SAITO Chiho

For the last couple of years the number of the new manga titles I have read was not many. Screening process this time therefore made me a little dizzy against a heap of more than 100 manga titles. After all, I was not able to even to touch the 25 titles that had passed the screening, due to the hectic of my own deadlines of the works. It was not an easy job to read them, but I must say I had thoroughly enjoyed-all of the final screening titles maintained very high standard with rich contents. I was particularly intrigued in the awarded works, in particular in the subject area of the historical and the science fantasy. It was also truly an exciting process to see how other jury members selected their own final candidates-so much difficult to select a few as the awarded pieces among many other of the books-a precious moment you would not encounter much in your life time. The diversity of the manga as the subject area was so apparent and appealing, and I feel very lucky to thoroughly enjoy this rare opportunity.