I finished this month’s Harta!
ハルタ ９６号
I enjoyed it a lot as usual! The personal anticipation for this one felt especially high since last month was an off month and Dungeon Meshi especially is definitely in story climax territory. Plus, there’s a new installment of Ryoko Kui’s occasional bonus illustration book, Daydream Hour, in this one!
And at this point it’s also just a really fun to read package of new chapters in tons of manga I like!
In terms of debuts, there’s one that’s a series debut by an author of some memorable shorts, 開花アパートメント by 飴石, and it’s in line with the author’s previous stories in its especially refined art style and attention paid to the historical setting. The series is about a late Taisho-era hotel that seems to collect guests with interesting backgrounds, the first ones we meet being a writer and a private detective.
And there’s ジラソウル -ゴッホの遥かなる道- by 沼野あおい about Vincent Van Gogh and an amnesiac boy who winds up in his orbit. It seems like it’s take on Van Gogh and history will be a bit on the exaggerated side, and there was a silly but fun twist midway through this first chapter.
Some news that came out along with the magazine is pretty exciting!
Dungeon Meshi is going to get an anime adaptation from Studio Trigger, which should be fun and deservingly bring a lot more eyes to it!
I would also note that the first volume is 99 yen with 36 coins back, so I mean… check that out!
I also became aware of this convenient page where you can read the first chapter of the ongoing series in Harta for free if at all curious about them. I think I would personally most recommend:
- いやはや熱海くん
- ダンジョン飯 (anime coming out! Discounted first volume!)
- ﾎﾃﾙ･ﾒｯﾂｧﾍﾟｳﾗへようこそ (this one’s traveled via word of mouth at least like three degrees of separation out from these posts, always nice to see!)
- ふしぎの国のバード
- 司書正
- 希釈王
- 生き残った6人によると (there’s a live action drama of this one on the way too)
- あかねさす柘榴の都
- ハクメイとミコチ
… but you can’t really go too wrong with any of them, really.
other manga report:
- ベルサイユのばら （１）
I read the first (very large) volume of the 愛蔵版 version of Rose of Versailles. I enjoyed it! Although it took a while to read. I love the classic shojo manga style of it, the eyes constantly flashing with intense emotion and so on, and Oscar obviously is very cool, but it took me a while to warm up to the Versailles setting, and like, Marie Antoinette being a main protagonist, since I’m not predisposed to the setting aesthetically and not knowing where the story was going, or much about French history in detail, made me unsure of exactly how to interpret the series’ position on royalty and so on. The series also doesn’t have a super specific plot drive with a lot of forward momentum. Sometimes that can make it feel like Versailles Soup, but when it clicked for me most was when I leaned into all the drama (even to the point of doing voices for the characters), and then the large cast and disparate goings-on felt like it provided some of the satisfaction of something like Les Misérables (the book) just with a more… expensive… main area of focus. I’ll definitely want to read volume 2 (and the 外伝)… but I think I might bounce it back a little in the queue rather than try to rush through it now, since it’s still going to take a while and I’m a little antsy at how long it’s been since I read more short manga volumes. - 高橋留美子劇場 （２）
I also read the second volume of this collection of Rumiko Takahashi shorts. They’re fun! They’ve all got a similar domestic, but a bit madcap vibe as the stories in the first one. Some memorable ones for me were the slightly morbid one where a girl suspects a family vacation is a pretext for familicide due to bankruptcy, and one where a failed businessman learns some humility by filling in for his wife at her part-time job.
There’s also one that involves a golden retriever, which accidentally gets big bushy eyebrows drawn on it in permanent marker at the beginning, seemingly just because Takahashi wanted to draw a golden retriever with big silly eyebrows for the rest of the story, a choice I support.