I have no idea why this is bothering me as much as it is but I absolutely have to know how old the characters we all know and love exactly are. "In their twenties" isn't good enough. So if any one of you has perused Excel Saga factbooks or the like, please share your knowledge ASAP.
I can't shake this strange feeling that it's either been outright stated or can be pretty easily calculated that Umi is 18 and Shiouji is 26, but I can't be bothered to leaf through my 19 volumes for the single aside that confirms it. Can you good people lend me a hand here?
Another question would be how long the plot has been going on. There's been several three-to-four month timeskips between chapters by now. Has anyone been keeping a tally? Have they survived working under Kabapu for a whole year now?
I don't think it has been stated anywhere, what exact age anyone is... The closest that come to this are Kabapu when he told about where he originated from, and what his approximate age was, but even that wasn't exact, as he admitted he "lost track"...
And i think Shiouji was mentioned to be a certain age as child, and if we assume the year in the manga was the same as present time for us (2006-2007 ..?) From this,counting would lead to a more or less exact age, but i am not really sure with all this...
None of the three girls ever got their ages mentioned, and not even their real names or backgrounds...
I remember once when Watanabe asked how old Iwata was, he simply responded "around your age i guess"
I'm pretty curious myself, how old they actually are...
Yeah, I just remembered. Shiouji's age has been mentioned twice - once in volume 12, when it's said he was fourteen when he first met Umi, and the second time in volume 16, when Kabapu? (I don't think Tenmangu was that neglectful a father) says that when he last saw Shiouji, he was only three years old, which would suggest that there'd been at least a year when Kabapu'd last met baby Shiouji. Now, this exchange happened 22? years ago (Kabapu first met Tenmangu "about 30 years ago". Tenmangu disappeared 20 years ago. The discussion happened when the Ropponmatsu prototype had been completed, which was said to have taken eight years. Hence - assuming the clock started ticking immediately after Tenmangu met Kabapu - 22 years), so Shiouji'd been four back then, which is where I got my present-day 26. How's that for "easy calculations"?
This would also make Umi 6 when she first met Shiouji, which - like her present-day age of 18 - I also think was mentioned somewhere, perhaps as canon a source as the Oubliette or back cover.
Going on another limb here, Watanabe and co. are at most 23 or so. They're all college graduates, which usually happens in Japan at the age of 21, and I don't think they could have survived being unemployed for several years, and none of them apparently had a job prior to work in the City Environmental Security Administration.
BUT THEN AGAIN. I'm wondering if someone has actual facts, or even alternative theories.
Your calculations fro Shiouji's age there was the exact thing i had in mind, so yes, i guess 26 is a realistic age to assume for him...
Quote from: #55 on October 01, 2009, 10:25:25 AMI can't shake this strange feeling that it's either been outright stated or can be pretty easily calculated that Umi is 18 and Shiouji is 26, but I can't be bothered to leaf through my 19 volumes for the single aside that confirms it. Can you good people lend me a hand here?
Volume 12.
(http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m73/El_Sargento/fsggsgs.jpg)
...at the present, Umi is at least 19 (birthday event in the 2nd chapter of volume 17).
Hahahaha. Oh wow, that was a lot easier than I thought. Can't believe I missed that when I was leafing through my volume 12. I wonder if there's some way we can deduce the City Environmental Security Administration heroes' ages from these hard facts?
The question of exactly how long the plot has been going on is still also open.
To think that i forgot that D:
I should read through everything once again anyway, it's been so long...
On the matter of age, though it's clearly impossible to discern the ACROSS girls' ages, does it REALLY annoy anyone else when they're referred to as "teens"? I've seen this on countless website blurb summaries, for both the manga and the anime. Ok, for the anime it's semi-accurate, but manga!Excel is about the farthest thing from a teen that you can get. Sort of... sometimes? Bah, it's a pet peeve.
Hey Micki!, Ropponmatsu 2 is at the most 2 years old. :il_hahaha: -points and laughs-
Quote from: Pamplemousse on October 02, 2009, 10:13:47 AM
Hey Micki!, Ropponmatsu 2 is at the most 2 years old. :il_hahaha: -points and laughs-
:lordilvryannoyed:
:excel_fall:
So how old is excel supposed to be going by the anime she's 19, at least
Quote from: exckilla on October 03, 2009, 02:29:54 PM
So how old is excel supposed to be going by the anime she's 19, at least
By Volume 3, in that Fukuoka Mayoral Elections chapter, Excel (and Hyatt) were, at least, 20 years old.
Minimun voting age in Japan is 20
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_age (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_age)
Again, that's only if Excel is a "normal" human...
Yeah, Excel, Hyatt, and Elgala should all be at least 20 because of the voting thing. Watanabe and the bunch are probably anywhere from 20-25, which is typical for seinen manga (College-aged main characters), with Umi being the youngest at 18 (well, of the human characters).
Quote from: El Sargento on October 03, 2009, 03:12:52 PM
Again, that's only if Excel is a "normal" human...
Well, in volume 12 she busts out that old junior high swimsuit, which would suggest that she's
been to school, at least...
Quote from: #55 on October 04, 2009, 10:58:44 PM
Quote from: El Sargento on October 03, 2009, 03:12:52 PM
Again, that's only if Excel is a "normal" human...
Well, in volume 12 she busts out that old junior high swimsuit, which would suggest that she's been to school, at least...
eh heh heh the junior high swimsuit is actually a uniform from a job she used to do (in fact her wardrobe is full of past part time jobs)
based on something excel said in 19, i don't think she's been to school.
As for how long the series has been running in their time. I had a post on some other thread that had it all thought out...
but the first mission we see started some time between June 30 - July 4 in 1997 and in vol 18 it was 2008 (time of year ???).
So by vol 19 it's been 11-12 years! They'd be in their thirties by now, and since they were college graduates at the start, about 35!
hummm, well to me ive always thought of the series starting in the late 90's, and now its late 2003. for some reason, the Ill store arc seems like mid 2003. it just fits.
Nope. the mayoral campain was labled '08, so it has to be.
Quote from: randamonian on October 06, 2009, 03:08:06 AM
Nope. the mayoral campain was labled '08, so it has to be.
That's the English version...
...and I was talking about the Fukuoka Mayoral Elections by Volume 3.
no, i was talking about vol 18's one.
Quote from: randamonian on October 06, 2009, 09:58:53 PM
no, i was talking about vol 18's one.
Quote from: randamonian on October 06, 2009, 03:08:06 AM
Nope. the mayoral campain was labled '08, so it has to be.
Again. That's only in the English version (http://www.urbanity.es/foro/images/smilies/set3/wink.gif)
All right. Excel and Hyatt are hypothetically at least 20 in volume 3. Even though it wouldn't be unlike them to lie about their ages, if you give them about a year of having worked for Il Palazzo before that (and the implications of more for Excel, who has worked a huge amount of part-time jobs by the beginning of the series, some of which she was drinking at, and has been implied to have lived in the secret base BEFORE having moved into the apartment), there is absolutely no way they could reasonably be teenagers. Even calling them 20 at that point is pretty generously on the young side.
Let's call them 22, so they're the same approximate age that the government workers are at that point, who have all recently graduated college. (In volume 20, there's a point where Sumiyoshi refers to Iwata as being part of the "Showa generation," but as Showa period is from 1926–1989, that doesn't actually help us at all in pinpointing anyone's age OR what year it is supposed to be, so let's just move on.)
Now, mayoral elections are held every four years in Japan, meaning four years have passed between volume 3 and volume 18, theoretically. That would make the entire group of them around 26 - the same age that Shiouji is given to be in volume 13. Umi is 18 and turns 19 in the course of the series, and thus is still not old enough to vote.
Excel is Teriha for one year, and if you go by weather, another half a year or so has passed up to current canon. So all of the government workers are probably around 28 by this point, and Excel and Hyatt are AT LEAST as much.
Of course, none of this is taking into consideration the very probably artificial nature of Excel's existence, which throws the whole thing into chaos. And more importantly, the fact that that there is no coherent sense of time flow in Excel Saga. Seasons, holidays, and real world references seem to match real life, even as plot events go at their own pace. Remember when Ropponmatsu II got y2k? And yet, the technology in all of the recent chapters isn't 2001, 2002; it's all very clearly modern.
tl;dr answer: There is no answer.
Thanks for the helpful, in-depth attempt to analyze the utter chaos of ES, Uncreativity! I was tempted to go book-by-book and count the seasons for a pretty darned inaccurate estimate, but now I can stop obsessing. This is about as accurate as it's gonna get, I think...
I think it's kind of like Pokemon, where time passes but nobody ages. :il_hahaha:
yeah, i think umi's been in the twelfth grade since vol 12.
although, i cant help but think alot of time has passed. Months go by like that, like when Elgala left, Excel went on that trip and all of vol 15's events.
Quote from: El Sargento on October 07, 2009, 10:09:33 AM
Quote from: randamonian on October 06, 2009, 09:58:53 PM
no, i was talking about vol 18's one.
Quote from: randamonian on October 06, 2009, 03:08:06 AM
Nope. the mayoral campain was labled '08, so it has to be.
Again. That's only in the English version (http://www.urbanity.es/foro/images/smilies/set3/wink.gif)
eheh, i withdraw then
After Uncreativity's in depth theory into their ages, I can't add much more. ^^
With some of them being such unusal characters and the controversies over who, or even what they are (possible Solarian origins, cyborgs), they're pretty much like riddles wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. If you try wrapping your head around it too much, a coroner is going to pick up pieces of brain off the floor after your head explodes. :il_hahaha:
With that said, I believe Umi will remain a cosplaying teenager for the rest of her natural life. =P
Excel fans trying to reason this story? :im_nabeshin:
The Watanabes can be aged I guess but Excel and Hyatt are sorta supernatural creatures... kinda
While I can't add much to the age question as such, my poor Engineer's brain couldn't resist the challenge of figuring out how many years have passed in the first 21 volumes.
The answer is eight years! (Slight chance it is nine, but eight seems pretty solid.)
Using seasons, holidays, and weather, the break-down ('V' means 'Volume', 'M' means 'Mission') is as follows:
Year 1: V-01 - (8 months): June - Christmas.
Year 2: V-02, V-03/M-5
Year 3: V-03/M-6, V-04
Year 4: V-05, V-06, V-07 - (very busy Spring confuses things slightly here).
Year 5: V-08, V-09, V-10, V-11/M-3
Year 6: V-11/M-4, V-12 - Umi (18) and Gojyou (26)
Year 7: V-13, V-14, V-15, V-16
Year 8: V-17, V-18, V-19, V-20
Year 9: V-21 - (~3 or 4 months)
Note #1 - In year 6, it isn't clear whether Umi and Gojyou are 18 and 26, respectively, at the beginning of the year, which means they would have turned 19 and 27 by the end of the year; or, if their 18th and 26th birthdays occur during this year.
Note #2 - In Fukuoka, Mayors can be recalled by the people, and special elections subsequently held. This messes up the '4 years between elections' rule.
I have detailed notes if anyone is so foolish as to ask for them! :shiouji: