Sean Gaffney

At last, after 11 years, we have the 27th and final volume of Excel Saga translated. To sum up my review, I was pretty much satisfied with the ending. it still managed to be very confusing, and I’m still a bit iffy on the details of Il Palazzo’s origin and the Cores, but emotionally, the story hits all the right beats, and thematically, it resolves itself beautifully. With that in mind, let’s go through some things one by one and see if we can dig deeper into things, though in no particular order.

Misaki and Iwata, first of all. We started the series off with Misaki as pretty much the only one in the entire group who had normal reactions. Indeed, the one time we were supposed to infer that she was upset and blushing deeply, she had her back to us so that we couldn’t see her expression. I have no doubt that Rikdo was doing this deliberately to save it all for this ending. Misaki’s had a very bad last few days, and her nerves were already starting to get a little shredded even while they were trapped in ACROSS’s base. Then she has to deal with Iwata, who she’s always had complicated romantic feelings towards, having sacrificed himself for her. Except… as they arrive back at their own base, it turns out that this was in fact a robot controlled by Iwata while his body healed – a fact that Umi is rather surprised everyone was not aware of.

While Iwata’s robot body has, at times, been occupied by various opposing forces, I think we have to accept that some of the time we’ve seen him act more maturely it has actually been him acting more maturely. Character development in Excel Saga is rather hit-and-miss, to be honest, but if we can accept that Misaki has come to terms with her feelings for Iwata – as she seems to do after the big reveal here – than we have to accept that Iwata has become less goofy and more heroic because of his own feelings for her. Honestly, saving her at the cost of his own life is the sort of super sentai thing that Iwata would love anyway, and I suspect even if that was his real body he’d have done the same thing.

In any event, after seeing Iwata’s malnourished but very much human body, alive and reasonably well, Misaki snaps and gives him a Big Damn Kiss. And then a Big Damn Beatdown. And then she finally cracks, sobbing helplessly in a full-page closeup, as we finally see everything catch up to her in the best/worst way possible. Naturally, for someone like Misaki this is the most humiliating thing imaginable, so it’s not surprising she immediately bolts. That said, after recovering she and Iwata have seemed to come to terms with whatever it is they have, and he’s even living with her (Mostly as he’s still legally dead), which she can deal with with only the most minor of blushes. It’s very heartwarming.

Watanabe and Sumiyoshi get less focus, but each also gets resolution in their lives, even if they can’t quite escape working for Kabapu. (I will leave the revelation that they’re all his descendents to the side, and then walk away and leave it to be thrown out by the waitress afterwards.) Watanabe gets his heart’s desire, only to have it ripped away from him when ACROSS revives and takes over the world. But then, at the very end, he does get Hyatt back, or at least “Ayasugi”. (This is actually a change from the ending in the Young King Ours magazine, but I’ll get into that later). Likewise, Sumiyoshi is alive and well, though how much he actually wanted the return of Ropponmatsu 2 into his life is questionable.

As for Shiouji and Umi… sigh. This is one of the bits of the ending I’m not thrilled with, to be honest. Shiouji being a lolicon has been with us since the moment he was introduced, though, and even though Rikdo tried to dial it back a bit and explain it through the introduction of Miwa, it’s never really gone away. As for Umi, well, she’s in love with Shiouji, and if he’s found a way to loli-fy her FOR SCIENCE, I can see her going along with it just to make him happy. But it’s not remotely healthy, as he himself indicates. I find it more interesting that Menchi ends up with Umi… I suppose it might be the closest thing to Teriha that Excel can give her. (This was also changed for the book ending.) In any case, let’s leave the scientist and his loli off to the side as well.

Momochi, it turns out, was nothing more or less than the most capable executive assistant in the world, and though I wish she’d gotten more depth, I will content myself with that. As for Kabapu, I’ve never really liked him, mostly as he’s not all that likeable. There’s a brief fakeout here where you think that Rikdo might actually kill him off, but in the end he’s back to laughing insanely and plotting wars against Il Palazzo, mostly as he really doesn’t know how to do anything else. It ends in his abject surrender much faster than usual, though, and he’s forced to dress in an embarrassing costume (not that he is remotely embarrassed by it) and join ACROSS himself Even post-invasion, he’s bored and wants to blow stuff up. Kabapu is an eternal child, really.

Hyatt and Elgala get to survive and live on Earth having some modicum of a regular life. This is a change, as I’ve noted earlier, from the original magazine ending, where Hyatt, Elgala and Menchi were forcibly abducted and taken on Il Palazzo’s ship along with Excel. It was an amusing ending, but it was a bit too cynical and comical, I expect. Seeing Hyatt get the change to start over with Watanabe (who is thankfully no longer remotely evil) and Elgala grump about life but at least no longer being a fugitive from justice, is more heartwarming. There’s also some interesting dialogue that implies that Hyatt and Elgala are similar to Excel in many ways, and it notes that Excel “fixed” them by returning them to the apartment complex like this – indeed, the core notes they were “unique failures”. Both have occasionally exhibited supernatural endurance – in Hyatt’s case, though undeath, and in Elgala’s by merely surviving being near Excel. They are untapped potential. I wish them well.

Sigh. OK, let’s talk Cores. There is still much of this I don’t quite get, I will admit, but suffice it to say that there seem to be multiple cores that can control multiple artificial humans. This is complicated by Tenmangu, Shiouji’s father and the maddest of the mad scientists we’ve seen. (Notably, his face is never quite shown, leaving him to look a lot like the hero of a dating sim – perhaps School Days, given what a loathsome man he is at heart.) He’s the one who’s seen controlling Il Palazzo – basically, he’s the “competent” Il Palazzo. There are also two cores, a chaos and an order core. The chaos core is the one that’s put into Miwa’s body – through Tenmangu – but I think it’s also what was “let out” by Excel’s hand at the cliffhanger for Vol. 26. This is the ‘horndog’ Excel we briefly see here – the core is enjoying being back in a human body, and is quite willing to experiment on Misaki, Umi, Il Palazzo, or anyone else who might want to get it on.

This leads me to a side note – how much does this tie into Holy Brownie? Holy Brownie is an untranslated/unscanlated fantasy series that Rikdo wrote for the tie-in magazine Young King Ours+ at the same time he was writing a lot of Excel Saga. It stars two ‘Brownies’ – Piola and Fio – who are sent to Earth by God to try and advance humanity by urging them to attempt impossible tasks. It was filled with nudity, sexual situations (sometimes involving minors), and comedic violence, and was a lot darker than the premise suggests, so do not ever expect to see it over here – it’s also out of print, so scanlations are also unlikely. In any case, the relationship between Il Palazzo and the Chaos Core possessing Excel reads a lot like Holy Brownie, it changes Excel’s hair black and develops ‘flat line’ eyes much like Holy Brownie, and things aren’t helped by the Core calling Il Palazzo ‘Pio’. Honestly, I expect even if I had read Holy Brownie translated, I’d still be confused, but clearly there’s a tie in somewhere here.

In any case. The Chaos Core has a lot of memories that look familiar to us – we’ve seen them as far back as Vol. 4, when Excel first got amnesia – and seem to imply that much of what went on throughout Excel Saga was carried out for the benefit of Il Palazzo. That said, Excel doesn’t really care much about any of this. We see a sort of ‘Herman’s Head’ landscape in her mind (yes, yes, go Google it), where the ‘default’ snarky Excel watches those memories and rails about how confused she is (probably speaking for the reader, to be honest). We also see Teriha, who is only concerned for the safety of Umi and the others – and once ‘reabsorbed’ into Excel, Excel suddenly grows concerned as well, so therefore we might think of Teriha as her conscience in some way. We also see a crabby military sergeant Excel type, who seems to represent the ACROSS soldier in her. The end of the manga implies she has almost infinite personalities that she can control, and the two amnesia arcs we saw in the series were different ones coming to the foreground.

Excel makes a very good point to Tenmangu here, though – she isn’t a follower who simply trails after Il Palazzo. She’s his John the Baptist, blazing a trail so that he may pass without hindrance. She’s the advance guard. And more to the point, her love for Il Palazzo is pure and innocent (given her implied creation by Il Palazzo, I think this is a good thing), so what really gets her to fight back and take over her own mind once more is the chaos core starting to make out with him – this makes her cry tears of blood. But take control she does, and once Excel is back in the house, there’s no stopping her. Remember the incompetent goofball of Vol. 1? Yeah, she’s long gone. Excel can eliminate the Chaos Core, beat the crap out of Tenmangu and make him her lackey, start a war (with many mini-Excels also strongly reminiscent of Holy Brownie) to take over Fukuoka, and eventually use a robot army to take over the world. This is how far she’s come.

…and then they’re ll bored, and decide to abandon earth and leave. Il Palazzo and Kabapu’s boredom has been an issue throughout the series, with each noting that, as Mai famously put it, “Victory is boring.” Excel has no desire to actually FIX Earth, despite its corrupt nature, or even run it via their secret organization. World Conquest is simply the end goal, and once that’s done, there’s nothing keeping her there (old ladies aside – nice final joke there, Rikdo). What matters is that she’s succeeded and pleased Lord Il Palazzo, and that the others who helped her are as reasonably happy as they can be. With that, it’s off to outer space, because that’s where Il Palazzo wants to go. It’s not a satisfying ending in terms of the plot so much as a satisfying ending in terms of the mood. The themes of Excel Saga are resolved.

Favorite moments in this volume:
—Possessed Excel groping Elgala and Misaki, one last blast of fanservice from our perverted author.
—the aforementioned crying blood
—the shot of Excel holding her arm back from killing everyone in the room
—”Umi, you’ve got to call her name LOUDER!”
—”Is it your core that feels sad?”
—’Il Palazzo’s dramatic rope pull to save the day (briefly)
—all of what follows, as Excel reaffirms her core values and defeats the Chaos Core
—”Whoa, check it out! It’s like a solidified mass of my abstract loyalty!”
—”Doing things is what I, Excel, do!” (What would Elgala say about Excel stealing her speech patterns?)
—the cliffhanger with Misaki falling into the abyss
—Iwata’s Big Damn Hero moment
—Misaki’s complete breakdown
—Elgala and Hyatt’s faith in Excel, complete with “she wouldn’t die even if you killed her”.
—Kabapu falling asleep, looking as ancient as he ever has.
—”IS THIS THE DRUNKARD’S DEN?!”
—seeing Dr. Black Jack and his nurse, as well as our favorite Matsumoto parodies, one last time
—the last third of the book essentially being Excel Saga’s Greatest Hits
—Golgo 13 Hyatt, with little chibi-Excels
—the “fuck everything” expression on Misaki, Iwata and Sumiyoshi’s faces
—Elgala strapped into a dangerous death machine, just because we needed her humiliated one last time
—”Suicide bombers are so lame.”
—Misaki dressed as an ACROSS member
—Kabapu’s ridiculously tight-crotched outfits.
—Excel browbeating Tenmangu
—the Excel Robot Army conquering the world in two pages
—Watanabe and “Miss Ayasugi” meeting cute – again – and Elgala’s disgust at this
—the final two page spread of Excel, happy and content in Il Palazzo’s arms

I offer tremendous thanks to Carl Gustav Horn, Kyoko Kondo, Viz Media, and everyone involved in bringing us this series. My love knows no bounds. It’s also entirely available digitally in North America, for which I thank Shonen Gahosha giving permission. I love this series to death. Go buy it. HAIL IL PALAZZO!

By Hajime Isayama. Released in Japan by Kodansha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Bessatsu Shonen Magazine. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics.

Sometimes you want lots of characters and plot development, with surprise revelations out the wazoo, aadn sometimes you just want to watch big guys beating the snot out of each other. We actually get both here, but it’s the latter that gets most of the attention, as the cover art will attest. As if to announce that his artistic skills have at last improved to ‘passable’, Isayama gives us a chapter almost entirely devoted to Titan-Eren being a seething ball of rage and trying to punch all his problems. Amusingly, it almost works this time.

The majority of this volume is devoted to the Armored and Colossal Titan trying to escape with Eren and Ymir, and Eren attempting to prevent that happening. This means the above-mentioned battle royale, and it’s actually a lot of fun. The use of the flashback is well-placed here, reminding us that Annie and Reiner may seem like obvious suspicious people now, but they were once our heroes’ trusted comrades. The interaction between Annie and Mikasa in particular is quite amusing, though as always I could do without Mikasa’s jealousy. Chapter 44 is named after a slogan in Mixed Martial Arts, and even as a Titan, Eren puts his moves to good use.

It’s all for naught, though, as the villains get away with what they came for. This does give us a chance to see a more vulnerable Mikasa, who has spent far too much time being either a supersoldier of a jealous would-be lover. Here we see a bit of the child that she was never allowed to be, and it’s very appropriate that Hannes be the one to show up and give her and Armin a pep talk. For all that Mikasa’s obsession with Eren is disturbing, at heart it’s the obsession of a girl who just wants to be near the one she loves most.

The second half of the volume teases us about revealing more information regarding Beast Titan and company, but in the end is far more interested in fleshing out its characterization. Reiner in particular is having difficulty coming to terms with his actions, and Ymir notes that he went so deep undercover that he actually seems to have separated the part of him that’s a soldier from the part of him that’s a Titan, and can’t really get them back together. (Bertolt doesn’t seem to have this issue, though it’s possible we’ll get to see more of his emotional issues next time.) As for Eren, possibly the funniest part of this volume is when he realizes that in order to get anywhere with Reiner, he has to control his emotions. This lasts about 3 pages before ending in screaming, as you would expect.

As for Ymir, it’s become clear she does *not* in fact know everything, but she can certainly make some educated guesses, and is just about to when Reiner threatens her obvious weak spot, and Ymir decides to clam up. (It’s played seriously, but I couldn’t help but imagine Reiner and Bertolt as the Vercotti Brothers from Monty Python – “Nice Krista you’ve got here, Ymir. Be a shame if something… happened.” “Yeah, fings break, don’t they, Ymir?”)

There’s even more that I could discuss (Hange is absolutely terrific in this volume), but I think you get the gist. Attack on Titan remains riveting reading. And we have at last ‘caught up’, so be prepared to wait till April to see what happens next. (Or just go to Crunchyroll and read up to the current chapter.)

By William Shakespeare. First published in Britain in 1597 by John Dexter (Q1), then in 1599 by Cuthburt Burby (Q2). Review copy from ‘The Arden Shakespeare: Third Series’, edited by René Weis.

This actually came out in printed format a couple of years ago, but I never reviewed it, mostly as I don’t have much to say about Romeo And Juliet as a play. It’s sort of like giving your opinion on Hamlet – I’m not sure where to begin, or if my opinion is even relevant. I’d really never gotten as attached to it as I had to, say, Measure for Measure or Troilus and Cressida, though I can recognize its greatness. However, it coincidentally happened to be the first Arden Shakespeare release to come out as an ebook – I got mine on Kindle via Amazon – and so I thought I’d take a look, seeing what the ebook version can give to me, and also reassessing the play.

I generally prefer Shakespeare’s comedies to his tragedies, so it helps that this one is structured very much like a comedy till the deaths start happening, with lots of back and forth between servants and comedic sexual banter from Mercutio. But where in Much Ado the characters might get a bit angry at times, here almost everyone is constantly on edge – the first scene has the two families come to blows pretty much because they walk past each other – and therefore even comedic situations can ignite a spark. This is not helped by Mercutio (again), who practically goads Tybalt into killing him. Mercutio is much beloved as a character, mostly as he’s a more ‘modern’, with it guy compared to soppy Romeo and raging Tybalt, but he’s just as bad at keeping his temper and not doing dumb things.

And so tragedy does happen, as the crazy scheme to feign Juliet’s death till Romeo can come spirit her away goes soup. Juliet is one of the great female characters created by Shakespeare (which yes, was created for a young boy to perform), and it’s not just to avoid scandal that the actresses are usually much older than the ‘about to turn 14’ Juliet is. The audience is willing to suspend disbelief in order to see a truly stellar piece of acting, and Juliet gives a lot of fuel to burn there. Not to sell Romeo short – he starts off as a callow youth going through the motions of being lovestruck, but the way Shakespeare changes his vocabulary once he meets Juliet is one of the best parts of the play.

I actually found it easier to read this as an ebook – the printed version has the annotations (telling you what this Elizabethan term meant, etc.) on the bottom of the page, but your eyes still bounce up and down constantly as you track when the next note is. With the ebook you can tap to the endnote, then tap right back, making it flow better. The endnotes and annotations are positioned well – some ebooks have issues with endnotes, meaning you have to wait 30 seconds for the book to ‘catch up’ to you before you can return to the text, but not here. The only issue I had was with the facsimile of Q1 being too small to read on my phone, but larger ebook devices shouldn’t have that problem.

The scholarship here is good – Weis’ introduction is informative without overstaying its welcome, and the text fuses together Q1 and Q2 in ways that make sense (and are explained throughout), making this a very readable Romeo And Juliet. I suspect it was chosen to debut the ebook editions simply as it was one of the more recent books – formatting books like these doesn’t come quickly – and would not be surprised if Coriolanus, which came out in 2013, is the next one we see. In any case, those looking to dip their toes into Critical Editions of Shakespeare’s plays or just wanting a good readable ebook Romeo and Juliet should greatly enjoy this edition.

By Nozomi Yanahara. Released in Japan by Media Factory, serialization ongoing in the magazine Comic Flapper. Released in North America by Digital Manga Publishing.

I must admit, as I got further and further into this series, it kept reminding me of a Hakusensha shoujo. The art style and tendency towards tinny textual comments in particular, not to mention that one of the characters is a straight up Expy of Shinobu from Teru Teru x Shonen. And sure enough, the author worked for Hakusensha for years doing one-volume short series for LaLa and LaLa DX before starting this series, her longest, for Comic Flapper. Flapper is sort of a seinen title, but in practice tends to be ‘shoujo for adult males’ a lot of the time. And for this title, the adult male is also the star of the show, as the titular Takasugi takes in his 12-year-old cousin after her mother dies.

(The cover art has been slightly changed for the print edition, but this is the only image I could find.)

It’s honestly really hard not to compare this to Bunny Drop. Takasugi-san’s Obento has an awkward single male, around 31, who ends up being the relative who takes in a quiet and closed-off child still grieving for the death of her parent. Things are awkward but they slowly begin to bond and forge a life together, with the help of his workplace friends, one of whom begins to have a major crush on him. Takasugi seems to be somewhat bad at reading people’s hearts, despite having a Ph.D in Geography (I agree with Anna from Manga Report, by the way, clearly Cultural Anthropology is what’s implied here). Luckily, he improves over the course of the volume to a certain extent.

The interesting thing here is that he and Kururi, his cousin, end up bonding over their shared love of bentos, which his aunt made for him when he was growing up and then continued to make for Kururi when she was growing up. Kururi really comes alive when she’s comparison shopping and stressing over food prices, which are really important to her (to an extent her obsession with food almost reads like a function of her grief, but I think a lot of it was there to begin with). This is not a foodie manga by any means – you get no recipes, and will have to google to see what Kimpira Burdock is, as there are no translation notes – but the food seems to help tie everything together, both with Takasugi’s new family and with his friends and colleagues.

The series is seven volumes and still going in Japan. It’s also, unlike Bunny Drop, not scanlated and spoilered to hell and back. Which makes it all the more awkward that the first volume ends by showing us that 12-year-old Kururi has a giant crush on her 31-year-old cousin, and is drawing charts to see if they can get legally married. I’m hoping the series backs away from this pairing eventually – there is a running gag of everyone thinking Takasugi is a horribly creepy pervert that I had thought was there to show people the title wouldn’t go that way, and Kosaka (the colleague who has a crush on him) is adorable and I really want to see that relationship develop instead. But I can’t deny that this is Japan, and it’s possible that the manga might go down that road eventually. So if Bunny Drop burned you, consider yourself warned.

Overall, though, this was cute and adorable, and I managed to like all the characters quite a bit. I want to see Kururi grow and open up to others, and of course I want to see them eat more food. I will be checking out the next volume of this series (Due out in May, theoretically).

By Yoshikazu Yasuhiko; Original Story by Yoshiyuki Tomino and Hajime Yatate; Mechanical Design by Kunio Okawara. Released in Japan by Kadokawa Shoten, serialized in the magazine Gundam Ace. Released in North America by Vertical, Inc.

There are spoilers in this review for this volume of Gundam, though not future ones.

As you might imagine by the subtitle of this particular volume, our heroes finally reach Jaburo and are able to have the ship refitted. What’s more, surprise, everyone decides to enlist… though not everyone is happy about this. In the meantime, though, this is still Gundam, which means we get to experience the horrors of war, the death of beloved crew, and the ‘good guys’ behaving in a way that makes them look just as bad as the ‘bad guys’.

I dpo wonder sometimes how much Yasuhiko is writing for new readers unfamiliar with things (like me), and how much of this is paced towards folks who know what’s going to happen from having watched the TV series. I ask this because Lieutenant Matilda, who walks around White Base with every male salivating around her, is basically a perfect soldier, and chose a job in the supply corps as it’s the best way she can serve in this time of need, is just walking around wearing a sign saying “Hi, I am going to die”. (One can argue that Ryu is as well, but he’s been around from the start. Indeed, Ryu and Matilda’s deaths being so close together was rather startling to me, and felt oddly paced.) I do wonder if Matilda’s foreshadowing was done deliberately as the author knew it wouldn’t be a surprise. In any case, she is a terrific character.

Speaking of which, I liked the differing reactions to the deaths of Matilda and Ryu. After Ryu dies, Hayato has a bit of an emotional breakdown, and Amuro tries to snap him out of it with a rousing speech and a “snap out of it” punch. Unfortunately, Amuro is still really emotional himself, so the whole thing degenerates into a fight. Later on, we meet Lt. Woody, who is in charge of the refit at Jaburo, and also Matilda’s fiancee. After Amuro tries to apologize for being unable to save her, Woody gives him the rousing speech he should have given to Hayato, with the backing of more maturity and experience. It was nice to see.

Not that experience means everything here. I had wondered why the kids were being SO horrible and obnoxious throughout the first half of this volume, then I got to Part Two, where they essentially save the day. These are war orphans, and they’re also little brats, but they’re smart as whips, and I will take a little unrealism in my story for the sake of them being awesome and getting rid of almost all those bombs within just a few minutes. This allowed Jaburo to get the jump on the Zeon attack, headed by Char (who is fantastic, and fails only due to a combined effort from Woody and Amuro) and Garcia (who is a cartoon villain who gets his cartoon villain comeuppance, though it’s worth noting that the series shows how dangerous cartoon villains can be when ordering actual troops to their deaths).

It will be interesting to see where things go from here. There’s several open plot threads, and not just in regards to the war. Amuro clearly has some type of PTSD, and getting psychotropic drugs from the medical crew at Jaburo so they can try and see if he’s a Newtype isn’t helping. Meanwhile, Bright and Mirai continue to get closer, despite her having a fiancee (something Bright reacts poorly too). At one point it looks as if he’s reading her thoughts, and I’m not sure if that’s deliberate or not. Volume 5 is called Char & Sayla, though, so I expect it will build on the revelation we got at the end of this volume. In any case, this is a series that everyone should be reading, and each volume builds on the last to make a real epic.

Let’s not talk Yokusaru Shibata dressing Sayla up as a buxom maid in the extras, though, which merely served to remind me why 81Diver isn’t licensed over here.