Sunday Story Ratings #22: Excel Saga Mission 1: The Initiation of a Legend
Volume 1, Mission 1: The Initiation of a Legend by Rikdo Koshi
Originally published 1997 by Shonengahosha Co.. Ltd, Tokyo; this edition July 2003, September 2003 printing
Publisher: Viz
M
(V, S, L)
Violence (M) {Mainly off-screen, for comedic purposes}
Sexual References (PG)
Language (PG)
Representations
Gender:
Female protagonist, not particularly tightly bound camera. Mostly male extras, all others with speaking parts are men.
Sex:
One panel indicates Excel's past jobs have included sex work. Elsewise, she has an apparently romantic obsession with Lord Il Palazzo, to the point of talking to his photo when she is home as if they live together. No other indications of romance or sexuality.
Race & Ethnicity:
All characters presumed Japanese
Disability, Physical Diversity and Health:
None, unless one counts Excel's tendency to rewrite her memory so that she was the victim of conspiratorial violence rather than fatally incompetent at work.
Awards
None found.
Tropes
Why Do You Keep Changing Jobs?
Notes
Running late due to belatedly realising I had an assignment due this morning. That was unfortunate.
And here we have our emergency back-up story, Excel Saga. We would have run into this problem earlier if I'd been on time with the previous two ratings, as I've caught up on my reading with these. I did actually finish reading one book since The Saints of the Sword, but as that was an autobiography I don't feel right rating it (if I did, it would probably be R18+ or RC due to descriptions of drug use). Anyway, Excel Saga. I bought the first volume of this series early in the millennium or possibly at the beginning of the previous one, after watching the anime series based on it. Because graphic works are relatively quick to read, and I've been trying to get myself to read through and decide if I want to keep collecting the series, it seemed an excellent choice of back-up for when my regular reading patterns leave me unsupplied with a story to rate.
Very short, though. Not much happens in the first story. Mainly we meet the dangerously incompetent protagonist Excel and the mysterious, sadistic would-be conqueror Il Palazzo she has pledged herself to. And the pit he drops her into, repeatedly. Minor appearance by Watanabe (unnamed) at the end, and single-panel cameo by dog / future emergency food supply Menchi / Mince (also unnamed). Plot mainly consists in this case of illustrative distractibility and incompetence on the part of our protagonist for humour.
There you go.
