Excel Saga

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Excel Saga is difficult to recommend to anybody, with a convoluted plot that differs from the anime and really obscure jokes that most western readers wouldn't catch unless given an explanation from the translator. Even so, if you decide to read Excel Saga on it's LONG 27 volumes, you won't regret it. (emphasis on long,not because 27 volumes is a big amount, but because this manga has so much dialogue and jokes and plot points that it will most likely overwhelm you).

STORY: The plot is Excels Saga biggest strenght and also , it's major flaw. The story is convoluted, filled with flashbacks and mysteries that ... don't get much of an explanation, or get explained so later in the story that you won't even remember what plot point is referring to, so to get your own answers you should read this manga at the very least 2 times, which can be tiresome due to the huge amount of subtle dialogue and jokes. You might finish the manga without understanding anything that happened. Leaving aside some of the negative aspects, this is a comedy manga at first glance and an action-mystery one when you look deeper. The plot starts simple enough, focusing on comedy, but will get more subtle and intriguing, catching your whole attention and interest in the process. BE AWARE though, Excel Saga shares ONE MAJOR plot point with another work by Rikudou Koshi, named "Holy Brownie". As of the date of this review, Holy Brownie has not been translated.

ART: An absolute master piece of the mid nineties, Rikudou Koshi's art is excellent when it comes to detail, character design, anatomy and expressions. Backgrounds are good enough as a suplement to the characters. If you know Rikudou Koshi, you might know that he used to work on hentai doujins, so he definitely puts all the focus and detail on the female cast of characters,while males get drawn in a more comedic or simpler form. Also, talking about the comedy, Excel Saga is great when it comes to slapstick comedy and comedic character expressions. The manga ended on 2011, so you can easily see how much Rikudou's art improved.

CHARACTER: The characters are second to none. Filled to the brim with personality, you really care about the characters and their conflicts while you're reading. Most characters have a spot in the light, so no one get's forgotten by the author. The characters, while not realistic due to the fantastic and comedic aspects of the plot, are really well written, with a lot of subtleties that makes them more and more interesting while the plot goes on. The character interactions are also really well done, probably the best positive in this category, with complex,subtle emotions and reactions between them.

ENJOYMENT: It's hard to say how enjoyable Excel Saga is. Taking into account the LARGE amount of dialogue,obscure jokes, and with how complex and confusing the plot gets. The plot can be frustrating when it doesn't explain what happened or what X dialogue actually ment, due to the subtleties of the characters, so I often found myself thinking for a little while on my head, recapitulating all the major plot points and forming a timeline in my mind. If you like a deep plot that it's buried between comedy and fan service, you will enjoy this one, but we aware that it won't be an easy read.

OVERALL: A great manga, totally deserving of a 10 on my opinion. Great (albeit confusing) plot, great characters, great comedy, great art. I don't regret putting time into reading this really underrated manga. There's definitely more to Excel Saga than what is in simple view. Rikudou Koshi's best work to date. VIZMEDIA translation is excellent.

First Zaregoto and now this, it pains me to read stuff that are kind of underrated, at the very least in the west. The manga has only 5 thousand members as of today, yet a lot of generic stuff has so many :(.

Anyway my point is, it is that good, I loved Excel Saga's manga, and it being underrated should, by no means, stop people from reading it. Probably as many other people, I know Excel Saga because of the anime. I rewatched the anime while reading this and honestly, the anime's story isn't that good in comparison, so I think what I really liked ... about it, was the characters. (and surprisingly I preferred the spanish dubs rather than the subs)

The manga is so much interesting! It starts off pretty slow, with the usual shenanigans the anime had, having the usual plan of domination of the day for it to fail, and then repeat. After a while, it starts moving on into a different direction, in which you just can't stop reading. It keeps hitting you with so many mysteries which honestly I thought some were gonna be explained not so late, but actually almost all answers are in the final volume.

It's really far from generic to be honest, and even if it's 27 volumes, like another review says, Excel Saga has a LOT of dialogue, so it might be hard to get into it at first, I may have skipped a few things Excel said, specially since she uses a lot of words from other languages.

I really recommend it, although I can't quite pinpoint what kind of genre this is, and to who I should recommend it. Someone say it's more of a political satire, but honestly that just sounds more boring than what it actually does. It's mostly action/comedy/sci-fi, but some times it goes thought different phases. You have to read it for yourself to understand it.

I've finished reading this manga up to volume 21 (as of this writing, the most recent english-translated volume), and I'm ready to write a review of it.

Like most people, my first exposure to the world of Excel Saga came with the wacky 26-episode anime from 1999. You should know before you begin the manga that the anime and the manga are completely different monsters. While the anime revels in over-the-top insanity, the manga is a lot more down-to-earth. Characters and situations are presented in a much more realistic fashion. Rather than parody of anime tropes, the primary comedic focus here is social and political satire. ... It gives a skewed look at what an actual attempt to take over a modern Japanese city would look like.

The basics of the anime are present, of course. Il Palazzo is still the leader of the secret organization of ACROSS. Excel and Hyatt are still his (enthusiastically hyper and dangerously ill, respectively) trusted female agents who carry out missions to hopefully bring about the conquest of F City. Opposing them are Kabapu and his handful of disinterested average joes (and one jane). The brilliant Dr. Shioji's Ropponmatsus generally do most of the fighting. Like the anime, Excel and Hyatt do live poor for most of the series, and most of the humor in the early volumes comes from them being forced to take part-time jobs to sustain themselves (during which they typically observe some form of corruption or general economic debauchery). Things you won't see in the manga that you'll remember from the anime include Pedro, Nabeshin, That Man, the Puchuus, and more.

Over time, the series begins to shy away from comedy, and the development of an ongoing plot takes first priority. Many characters are introduced who never appeared in the anime, such as Umi, Miwa, and the spoiled, beautiful Elgala, a third ACROSS agent frequently foiled by Excel's thrifty lifestyle. Fanservice is kept to a minimum until somewhere around her introduction (although it never reaches the heights of what the anime achieved in that regard).

Rikdo Koshi's art is really nice, with lots of fine details. I wish I could see it larger than in the usual manga size, I feel like a lot of subtleties are lost on Viz's tiny pages. The characters are Excel Saga's high point. The cast is really diverse and well-written. None of them are quite normal, but their personalities are so well-rounded that they feel like someone you could actually meet anyway.

Some people won't like Excel Saga because it's so downplayed and subtle compared to the anime, which I guess is understandable. I can't really recommend this to everyone; even without factoring in the differences from anime it's still very different from any other manga I've read, comedy or otherwise. There's no romantic subplot, and there aren't any schoolgirls doing random/cute things. It's just an irreverent and really likable story about conquest, power, and the people who seek it. If you're looking for a humor manga that's a little different from the usual stuff, check this out.