I finished the December Harta! It was the first issue I needed to wait for while caught up, so I was really excited to read it when it came out (but it got interrupted when I switched to churning through stuff before the end of the year).
ハルタ Vol. 90
There was one debut, which I really liked! 恋の絶望行進曲 by 富沢未知. It’s about a girl who has a crush on another girl at school and confesses - seemingly successfully, but it becomes clear the crush is taking the relationship much much less seriously than her.
The art’s really nice and this first chapter did a great job already of making me want to root for the main character on the emotional rollercoaster it’s gonna be.
Five chapters into 司書正 by 丸山薫 and I think it’s gonna grow to be a favorite.
I love how it’s pretty slowly built up a really interesting premise, and the start of what’s going to be the plot. And I love what it does with kanji for the Chinese-influenced fictional setting.
This chapter of ホテル・メッツァペウラへようこそ by 福田星良 is all about the protagonist finding a husky that got loose and heavily warming up to it, and it’s really adorable.
This chapter of 希釈王 by 須川佳 is a really fun self-contained story about three women, a goblin, a gorgon, and an elf, all separately feeling down about themselves for different reasons, with the only connection to the main story being that they hear about what a striking misfit the protagonist is and are inspired with the confidence to solve their problems. This series debuted around the same time as 司書正 and has a compleeeeeetely different vibe but I feel the same way about it in terms of slowly being more and more sold on it. Which is neat!
I learned a little spanish from あかねさす柘榴の都 by 福浪優子!
マリンの靴 by かわもと まい, a cobbler manga that seemed like it has a good heart, concluded, with the second and last volume out in February.
