Excel Saga

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I'm sure by now everyone knows that, like Avaitor with Iron Maiden and Ensatsu-ken with Ninja Gaiden, I absolutely adore this manga (not the fucking anime (which is Excel Saga in name only); not anymore, at least) to death. However, unlike Iron Maiden and Ninja Gaiden, this series of Japacomics has an English-speaking fanbase comprised of probably no more than 500 people.

I will now attempt to summarize the awesomeness of Excel Saga in a lengthy essay that won't even approach the sheer mass of E-K's Yu Yu Hakusho novel review:

Excel Saga is about a rogue spreadsheet program that gains sentience and spreads a deadly computer virus from the mainframe computer of the Il Palazzo Hotel, which is located deep beneath Fukuoka, Japan.

Excel Saga is about a triply-super secret agent codenamed Excel AKA Slammin' Flower Child (real name: unknown / real age: unknown / real gender: probably known / day job: constantly changing / shoe size: mentioned in one of the early volumes). She works for a remarkably pretty man: self-proclaimed Lord Il Palazzo, who suffers from some sort of multiple personality disorder and basically treats her like dirt (she -- and probably he, for that matter -- are both completely unaware of this, though). Together, along with a wooden mannequin and Excel's emergency food supply (Mince Menchi, a dog that looks like a cat), they form ACROSS, a top secret organization whose goal is, you guessed it, to take over the world.

But the world is rather large, and ACROSS is rather small (especially so after Excel torched the mannequin when Il Palazzo promoted it ahead of her). Why have the world when you could have but one country? In fact, why have the country when you could have but one city? Fukuoka it is!

Excel and Lord Il Palazzo

Unfortunately, ACROSS is a non-profit organization, and thus, Excel is desperately poor (hence having a dog merely to use it as emergency rations). This is also due to her inability to hold down a part-time job. Unlike her anime counterpart, Excel in the manga is not relentlessly stupid or obnoxious, she's just hopelessly incompetent. She blames her own failings on government conspiracies attempting to sabotage ACROSS' noble cause, either because she's truly exceptional at twisting the truth or because she actually doesn't know any better (the way it's written, it really could go either way). Rarely does Excel return home to her crappy apartment ACROSS Company Housing with any money in hand, causing both her and Menchi to go hungry (but never quite hungry enough for the former to eat the latter). Menchi is very much aware of her plight, and attempts to escape occasionally, but always fails in some way or another.

Shortly thereafter, Main Combatant Hyatt (who is not from Mars) AKA Convoy Butterfly AKA Chihaya Ayasugi (not her real name) responds to a newspaper classifieds ad and joins Lord Il Palazzo and Latrine Orderly Excel in their plans for world conquest. Lacking Excel's modest (and I mean modest) amount of intelligence, strong will, or good health, Hyatt never really accomplishes much of anything. She flat-lines and coughs up blood a lot (fun fact: Excel Saga predates South Park by a whole year!) and ends up being little more than a burden for Excel along with a source of stress due to her being Il Palazzo's preferred agent.

Hyatt

Later on, we get ACROSS' third (human) hire and Excel's much funnier second foil, Elgala. She is cursed with the inability to hold an internal monologue, and often ends up speaking her darkest and most personal thoughts aloud, much to the chagrin of Excel and Il Palazzo. Elgala does not fit in well with Excel's frugality-at-all-costs! approach, as she is used to living a life of luxury (how, when, or why I have absolutely no idea). She starts out as a rather minor character (though she usually steals Hyatt's spotlight when she does appear), and then later damn near replaces Hyatt, who is relegated to what basically amounts to cameo appearances in later volumes. In a couple of the newest volumes, she actually has more page-time and plot importance than the title character.

Elgala and Menchi

But no conquerors would be complete without some opposite-minded defenders, and that's where Dr. Kabapu and the Department Of City Security come in. Kabapu is a very corrupt government official but not one without good intentions. As it stands, he pretty much runs Fukuoka and wants to protect it from those who might conquer it at any cost, which he usually does using numerous scapegoats and terrorist-like actions. Don't be fooled by his appearance, Dr. Kabapu may look old, but he's actually quite a bit older.

Kabapu

The Department Of City Security consists of Watanabe, -- the unluckiest man in the world who turns into a sexual deviant in the later volumes and has a hopeless romantic attraction to Hyatt -- Iwata, -- a hilarious and hopelessly stupid individual with a childish way of processing information who eventually gets screws in his brain and bolts in his nuts -- Sumiyoshi, -- an overweight dating sim addict who speaks with a thick accent and has more social skills and intelligence than probably any other character in the entire manga -- and Misaki -- a parody of the typical tsundere archetype and possibly the only character in the entire series with control over her own destiny (she is also the love of Iwata's life). They all live in the same apartment complex (they were hired out of convenience), which they just so happen to share with Excel, Hyatt, and (later) Elgala. These folks, along with Dr. Kabapu, start out as supporting characters and minor diversions from what's going on with Excel, but in the later volumes they get bumped up and become major characters, sometimes having more overall page-time than the "real" main cast.

Watanabe, Iwata, and Sumiyoshi
Misaki

Kabapu decides that his department needs a fifth employee (a team's gotta' have five members!), so he enlists the aide of blatant pedophile Gojo Shiouji to construct a robot human capable of defusing bombs named Ropponmatsu. The first prototype fails miserably, so Shiouji constructs a second model more to his tastes (if you know what I mean). That one also turns out to be a failure.

Shiouji
Ropponmatsu Units 1 & 2

The Department Of City Security eventually becomes the Municipal Force Daitenzin (a super sentai (Power Rangers) parody) and has infrequent battles with the agents of ACROSS, which are usually more humorous than they are violent.

Daitenzin Iwata

So, this is like the anime, right? There's not really much of a plot, the characters don't develop, and the comedy is really stupid?
110% wrong! This actually has a good story (though not right from the start), there's lots of character development in every volume (I've come to love almost every one of them), and the comedy is -- for the most part -- clever, witty, and well-written!

Now, if only Viz would re-release volumes 7 and 8 so people could actually buy them for a decent price...

NOW, DISCUSS THIS GREAT SERIES, WHY DON'T 'CHA?


Wow, that felt good. I can see why you guys make all of your descriptive posts super long.

EDIT: Cleaned it up a bit since we don't have working spoiler tags anymore.

[Angus]

It's one of the few manga titles that got the detailed footnote treatment in the US thanks to writers like Carl Gustav Horn, with all sorts of strange in-jokes and references. It also features the good ol' trap door that made the He-Man and Masters of the Universe cartoon in the 1980s so fun to watch. And it seems to fit the recession stage of Japan's economy so it's a good read if you can find it at the library or local bookstore.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Hey, my YYH review wasn't that long at all....of course I wouldn't ever really know for sure since I never actually bothered to read through all of it, myself. I just typed a bunch of words up and posted them and posted them up. Like hell I'd actually bother to waste any time doing something as trivial as reading through what I wrote. How was that review, anyways? Maybe I should get around to reading it myself, sometime.

Anyways, Excel Saga is one of those manga that I've always really wanted to get into, but have never had the means to do so. By now even the more common volumes are harder for me to find in stores and are becoming increasingly rare since they are all out of print, and no groups out there are willing to translate the manga online, so its still really hard for me to get a hold of any of the volumes through any means. Believe me, if I manage to find them and have the money to buy them on me, I WILL definitely get them.

Oh, and even if this manga has an extremely small fan-base, it has its own benefits. For example, since so few people read it in the first place, and since most of the people who do read it are thankfully fans of the series, the fans don't have to deal with a plethora of haters bashing the series to no end. Its something like the 3D NG games constantly get, as well as YYH, and also a lot of my favorite cartoons such as South Park. Though, I guess I would rather have Excel Saga be more popular since that would actually get Viz to make more copies of it, thus making it more accessible to people like me.

Anyways, so far all I know about Excel Saga is the completely unfaithful anime adaptation, which I enjoyed in extremely short bursts, but couldn't take more than a single episode at a time, otherwise I'd lose a ton of brain cells.

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I feel like the series would be more popular if Viz would just re-release volumes 5, 7, and 8. Whenever I try to discuss the series with anyone online, they always say something to the extent of "yeah, I'm interested in reading it, but not if I can't get every book." It's a real problem.

Viz has done a great job with the translation, though, and I applaud them for that. I also applaud them for not cancelling the series (which every other publisher for it outside of Japan has done). The year long wait between volumes is killer, though. Volume 22 was supposed to come out last October, but it got pushed back to this April (a full year since 21 came out last April) after Viz had a bunch of lay-offs. Volume 23's release date is speculated to be April 2012, as that's what it says on Amazon.ca, though I can't find it anywhere else, so it might just be a place-holder. Since there's 25 and counting in Japan, if they keep on this schedule, westerners might not see the end of the series until 2015 or later! It's even more of a bummer if you've seen some of the most recent raws and know that shit has been going down lately.

Factor in that Viz is notorious for cancelling less popular manga titles a couple of volumes away from the end of their respective series runs and that no one online seems willing to do a scanlation (due to the difficulty level of the material at hand), I'm a bit worried that I might not ever see the end of the series in English at all!

[Angus]

I saw some raws for his Municipal Force, but yuck, it had meaningless sex scenes. So glad he changed it to Excel Saga and gave the series a real purpose.

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I saw some raws for his Municipal Force, but yuck, it had meaningless sex scenes. So glad he changed it to Excel Saga and gave the series a real purpose.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure Excel Saga was his first non-pornographic manga. If this is indeed the case, it was also his only one until Mebius Gear, which is as close as something can get to hentai without actually being hentai.

As for Municipal Force Daitenzin, make sure to stay away from Chapter 5 (though it's labeled as Chapter 4) if you don't want to ruin your image of Excel and Watanabe...

EDIT: Can't believe I got that last part wrong!

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Just two months until Volume 22! If it gets delayed again, I will seriously consider seppuku.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I so wish that this series was more available than it is these days, or that I had gotten into it earlier when it was more available at the time. I'm sure I'd love it if I got into reading it, but its just so damn hard to find for me. Most big-franchise book stores that I go to (like Barnes and Noble and Borders and such) don't even carry any of its volumes in stock, anymore (and I would know, since I've checked in both New Jersey and Philadelphia.

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Yeah, it's pretty low-profile. Even the ones that aren't out of print are pretty much only available online, though I'd assume that most book stores will get a couple of copies of 22 when it comes out. Definitely do not start reading from there, since it's right in the middle of an ever-building story and the jokes are a lot more character-based recently (meaning you will likely not find it very funny unless you've been reading since the beginning, or, at least, since it became more focused on character development and plot than straight-up humor).

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Volume 26 just got a release date in Japan. March 4. As of that date, we will be 5 books behind the Moon Runes editions. GO FASTER VIZ OR I WILL EMIT TEARS FROM MY OPTICAL RECEPTORS.

The cover art looks different from Rikudou's usual style. Seems like he might be going for the western comic look now, which is definitely a good thing.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Well, I always got the feeling that Excel Saga was the stand-out work among other comedic manga series, or manga in general. And that's precisely why its probably not that popular, even in Japan, just because every douche-bag anime fan is some lame fucking conformist who wants to see the same thing over and over again and realizes that different things make them feel completely stupid....because they basically are just idiots.

Anyways, putting that mini-rant aside, I think I can probably manage to at least get the first few volumes of Excel Saga online, but I won't get a chance to do that until Spring break (maybe).

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Remember, if you're gonna' order online, http://rightstuf.com is the cheapest place to do it! (ugh, I sound like a marketing campaign)

Anyway, the first few volumes are... not the best. Here's what I recommend you do since some the better early ones are out of print and you probably don't have excesses of expendable funds:
Buy volume 1. This will introduce you to Excel, Hyatt, and Il Palazzo properly.
Watch the following anime episodes that are actually based off the manga online. These cover the key events through volume 5 and introduce characters that are pretty much the same across both versions (at first, at least). There really aren't that many that you'd need to watch, so it shouldn't be too bad. I'll provide links for you in a PM.
Nothing too important happens in volume 6 or 7, so you can skip those.
Read the scan of volume 8 you can find online. Hard copies of this book go for $100+ and neither Rikudou nor Viz will get any of the money you spend on it so you shouldn't feel bad about this. Check your PMs for that, too. This one is definitely a necessary read.
Start buying from volume 9 on. 9 is one of the series' lower points, unfortunately, but the final, double-length chapter is really important and also absolutely awesome.
10 and 11 are freakin' hilarious. Especially 11. Some of the chapters in these two are filled with non-stop laughs.
12 features one of the best chapters in any manga period, but the rest is kind of forgettable and a bit too pedestrian in its humor.
13 formally introduces the actual plot. This is by far the most serious Excel Saga offering. Stick with it.
14 onwards are absolute perfection, aside from 21, which was a little lackluster. Be ready for much darker comedy and tons of character development. You will not enjoy any of these without knowledge of previous events and love for the many great characters, or else I'd just tell you to jump in here.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Sounds great. As soon as I get done with all of this BS application stuff and exams that I'm studying for (I need to put up with this for 2 more weeks before I get my break, I'll be looking into the Excel Saga manga.

[Angus]

Huh? Funimation's taken over Excel Saga (anime)? I guess that means boxset, but ugh, why can't they get Viz to omnibus some older volumes?

http://www.funimation.com/excelsaga/

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What books have Viz omnibus'd? Never seen one in a shop.

Been reading Volume 16 again recently and liking it much, much more this time around than I did back in 2007. I recall finding it depressing, and I think I've finally pinpointed why: the parts involving Teriha Shiouji are a downright slog compared to the rest of the book, which is a comedy goldmine. While the situation of this certain character is depressing, that in and of itself did not cause me to find it so. What caused me to find it depressing is that these parts try to be funny and fail miserably. Umi adds nothing whatsoever to the series; the last truly humorous thing she did was in the introductory side-story about her and the sole function she performs in the plot could have been pulled off by nearly ANY other character with vastly funnier results.

While I'm on the subject of characters I don't like (of which there are two in total), I also hate Miwa when she isn't interacting with Kabapu, as those are the only scenes in which she is anything but obnoxious. On the whole, Umi and Miwa embody the absolutely horrible "anime comedy" that this series is so good at avoiding, though thankfully the latter can actually be interesting at times and they aren't really in it all that much.