Strawberry 100% & future endeavors

I have now read up to and completed Volume 9 of Strawberry 100%. That catches me up to the official releases thus far, with Volume 10 coming in October IIRC. So, my thoughts thus far. I really like this series. At first, I was sort of indifferent to it, it was the sort of thing I might've dropped. The characters grew on me though. Junpei was frustratingly indecisive, and he still is, but since he's always been that way and since it's a trait that furthers plot development I've come to sort of accept it, that is to say, it isn't so frustrating anymore. Just a slight annoyance. In addition, I really like most of the characters, which makes it fun to follow along with them. I've already determined who I want Junpei to end up with - that'd be Aya. Even though a recent development *potential spoilers here* made apparent that Tsukasa had her eye on Junpei since before Junpei even asked her out, it's clear as hell that the one Junpei's meant to be with is Aya. He seems the most comfortable around her and her personality isn't one which causes any friction with him (like Satsuki's.) So I'll be reading this through and they'd better wind up together in the end. This manga better not pull a Kashimashi and pair Junpei up with Tsukasa >=O

I've also decided that I won't be waiting on the official releases of the series to continue reading. Whenever I feel like hitting the next chapter I'll do so via scanlations, and I'll probably finish the rest of the series that way since it'll be ages before Viz finishes it. I'll still buy the volumes as they're released of course.

I've also decided that I'm going to try and finish out most of the series I started buying in physical manga format. I have a lot of just like, single volumes of different manga so rather than buying more single volumes I'm gonna hunker down and focus on individual series one at a time. So the way I'm working this is I'll be reading several mangas online and then one officially published manga which I'll purchase several volumes of on a bi-weekly basis. Or perhaps that'll become weekly, I dunno. At any rate, I've already set an order of series to conquer via this manner. So, in order, I will continue these series in physical format:

- Love Hina
- Kare First Love
- Eureka Seven
- Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei
- Fullmetal Alchemist
- Trigun
- Hellsing
- Tail of the Moon
- GTO
- Gantz
- Love Attack
- Gacha Gacha

Then there are a couple series that I haven't decided on whether or not I'll continue them;

- Berserk
- Bleach
- Dragon Ball Z
- Excel Saga
- InuYasha
- Naruto
- One Piece
- Yu Yu Hakusho

And the reason for that is either because there's too many damn volumes (Berserk, all those shonens) or because I'm just not interested (Excel Saga.) We'll see though.

Progress report! Still reading Ai-Ren, I'm approaching the half-way mark in the series. Picked up Kagijin and Midnight Secretary. For anime I'm watching Azumanga Daioh and Candy Boy on the PC, and then Berserk on physical DVD since I figure it's about time I actually watched the damn series lest my purchase go to waste. Candy Boy is really short and there's only a couple chapters of Kagijin so far so I'll be done with those soon.