Excel (Excel Saga)
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Excel is the codename of the title character of Rikdo Koshi's manga and anime series Excel Saga. Like all the codenames in Excel Saga, "Excel" derives from the name of a commercial establishment in Japan, in this case a large hotel in Tokyo.
As is the case of all officers of ACROSS, the secret, ideological organization to which Excel belongs, her real name is never revealed. Excel's aliases include: Excel Excel, Hanako Dosukoi, Slammin' Flowerchild (the translator's English rendering of that name), and Pseudonym Undercover. Her character originates from Rikudo's prior doujinshi, Municipal Force Daitenzin. Rikdo reveals in an interview with ADV that he created Excel Saga to explore Excel's character more than he had in Daitenzin. (This interview is included in the fourth volume of the United States DVD release of Excel Saga.)
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[edit] Personality
Excel's principal virtues are her energy and loyalty to ACROSS' mission, and her single-minded infatuation with Lord Ilpalazzo. Despite this, Excel is incompetent in her position and rarely succeeds in her missions, even by accident. Excel is hyper energetic, and is known to talk so fast and inconsistent that people around her find her difficult to understand, an example being that even though Il Palazzo admires her energy, he states that he has no idea what she's talking about most of the time. One notable characteristic of Excel is that she is also known to often talk in third person, even when speaking about herself.
[edit] Character/Voice actor Similarities
The first hypothesis would make her character somewhat similar to Neon Genesis Evangelion's Katsuragi Misato, who was performed by the same voice-actress, Mitsuishi Kotono. Mitsuishi also played Usagi Tsukino, the central character of Sailor Moon, a fact which is lampooned in episode seventeen.
The voice actress (or more accurately 'actresses') of Excel's English voice has an unusual history. For the first half of the series, Jessica Calvello had done Excel's voice. However (possibly because of the nature of Excel's shrill voice), Calvello had lost her voice. From episode 14 on Larissa Wolcott was quickly used as a fill-in.
[edit] History
According to the anime, Excel graduated from Inunabe [Dog Stew] Public High School in F City, F Prefecture (this location is based on, and in the manga is explicitly Fukuoka, Fukuoka). Shortly before her graduation, however, she is recruited by the Lord Ilpalazzo into his secret organization, ACROSS, which theretofore seemingly consisted of just himself. (Note that there are major discrepancies between the manga and anime as to ACROSS’ structure, so that statement might not hold for ACROSS in general, but just for the division led by Ilpalazzo.)
Before the events chronicled in the manga and anime, it is clear that Excel develops a severe infatuation with Lord Ilpalazzo. In the manga, this infatuation is apparent but merely motivates her strong devotion and consoles her in times of adversity. On the other hand, it leads to a long, running gag in the anime in which Excel violently proclaims, protests or advances her love, and Ilpalazzo equally violently rebuffs her: he uses a rocket launcher to do so in episode one, and does so as well even in Excel's imagination. This perhaps reflects the fact that the manga is meant to explore her character, whereas the anime is more about the gags.
[edit] Officer of ACROSS
Although his first and most senior officer, Excel receives most of the burden of missions assigned by, most of the punishment for their failure meted out by, but little of the praise dispensed by Lord Ilpalazzo, who often disregards the safety of her life and limbs and frequently drops her down the pit as punishment. To add official insult to literal injury, Ilpalazzo promotes her junior officers over her: Hyatt is created executive and staff officer, Menchi created combatant, whereas Excel the latrine orderly. This occurs in episode four and in the first volume of the manga, both as dreams.
Despite such treatment, Excel rarely wavers in her devotion and proclaims that she reads "love" as "loyalty." (Such an action is a virtue of the Japanese writing system.) In the anime, she threatens him with a gun in episode twenty-five after his betrayal in episode twenty-three (she does this out of Confusion rather than revenge), although in the end she does nothing to him because of her love. (Lord Illpalazzo has a gun too though, yet because of his own confusion he does nothing either.)
[edit] Relations with other characters
Apart from Ilpalazzo, Excel maintains cordial relations with her co-worker Hyatt, but somewhat tenuous relations with all other characters. For instance, she contends – slightly less genuinely as time passes – that Menchi is merely her emergency food supply, even promoting her from "storable" to "portable rations" in the manga. Additionally, her relationship with the manga’s Elgala are made difficult by the latter’s irresponsibility, snobbish manner and external monologue. Nevertheless, her relations with Hyatt are complicated by two main factors: Ilpalazzo’s obvious favor towards Hyatt, but even more the junior officer’s habit of dying at awkward moments. The two otherwise seem to get along fairly well. All other main characters run a risk of being left in her dust or receiving a fist, foot, or knee to the face or other, tender part of the body. (This includes Pedro, the immigrant worker and ghost, who seems in episodes one and twenty-six to be on friendly terms with Excel.) That said, such encounters occur usually through happenstance, since in the anime at least she never actually engages the Daitenzin, ACROSS' principle opponents, in combat.
| Excel Saga |
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| Major Characters: Excel | Hyatt | Ilpalazzo | Kabapu | Nabeshin | Shiouji | That Man |
| Information: Characters | Media |
| Related: Municipal Force Daitenzin | Puni Puni Poemy | Rikdo Koshi |
