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Excel Saga #2
Excel Saga
Stories the director himself said they didn't dare put in the anime!
What happens when you try to act like an anime character in real life? EXCEL SAGA . Two groups of neighbors in an apartment building lead secret lives. One thinks they're trying to take over the city of Fukuoka. The other thinks they're trying to defend it. Only their bosses, would-be conqueror Lord Il Palazzo and obsessed bureaucrat Dr. Kabapu, know the truth behind this increasingly dangerous private game... Too bad neither will let their underlings in on it!
Excel and Hyatt's nice, normal, next door neighbors Watanabe, Iwata, and Sumiyoshi are just a bunch of regular guys--who are about to start suffering from Excel Saga 's chronic irregularity. The mysterious Dr. Kabapu and his devastating secretary Matsuya have recruited these jobless youth for the Environmental Security Administration--to be among the few (the five, actually), the proud, the protectors of Fukuoka. What are the odds that this joy will bring them in conflict with Excel and Hyatt, who just happen to work for their own, rival, scantily-staffed covert organization...dedicated to taking Fukuoka over? Exactly five to two in favor!
What happens when you try to act like an anime character in real life? EXCEL SAGA . Two groups of neighbors in an apartment building lead secret lives. One thinks they're trying to take over the city of Fukuoka. The other thinks they're trying to defend it. Only their bosses, would-be conqueror Lord Il Palazzo and obsessed bureaucrat Dr. Kabapu, know the truth behind this increasingly dangerous private game... Too bad neither will let their underlings in on it!
Excel and Hyatt's nice, normal, next door neighbors Watanabe, Iwata, and Sumiyoshi are just a bunch of regular guys--who are about to start suffering from Excel Saga 's chronic irregularity. The mysterious Dr. Kabapu and his devastating secretary Matsuya have recruited these jobless youth for the Environmental Security Administration--to be among the few (the five, actually), the proud, the protectors of Fukuoka. What are the odds that this joy will bring them in conflict with Excel and Hyatt, who just happen to work for their own, rival, scantily-staffed covert organization...dedicated to taking Fukuoka over? Exactly five to two in favor!
208 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 1997
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
June 7, 2020
The secret organization ACROSS must take over the world. For its own good, of course. But at the moment, they’re a bit short-staffed. Their leader, Il Palazzo, has only two active agents, the hyperactive but not very bright Excel, and Hyatt, whose constitution is either extremely poor or inhumanly good, as she has survived multiple instances of dropping dead. So the first step is to just conquer the city of Fukuoka.
In this volume, their task gets just that little bit harder when four of their neighbors in the cheap apartment building where Excel and Hyatt live are recruited by Doctor Kabapu to join the secret city defense force known as the Environmental Security Administration. Watanabe, Iwata and Sumiyoshi are joined by Misaki Matsuya, a no-nonsense but also unemployed woman. They’re all pretty sure their new boss is insane, but at least it’s a steady government paycheck.
Since ACROSS doesn’t actually pay its agents, much of Excel and Hyatt’s time not on actual missions (the instructions for which are often frustratingly vague) is spent trying not to starve. They’re often perilously close to that condition, much to the consternation of their dog/last-resort food ration, Mince (“Menchi” in the Japanese.)
This absurdist comedy manga was a spinoff of a hentai (porn) manga, minus the sex, and with Excel made the main character. Part of the theme was how tough life was for young people trying to get into the job market during Japan’s long recession in the late 1990s. It’s got a lot of referential humor that doesn’t quite translate, so each volume comes with a lengthy footnotes section.
While the manga didn’t sell well in the US, the loosely-adapted anime which was even more bonkers was popular with American fans in the early 21st Century.
Even if you’re missing most of the references (ACROSS names its agents after hotels), this is still a funny manga with some nifty gimmicks (like the fellow who “talks” only in heavily accented subtitles.)
Content note: Hyatt’s constant near-death experiences can get a little unsettling for the squeamist. More pressingly, while he isn’t in this volume, there is a character in both anime and manga who has a creepy interest in much younger women. (The anime and manga give different explanations.)
Because of the heavy footnoting, I’d recommend this to college-age readers who’ve had some introduction to Japanese culture beyond anime and manga, and enjoy absurdist comedy.
In this volume, their task gets just that little bit harder when four of their neighbors in the cheap apartment building where Excel and Hyatt live are recruited by Doctor Kabapu to join the secret city defense force known as the Environmental Security Administration. Watanabe, Iwata and Sumiyoshi are joined by Misaki Matsuya, a no-nonsense but also unemployed woman. They’re all pretty sure their new boss is insane, but at least it’s a steady government paycheck.
Since ACROSS doesn’t actually pay its agents, much of Excel and Hyatt’s time not on actual missions (the instructions for which are often frustratingly vague) is spent trying not to starve. They’re often perilously close to that condition, much to the consternation of their dog/last-resort food ration, Mince (“Menchi” in the Japanese.)
This absurdist comedy manga was a spinoff of a hentai (porn) manga, minus the sex, and with Excel made the main character. Part of the theme was how tough life was for young people trying to get into the job market during Japan’s long recession in the late 1990s. It’s got a lot of referential humor that doesn’t quite translate, so each volume comes with a lengthy footnotes section.
While the manga didn’t sell well in the US, the loosely-adapted anime which was even more bonkers was popular with American fans in the early 21st Century.
Even if you’re missing most of the references (ACROSS names its agents after hotels), this is still a funny manga with some nifty gimmicks (like the fellow who “talks” only in heavily accented subtitles.)
Content note: Hyatt’s constant near-death experiences can get a little unsettling for the squeamist. More pressingly, while he isn’t in this volume, there is a character in both anime and manga who has a creepy interest in much younger women. (The anime and manga give different explanations.)
Because of the heavy footnoting, I’d recommend this to college-age readers who’ve had some introduction to Japanese culture beyond anime and manga, and enjoy absurdist comedy.
November 2, 2019
As before, the translation notes and cultural explanations at the end of the piece was a much appreciated highlight of the piece, this time there were some detailed notes on types of Japanese humour and the significance of when certain honorifics were used. You really learn a lot from them!
January 20, 2025
The civil servant sentai team is so good
September 2, 2021
I already can't remember much of what happened. Manga does take some getting used to, even more so than Western comics. I hope we'll soon get to the meat of the story, because I'm already getting tired of all the setup.
April 8, 2017
This is where things start to get interesting.
The arrival of Dr. Kabapu (蒲腐, "rotten cattails) begins the actual conflict of the series. Il Palazzo notices almost immediately that now he has an enemy working against him, even if Kabapu makes his Department of City Security before knowing what exactly he has to secure the city from, and sets Excel and Hyatt on preemptive missions of devastation to cut off the new agency in its tracks. With little success, since this is Excel we're talking about.
I mentioned in the previous review that Excel Saga is a satire of city bureaucracy, but I had forgotten--or perhaps not noticed--how obvious it was until rereading it. Dr. Kabapu appropriates funds to create a department under his sole control to deal with threats that he's not sure even exist. When he hires employees, he has them complete pointless tasks without telling them the ultimate purpose of their labors, sends them in bizarre training seminars that seeming have nothing to do with his departments goals, and generally wastes a ton of money because if a bureaucracy comes in under budget, well, then clearly they didn't need all that money in the first place so they should get less next year.
In contrast, ACROSS, a private organization, operates on a shoestring budget, with poorly-trained employees to which it provides no material support, while also still keeping them in the dark about the meaning of their tasks. Hey, it was the Lost Decade.
There's a lot of subtle digs in here that I didn't understand until I read the translator's notes, like how the employees at the nuclear power plant attacked because the abbreviation used by Excel, 原発 (genpatsu) for 原子力発電所 (genshiryoku hatsudensho, "nuclear power plant")' sounded too much like 原爆 (genbaku, "atomic bomb"), and this reflected an actual problem the agency responsible for overseeing nuclear power had with language usage. The anime had a lot of pop culture references that I didn't understand, but I didn't have cultural notes to help me then.
Not a funny as I remember, but more interesting.
Previous Review: Volume One.
Next Review: Volume Three.
The arrival of Dr. Kabapu (蒲腐, "rotten cattails) begins the actual conflict of the series. Il Palazzo notices almost immediately that now he has an enemy working against him, even if Kabapu makes his Department of City Security before knowing what exactly he has to secure the city from, and sets Excel and Hyatt on preemptive missions of devastation to cut off the new agency in its tracks. With little success, since this is Excel we're talking about.
I mentioned in the previous review that Excel Saga is a satire of city bureaucracy, but I had forgotten--or perhaps not noticed--how obvious it was until rereading it. Dr. Kabapu appropriates funds to create a department under his sole control to deal with threats that he's not sure even exist. When he hires employees, he has them complete pointless tasks without telling them the ultimate purpose of their labors, sends them in bizarre training seminars that seeming have nothing to do with his departments goals, and generally wastes a ton of money because if a bureaucracy comes in under budget, well, then clearly they didn't need all that money in the first place so they should get less next year.
In contrast, ACROSS, a private organization, operates on a shoestring budget, with poorly-trained employees to which it provides no material support, while also still keeping them in the dark about the meaning of their tasks. Hey, it was the Lost Decade.
There's a lot of subtle digs in here that I didn't understand until I read the translator's notes, like how the employees at the nuclear power plant attacked because the abbreviation used by Excel, 原発 (genpatsu) for 原子力発電所 (genshiryoku hatsudensho, "nuclear power plant")' sounded too much like 原爆 (genbaku, "atomic bomb"), and this reflected an actual problem the agency responsible for overseeing nuclear power had with language usage. The anime had a lot of pop culture references that I didn't understand, but I didn't have cultural notes to help me then.
Not a funny as I remember, but more interesting.
Previous Review: Volume One.
Next Review: Volume Three.
December 23, 2007
Date read is a guess. This manga is not quite as funny as the anime version, but it's still fun. Two inept and frequently poor agents of a vast (okay, not really) conspiracy try to help cause chaos in the world. Filled with running gags and absolutely insane plots, this is a silly little companion to the anime that I'd recommend for anyone who's a fan of the series.
Read
August 20, 2009Excel Saga, Volume 2 by Rikdo Koshi (2003)
July 5, 2016
3 1/4 stars
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews