Excel Saga

Another year goes by, a new volume of Excel Saga comes out, and I once again start this thread to see if anyone on the internet has read it. Has anyone here read it?

I read it, but haven't gotten to the latest one yet due to it being sold out in the local bookstores.

And it's too complicated for online scanlators to scan it...

Picked it up a few days ago.

Definitely one for the "Best series one reads/talks about" list.

Now we just pray to Il Palazzo that Viz doesn't just drop the title (though I suspect they'll more or less let the Viz Media line die with the last volume of Fullmetal Alchemist at the end of the year).

Oh good, I'm not the only one :D My copy of vol. 22 just shipped yesterday, so hopefully I'll have it tomorrow or Monday. It's actually one of the few manga I go out and purchase, along with Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service.

@Akuma: Luckily for us, it's one of editor Carl Gustav Horn's favorite series, which is probably the only reason we're still getting it from Viz, and Kurosagi and Eden: It's An Endless World over at Dark Horse. But yeah, it's always nerve-wracking when Viz puts out something non-shonen and/or not mega-popular; luckily, Naoki Urasawa's stuff seems to sell pretty well, and we're still getting Bokurano.

edited 15th Apr '11 10:14:36 AM by rbx5

Oh man I'd completely forgotten about volume 22 due to the extremely slow release schedule. I wonder if my fanart made into it. Too bad I won't get to pick it up until next week :/

Aaaugh, I can't wait another year, plot finally happened!

I wanna see it too!

Can you tell me what happen with spoilers? I can't wait!

Well:

• The Employees kidnapped Excel, and finally they had a face-to-face conversation. It didn't resolve anything, but they finally figured out that they were living in the same apartment the entire time.

• Ropponmatsu is living with the girls now. But is still dressed as Excel and taking orders from Excel.

• Misaki had to shock Iwata's brain out of II's body or else his body would shut down. So she kissed him. In II's body.

• It ended on Watanabe running into Ropponmatsu and Hyatt, and putting on hius sentai suit.

Other than that it was the usual affair of nobody getting their stories straight because everyone is too insane, which is starting to get a little grating.

Must...not...look...at spoilers...

But honestly, the only thing about the series that constantly grates on me is Watanabe's continued and rampant sociopathy since Hyatt left him; seeing him transformed from relatively sane everydude with a massive crush on his "Miss Ayasugi" into a Stepford Smiler, borderline emotionless asshole constantly playing creepy BDSM sims didn't really sit well with me, at least not after it didn't turn out to be temporary. I'd feel better about it if he showed any kind of emotion every once in awhile (and Hyatt is still his Berserk Button, as Iwata found out), but this has gone on way to long.

edited 16th Apr '11 10:24:43 AM by rbx5

One last desperate plea for anyone who has read the latest volume.

Still haven't been able to read it, weird campers keep taking them after they restock it!

My copy has shipped, so I'm hoping it'll be here tomorrow, but I'll post details for anyone who really wants to know them after I've read it, if no one else does.

Aghhh oh goddd. I know it's been almost a year since I drew it, but it's just painful to look at that "I want my point to get ACROSS!" poster now. I'll have to redraw it one of these days.

Now, as for the actual book... it's kind of impressive how all this crazy shit keeps happening, but none of it actually means anything. I suppose it's only natural though since Misaki is explicitly trying to hold the plot in a standstill, and Miwa, the only will that could override hers, keeps playing distant and mysterious. I didn't expect Excel to be that good at putting the information she'd gathered together, though.

Well, I'm pretty sure I read in an Otaku USA interview with Carl Horn that the series is about 25 volumes long, which means it could almost be over. I think we may get a resolution soon. And by soon, I mean in the next three years. If we're lucky :P

Excel Saga Forum tells me that volume 27 will be the last one. (So a couple more years on top of that.)

I feel very conflicted about that.

^I can see that, but I for one have no problems with more of a good thing.

I'm not sure that's going to be enough time to explain everything.

Yeah, I want it to remain leisurely yet frantic at the same time.

So, anyone want to discuss what happened, what little there was?

I felt this volume dragged a bit compared to the other recent ones (though "recent" is a relative term here). Although some important things happened ( Matsuya and co. finally have a face-to-face with Excel, and Matsuya and Excel seem to almost develop something vaguely resembling a rapport in their second meeting, Excel retrieves Ropponmatsu, Watanabe encounters Hyatt again at the very end of the volume), it wasn't quite as...big as you would expect. That said, Elgala's angel/devil on the shoulder moment was hilarious. Actually, she's pretty hilarious and general, and I realized while reading that she's become my favorite character without my even noticing.

edited 22nd Apr '11 7:31:12 PM by rbx5

I think Elgala drinking Hyatt's blood was the funniest joke of the volume.

^"Your blood is a black eucharist, senior." XD

Oh, cool we have a thread for this. I love the hell out of this manga.

Me too!

Though I need to catch up on the latest two volumes. ^^.