Excel Saga, Volume 1 [Paperback]

Rikdo Koshi (Author, Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 13, 2003

Today the city, tomorrow the World! That's the plan of Il Palazzo, the haughty, pretty-boy leader of ACROSS, a secret society based somewhere deep beneath the streets and sewers of Fukuoka, Japan. After setting up house in a cheap apartment, Il Palazzo explains that the budget for world conquest and the budget for room and board must regrettably be kept separate. Their neighbors are a trio of regular guys, whom they hope will overlook the curious comings and goings — not to mention the screams, struggles, and gasoline explosions.

Product Details

• Paperback: 200 pages
• Publisher: VIZ Media LLC; Original edition (August 13, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 156931988X
• ISBN-13: 978-1569319888
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #845,994 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not Like the Anime, and That's Not A Bad Thing., March 23, 2005

By 

Oliver "The Fart-full Dodger" (New Jersey, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Excel Saga, Volume 1 (Paperback)

Excel Saga is a humor manga for those people who really don't like typical manga. This is a book for people angry at the world, and need to see characters so insanely dysfunctional (mind you, I didn't say stupid) that they can feel better about their own lives and jobs. It could be worse, after all? You could cough up gallons of blood at inopportune times (or have a partner that does). Your doctor (who might even be your cousin) could be a misogynistic amoral psychopath who would jump at the chance to use you for (in)human experiments. Your job could be as a civil servant who might be called upon to fight evil (and die) in a ridiculous costume at any moment. Your chief scientist might have a somewhat unhealthy (and creepy) preference in girls. Your roommate might speak(?) entirely in heavily accented subtitles. Your coworker might be the single biggest idiot that ever lived. And of course, you could be a dog, helpless to communicate your constant terror of being kept around for no other reason than as an emergency food supply. Your city might be threatened by a secret organization consisting of three people, and a wooden manakin.

It might sound like chaotically random nonsense, but the creator is a skilled one, handling the madness with a subtle style of humor and writing his characters as nuanced individuals rather than stereotypic archetypes. The most fun part of any gag he comes up with isn't the gag itself, but seeing how the characters react to it.

Excel Saga is a story about all these characters, and how the actions of one can manage to ripple outward and affect characters in the cast they've never even met. The actions of those characters affect others, and so on into infinity. In lesser hands, such a balance would be an overcomplicated mess, but Rikdo keeps things moving at a brisk pace between the different groups of characters.

If you like to see a manga about unique people with unique problems, this is for you. The artwork works extremely well. It doesn't hurt that the creator draws VERY attractive female characters, but manages to make them strong, intelligent (at least as much so as the guys), and believable. Heaven only knows what Dr. Blackjack would do without his nurse to reign him in.

People who go looking for this have probably seen the anime, and thus a warning must be given. Where the anime's humor is like shooting randomly in every direction in the hopes of hitting something funny, the manga is like a silent killer, sneaking up behind you with a knife, waiting for just the right moment to strike, and always when you least expect it. It seems to quiet down and settle into a conventional narrative for a few pages, and then all of a sudden you turn the page only to see a visual gag so completely over the top in its strangeness, yet so believable given the cast involved, you can't help but have it seared upon your mind for the rest of your life (or at least until the next volume).

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One seriously messed up book..., September 11, 2003

By 

C. Mohr "Mr. Me" (Bristol, IL United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Excel Saga, Volume 1 (Paperback)

Allright, if you have seen the Excel Saga anime, not much in this review will be new to you, but if you haven't...
The Excel Saga series is messed up to the point of (god I hate myself for saying this...) zany-ness. It tackles, in it's own strange way, an incredible range of topics, from work to orginized religion, and all of it is funny. Do yourself a favor and pick this one up, it is without a doubt one of the more original mangas to hit the shelves and definitly one of the wittiest.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A funny and action-filled read for manga and comedy fans, November 16, 2003

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Excel Saga, Volume 1 (Paperback)

Excel Saga: Volume 1 begins the original manga (Japanese graphic novel) series so popular, it has been adapted into the outrageous, high-action, bizarre yet exciting and hilarious parody anime "Excel Saga." Though the original storyline bears only a cursory resemblance to the different-genre-parodied-every-episode anime, the personalities of the main characters shine through. There is Excel the enthusiastically upbeat and fanatical albeit notably klutzy loyal fighting minion, Hyatt the genteel and soft-spoken yet frail and sickly to the point of coughing up blood loyal minion, Menshi the adorable stray dog that Excel has adopted as "emergency rations," and Lord Il Palazzo the dreamy and forward-thinking would-be male dictator who is far too proud to acknowledge that his secret organization bent on world conquest operates out of a basement with a chain-pull flush toilet, and consists of himself, two delusional young women and a fluffy dog. Massive property destruction, fistfights, hilarity, personal memories rewritten in one's own self-interest, and a side look at the travails of three eternally poor and date-less male neighbors result. A funny and action-filled read for manga and comedy fans.