, as we’ve never really delved too deeply into who Il Palazzo really is. Excel figures out something is wrong purely due to the ideals she holds so dear – Il Palazzo talks about this “wonderful world”, and she knows her real love believes that this world is truly corrupt. (Given Excel Saga’s plotline, I really have to lean more towards Il Palazzo than Tenmangu here.)

Even if you can understand who someone really is, there’s always the chance of them disappointing you. Both Umi and Hyatt seem to hold Teriha/Excel on an impossible pedestal, one that she’s never really going to live up to. Elgala is more realistic about her expectations of Excel, but gets too lost in her own la-la land to be of any help. Misaki still has trouble rationalizing her love for Iwata, given what a giant doofus he is 90% of the time. Sumiyoshi always found Ropponmatsu 2 to be a loli pain, but is rather surprised by how angry her destruction makes him. And Watanabe disappoints EVERYONE, as his love for Hyatt has clearly not lessened (or ind3eed deepened) one iota.

The next volume of Excel Saga is the final one, and I’m fairly certain that we won’t be getting everything answered. But we should at least clear up a few things, and hope that at least some of these people can live happily ever after. Or at least get a good night’s sleep. God knows they need it.

(Also, Excel’s face when she realizes that’s not Il Palazzo is beautiful yet achingly sad at the same time. This series can still hit the heartstrings when it wants to.)

Happy Marriage?!, Vol. 1

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By Maki Enjoji. Released in Japan as “Hapi Mari” by Shogakukan, serialized in the magazine Petit Comic. Released in North America by Viz.

Viz has started to slowly dip its toe into the waters of josei, first a few years back with Butterflies, Flowers, and now with two new series, of which this is the first. They’re all being put under the Shojo Beat imprint, because a) it’s a brand people look for, which a Signature title isn’t necessarily; and b) honestly, most of these titles hit the same beats as their shoujo titles, it’s just that the protagonists are adults and there is sexual content. It wouldn’t be hard to see something like Happy Marriage?! reimagined to high school and Sho-Comi, with Hokuto as the hot new transfer student or something.

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The basic premise isn’t too hard. Chiwa is an office lady whose father is a bit of a naive idiot, so their family is in heavy debt. She’s trying to deal with it by taking extra jobs, but that’s not going so well. Then the company chairman has the brilliant idea of marrying her to the company president, a smooth yet vaguely jerk-like guy naked Hokuto. Neither of them are really enthused about the idea, particularly Chiwa, who is a twitchy virgin who has no idea how to handle anything like this. Will they gradually grow to love each other as husband and wife and find true love and sexual satisfaction?

It’s hard not to compare this title with Butterflies, Flowers, Viz’s first foray into the world of Petit Comic. Both have the same types of hero and heroine, both involve company power issues (he has far more power than she does), and both heroines tend to freak out when bad or confusing things happen to them. Happy Marriage?!, though, is a far more natural and mellow title than Butterflies, Flowers ever was. There’s no real exaggeration for comedic effect here. No superdeformed heroines, no over-the-top sexist behavior as of yet, and zero Gundam references. Hokuto seems a bit standoffish, and like many shoujo/josei heroes likes to smirk smugly on occasion, but compared to other types I’ve seen he’s not too bad. Likewise we see Chiyo standing up for herself on occasion, though her lack of life experience and self-confidence is no doubt going to be one of the issues this manga deals with through its 10-volume run.

Of course, the problem with not having the appalling lows of Butterflies, Flowers is it doesn’t have the amazing highs either. The comedy and gratuitous appallingness of the latter title was what kept audiences reading, as they wanted to see what outrageousness would happen next. There’s not as much outrageousness in Happy Marriage?!, so what you’re left with is just a bit duller. It feels like one of many other shoujo titles, just grown up. Which is something you could say for a lot of josei, really. Chiwa in particular hasn’t really done much to separate herself from other blushing blonde heroines. Hokuto at least is more reserved than this type usually is, and I liked that we see he doesn’t really understand his new wife any more than she understands him, he’s just better at hiding it.

This is a good start to a romantic series, and I look forward to seeing if it avoids other ‘smutty shoujo’ traps once our heroes get hot and heavy (which they don’t here). I’ll check out another volume. But it’s not making my jaw drop the way its predecessor at Viz did.

Kitaro

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By Shigeru Mizuki. Released in Japan as “Gegege no Kitaro” by Kodansha, serialized in the magazine Weekly Shonen Magazine. Released in North America by Drawn & Quarterly.

This is another of those titles manga fans have been waiting for years to see, and now Drawn & Quarterly are finally releasing what I hope is the first of multiple volumes devoted to it. Shigeru Mizuki’s most famous and influential series, about the adventures of a young yokai and his various supernatural friends, who spends much of his time investigating creepy happenings and trying to stop them. Almost all yokai manga on the market owe a debt to Kitaro, even if, on the surface, this manga is not really all that much like Kamisama Kiss or Natsume’s Book of Friends.

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It starts off fairly slowly, with a few short one-shots involving Kitaro being mysterious, and a large amount of human involvement. There are some very nice scares, though, such as the story about the drunken salarymen who insult yokai at a bar and then get taught a lesson on the train ride home. These stories have Kitaro mostly on his own, which is fine for a while, but he’s pretty much a stoic straight man, so the series needs some spicing up after it gets going. Enter Nezumi Otoko (Rat Man), a yokai who is always out for himself above any other. His appearance adds a lunatic joy to the proceedings, as you’re never quite sure if he’s been possessed by evil, is changing sides merely to save his own skin, or is genuinely being a complete ass. Usually it’s all three.

As the collection goes on, the stories get longer and more complex. One tale has Kitaro and several of the stronger yokai (including future series regulars Konnaki Jiji, Sunakabe Baba, and Ittamomen) headed to an island that has been taken over by Western monsters such as Dracula and Frankenstein. At first I was expecting this to be a fairly lighthearted romp, but things got surprisingly dark and serious for our heroes. Even more impressive is the largest story in the book, which shows Kitaro joining an expedition to track down an immortal yokai monster, but being hindered (and later completely betrayed) by an egotistical young scientist who wants the credit and glory of single-handedly discovering it. What eventually happens is a giant kaiju battle, a la Godzilla. This gives us some of the best art of the series, and also has Nezumi Otoko bitchslapping the villain over and over again, something I will never get tired of reading.

Contrary to today’s hipper, sexier Shonen Magazine, the stories that ran in the 1960s version are totally child-friendly, and I think that still applies today. Younger kids may get freaked out a bit by some of the scarier things, particularly Kitaro and his father, who is an eyeball that lives in Kitaro’s own empty socket, and pops out grotesquely from time to time. For the most part, however, these are great, fast-paced ghost stories with action and laughs that any child can enjoy.

And it goes without saying that adult manga fans should enjoy this as well. It’s fairly episodic – there really aren’t any ongoing plot threads beyond ‘Kitaro discovers new yokai threat’ – but that’s mostly irrelevant. You’re here to see a good story well told, some really creepy yokai, and the work of a master craftsman in what has proven to be his greatest work. Highly recommended.