March Updates:

Lots of fun news is streaming in this March.  Let's start with manga:

Platina End, the new work by the makers of Bakuman, is out.  I wouldn't call it a good manga worthy of addition to my list yet, but it's definitely worth tracking.  The art is gorgeous and the plot is thought-provoking, as always with this manga-ka pair.

In addition, Naruto and Hunter x Hunter are coming off of hiatus starting this April.  Assassination Classroom is also extending its run throughout April, so lots of good old manga is being promised us shortly.

The recent chapters of Fairy Tail have been amazing, though, so even the resumption of Naruto isn't enough to keep it in first place.  Now Fairy Tail is #1 both in the manga and anime rankings, with Naruto #2 in both.

Seemingly dead translation efforts are sluggishly resuming -- Major is being translated again, though the portion translated is still a region already covered by the anime thus essentially worthless.  The scanlation of Freezing is almost caught up with the actual Japan releases as well.

Some new MIX chapters have come out, though again very rarely.  New chapters of Yama no Susume are continuing to be released, though it will be an eternity until they surpass where the anime left us.  Kyoukai no Rinne even got a new chapter translated in February.

Sadly, Futari Ecchi, Railgun, Angel Beats and Fairy Girls are no longer being translated.  It's been three months or more since they've released anything.  Two steps forward, one step back.

It seems that a lot of manga are on their final arcs:  Hayate no Gotoku, Fairy Tail, Bleach, Akame ga Kill, UQ Holder, Zettai Karen Children, and Gokukoku no Brynhildr, as well as the obvious Assassination Classroom.  Boku Dake ga Inai Machi isn't quite over because it has some spinoff planned, but at least the main storyline is done.  This feeling of impending closure is a fantasy though.  It can take years for series 'about to end' to actually reach their ending.  Manga is like watching a pot boil, it just never happens.  One Piece will probably still be around 15 years from now.

Meanwhile, Super Tuesday II has occurred.  Kasich won Ohio by a huge margin, which is sad.  However, Trump won all of the remaining states.  You would think that everyone would admit by now that Trump has won the election, but it's going to be contested all the way to the end.  It's frustrating how the will of the people just is not being heeded this election cycle.

March Madness has begun.  Wichita State played a great game against Vanderbilt and showed they still have the hot stuff that got them to the Final Four a few years ago.  The NIT is also underway, with lots of good teams that were passed over by the NCAA proving their worth on the court that maybe they shouldn't have been overlooked after all.  Both tournaments are really fun due to that dynamic -- who really belongs?  If you lose by too much, it looks like you should have been in the NIT, and if you win too much in the NIT, it looks like you should've been in the NCAA.  It creates drama for both tourneys.  It's pretty obvious that Farleigh-Dickinson did not belong in the NCAA tournament.  They got absolutely mauled by a Florida Gulf Coast team that isn't even that good.  But such is the fate of awarding automatic bids to total no-names.

The Itachi Shinden spinoff is amazing so far.  One of my favorite animes of the season.  I'm surprised at how good this has been, considering the Naruto Hiden books have all been sub-par so far.

I've finished the Momoyo and Agave routes of Majikoi.  The only thing left is the Momoyo After Story.  Both routes were excellent, and overall my esteem for the visual novel has risen.  Now the franchise is rated just below Grisaia in my Visual Novel rankings.  I also rewatched the anime, which borrowed elements from the Momoyo and Agave routes but largely did their own thing.  I'm fine with the anime, which was retroactively made canon in Majikoi S anyway.  It distilled the essence of the visual novel and told a good story in just twelve episodes, whereas the visual novel was simply enormous and went on and on forever usually for just silly and repetitive jokes.  I prefer the anime's pacing, but I also like having read all the extra content the visual novel had, they both excelled at their own product delivery.

Square Enix is releasing a real turn based rpg for the PS4, called 'I Am Setsuna', modeled after Chrono Trigger.  There's simply no way this isn't going to be awesome.

Indiana Jones is getting a 5th movie starring Harrison Ford.  That's great and all, except movie 4 was one of the worst movies I've ever seen.  Let's hope they somehow right the ship this time.