"Manga May": An Overview & Update

After last month's rush of anime reviews, including Review #100, this month will be light on anime due to other priorities. First, my upcoming essay for the Golden Ani-Versary, which is celebrating the 50th anniversary of "traditional" TV anime by covering each & every year from 1963-2012, is slowly getting closer to its due date (which should be sometime in early June, barring anymore delays). I have been watching multiple titles for the year I have chosen to cover, and I want to finish up those viewings without worrying about watching more titles for review here. Second, con season is coming upon us! I'll be at Anime Boston this month (my first AB), AnimeNEXT next month, & a return to Otakon this August, after missing last year. Though I have sent in panel applications for all three cons, only AnimeNEXT has approved me so far (I'm on AB's wait list & Otakon is too far off for confirmation), so I also have panels to finalize, which also takes away time from reviewing anime. Luckily, I have an idea...

If I won't have the time to review anime, then how about manga? That's right, this month will be "Manga May"! (I like crappy alliteration, so sue me) Thankfully, this man right above makes that kind of stuff, so I'll be reviewing mostly manga by Masami Kurumada, but I'll probably squeak in a non-Kurumada manga at the end. Also, I'll be testing something new out this month by reviewing raw manga. I've reviewed raw anime, but admittedly my understanding of vocal Japanese is slightly better than that of written kanji, so hopefully I can still deliver the goods when it comes to raw manga. We'll be starting off this week with the return of a title that you might have thought I was done reviewing: Ring ni Kakero 1! That's right, I'll be reviewing the entire 18-volume, 2001 re-print of RnK1. hey, if there's still no new seasons of the anime, I might as well just get the entire manga out of the way, right?

Once I get more info on my panels for AnimeNEXT I'll update as well. I do hope you guys keep reading this month, because it should be an interesting one.