I finished another Harta! The September issue, so I’m not that far behind…
There’s a couple of new serializations:
クラスのアイドルは今日も推せない, which is about (the way the taglines puts it), 「クラスのみんなの推し」の「推し」、推し推しコメディ (so, a popular girl trying to get everyone to notice the girl she likes, basically). Seemed pretty fun!
ナッちゃんはテンションで水深が変わる, which is about the quiet every day life of a girl who, for some reason, manifests ethereal fish that float around her head and reflect her inner mood. That’s an odd enough concept I feel like you could go a lot of directions with it, so I’m curious to see where it goes, and if it’s just “hanging out with these characters, but also fish are always in the panel” that’s fine with me too.
Among the existing series that especially stood out to me this issue (the hotel one, the zombie one, etc.), the second installment of 希釈王 makes it clearer just how weird and interesting it’s going to be.
The biggest highlight for me though was the one-shot 海はいかない by 田沼朝, about two women meeting and spending an uneventful summer together. I actually liked this so much (and it seemed like something a particular friend would really like) that I translated it to share with a couple of friends. I was surprised just how fun and easy it was to do - I could take screenshots on the tablet and then just write erase the words and write new ones in by hand with the pen tool, and it felt super casual and fun since it’s not like I would have to worry about getting the translations exactly right since it was just to share with friends who can’t read Japanese.
So I’m grateful to the story for giving me the idea to do that. Might be fun to make and translate a little personal best of Harta one-shots over time…
ビンタ屋さん by 矢村かすみ is another one-shot worth mentioning, on the complete opposite end of the relationship healthiness spectrum. It’s about a girl who figures out a classmate makes fetish videos of slapping people, and that spiraling into an abusive relationship between the two.
I thought it ended abruptly, but otherwise I could totally see the author making a graphic novel I’d like to read.
