Sorry, I won’t be able to help there! Maybe I’ll get to it in another few years 
And I agree - it’s really cool to realize all-kana isn’t as much of a problem as it was! I remember I recorded my first attempts at Final Fantasy 1 in a let’s play format to help myself focus… I suspect if I tried to listen to myself struggle through it now it would be a mild form of torture.
In other news – I read a couple more manga periodicals!
Emboldened by my enjoyment of ハルタ, I realized I could probably read the kid’s manga periodical I bought around when I started learning the language.
When my dad briefly lived in Japan years and years ago, he sent me a similar tome of manga as a souvenir since I loved comic books as a kid, and I always thought it was cool even though I never thought to seriously read it. Since I don’t have access to that anymore, I bought this as a sort of stand-in. It ended up collecting dust in a similar fashion because of the “it turns out stuff for kids is really hard to read” effect.
But hey now I can read it!
Thoughts about コロコロコミック ＃４７８ (the Feb. 2018 issue)
This magazine is meant for young boys, and woweeeeee is it ever over-stimulating! Production-wise, it is wall-to-wall ads, stickers, raffles, competitions, toys, tie-ins, inserts, pull-out calendars, freebies, download codes, incentives, give-aways, limited time offers, word games, etc. etc. etc. Like old comic book ads but… louder. Trying to read every word in the book would make my brain hurt even in English.
The actual manga contents heavily reflect the target audience as well, as they’re all one of these types:
Tie-ins
It seems like 80% of the comics in here are either direct tie-ins to other media, especially Nintendo (there’s a Mario comic, a Kirby comic, a Splatoon 2 comic, a Pokemon comic), or are obviously designed around selling toy or card game merchandise, to the point it’s hard to tell which came first. I would have assumed Beyblade, for example, was a fad that fizzled out sometime in the 2000s, but I guess I’m completely wrong because there’s a Beyblade comic in here. I’m not up on my Beyblade jargon so it was borderline incomprehensible.
Even in the series that aren’t direct tie-ins, there are tie-ins. One of the gag comics this issue is centered entirely around the main character wanting very much to buy and play Splatoon 2.
The reader survey seemed very curious about what grade I was in, how much new year’s gift money I received, and how badly I wanted to buy which video games and why.
Crude humor comics
As an example of the form, I’m going to describe for you the lasting image from this issue:
ケシカスくん is an eraser and the series protagonist, and the story builds to a punchline where something is partially erased for humorous effect.
Here,
ゴール！！スゴロクチャンピオン ナンバーワン！！
is erased to become:
ゴール！！フ リチ ン ナンバーワン！！
producing the image of a distressed anthropomorphic eraser being used whilst fully nude, penis waggling in the air. An image which to my regret I will not soon forget.
Plucky sports adventure
There aren’t as nearly as many of these as the other two types - unless you count “Beyblade” and “Pokemon battling” as sports, anyway.
I’m not really the target audience for any of these (my relatives didn’t give me any new year’s money, for one), but I enjoyed flipping through them anyway. And I bet I would have devoured them as a kid! I remember getting a lot of those Archie Comics digests they have (had?) at grocery stores, even though I didn’t really care at all about Archie, I just liked comics enough that something so mundane was still sort of interesting. This is waaaaay more exciting than those – even just the form factor is designed to entice, feeling like a big wonderful treasury with exciting freebies and inserts and a huge page count.
Even though so much of this is shameless commercialism targeting children, it does make me sad for its lack here in the states. Captain Underpants, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Raina Telgemeier, etc. are, from what I understand, hugely popular, so it’s not like we don’t have successful kid’s comics… But I look at コロコロ and see the incredible extent to which that niche could be further filled (or exploited) - to say nothing of the variety of other manga publishers out there.
I guess it’s one of those industries that can only build up over the course of decades, though.
Another thing that’s really interesting to me is… do English-speaking Nintendo fans even know this many Nintendo manga series exist? So used to polished in-game Mario and only polished in-game Mario, it feels like peeking behind a curtain in an interesting way to see zany warped versions of all these Nintendo properties, presumably accessible enough to be one of the main ways kids in Japan interact with these characters.
The standout series to me in this issue were:
星のカービィ まんぷくプププ ファンタジー, where Kirby is less a cute lovable spheroid and more a ravenous, ever-hungering horror. In this episode they retold the story of Momotaro in a very fun way, with Kirby being cast as the grandma but stealing the spotlight anyway and just kind of eating everything, ruining it all.
絶体絶命 でんぢゃらすじーさん, which stretches the wild zany style to the furthest extent here by far.
I would consider buying the volumes of both of those series.
Would I buy and read more issues of the magazine itself? Weeeellll, I’m un-picky enough that it’s hard for me to say no to a question like that, but again, I’m extremely not the target audience for this. I’d happily flip through the issues at a library or something, but will not be seeking out more otherwise. It’s not on bookwalker anyway, I don’t think
Oh, I also forgot to mention there’s a Doraemon reprint in here! I like Doraemon a lot, so that would likely have gotten more attention from me if I wasn’t just going to read those in volumes.
Also emboldened by my enjoyment of ハルタ, I read another issue of ハルタ!
I really enjoyed this one a lot, even more than the last! It turns out it’s a lot easier to tell what’s going on in the middle of a series when you’ve already read a chapter!
Thoughts about ハルタ８１号 (the Feb. 2021 issue)
I enjoyed seeing how all the next chapters differed from my first impression, but a couple standouts were:
煙と蜜 showcased a really lovely tour through Taisho-era Nagoya. I’m clearly on the situation now, also (old-timey huge age gap arranged betrothal between a man and a young girl) and while it very much remains to be seen how the series handles that and how comfortable I am with it, I guess A Bride’s Story has a similar angle mixed with sumptuous historical fiction charm, so I suppose I can handle it here too.
アンリの靴 had a fun storyline about an office worker standing up to her boss via the medium of shoes.
ホテル・メッツァペウラへようこそ drew me in with the introduction of a mysterious attractive stranger who arrives at the remote hotel during a snowstorm, causing the proprietor to worry he may be here to commit suicide.
Also, I loved this issue’s edition of ダンジョン飯! That nearly goes without saying, but I especially loved this one. Last issue set up an unclear situation - this one is all about explaining “here’s what happened in that unclear situation” and the explanation is really, really cool.
Something I consistently love about this series is that it always portrays enthusiasm and thought and care directed towards a special interest as a heroic virtue that wins the day. And that enthusiasm and thought and care is also applied to protagonists’ friendships, and hopeful friendships. And when characters make mistakes, it’s consistent why they personally would make that mistake (even when it’s a really dumb move).
It’s really good is what I’m saying. Again though, don’t start here. especially because this chapter would be basically incomprehensible without reading the previous chapter.
An especially fun thing they do this issue is this:
A winter parade of 6 short stories from 6 debuting artists. It’s a really fun set! I love that idea, and each of them shows an interesting style in their own right. I wish them all the best. Not being in a public-facing creative industry, I can’t really imagine what debuting like this would feel like.
I’m tempted to continue my thread from last time and post impressions from series that are new in this issue but… that felt like it took 500 years to put together (I really underestimated in my head the amount of comics in these things), so I won’t, sorry!
I’m looking forward to reading more! I also picked up the 青騎士 spinoff magazine… 
OH also I forgot to mention - this has the fourth installment of 九井諒子’s sketchbook series, Daydream Hour!!
As far as I know, these haven’t been collected yet, so I’m really thrilled to get to see it! Her art is so good!!!
