I finished… three months ago’s Harta! From June!
ハルタ １０５号
I feel like I recaptured something with this one! I assume it has less to do with the specific issue, and more to do with just the mood I was in (or maaaaybe order of the series just sucking me in more?), but whatever it was I felt a lot more ready to give the comics my full attention and enjoy reading a whole bunch of Harta in an evening, and I wasn’t at all doing the “just anxiously awaiting checking for a series ending announcement at the end of the chapter” thing I was doing for a bit there. I also tried making a point to at least skim all of the text stuff in the back of the magazine (the rotating interview column, a column on obscure pop culture I never have enough context for, reader impressions, author blurbs, etc.) and I think it was a good idea to keep that engagement up.
I’m glad to feel that feeling is back! There’s really nothing quite like churning through a manga magazine, since there’s so much variety. It feels a bit like reading when I was a kid? In the sense of it feeling like there’s a lot to explore and discover without so much weighing expectations and checking reviews and placing holds and whatnot. You never quite know what you’re going to get. In a really nice way.
I’ve not been dialing in on that “having a nice evening reading” mood nearly enough the last few months. Would like to do so more in September.
highlights that are on the spoilery side
I like the depiction of Susanoo in 峠鬼 so far - appropriately arrogant and crass/juvenile but with the series’ sci-fi-tinged depiction of divinity coming through too in a cool way
Dungeon Meshi is really wrapping up! From what I’ve heard, I expect that the next issue I read will have a “next installment is the final one” announcement instead of a simple つづく. It’s been a great series building to a natural conclusion, and I look forward to someday reading through again as a whole instead of month to month.
I loved in this chapter イヅツミ going around asking everybody what they’re going to do after everything’s over! Really funny and also really good character work and reminded me of a similarly especially strong chapter where Chilchuck was similarly pondering things after the dragon encounter.
いやはや、熱海くん is still my very favorite but nothing happened in this installment that would work well as a highlight. And similarly I still like 司書正 a whole lot but it’s in the same situation, so instead to stand in collectively for the old standbys, here’s an example of 山本和音 of 生き残った6人によると being especially good at action
An awfully sweet moment (among many) from ホテル・メッツァペウラへようこそ
I loved this two part bit in Hakumei to Mikochi where the shy necromancer character is asked to help cater a party for the outgoing singer character - and in the previous chapter she struggled significantly trying to cook to an elaborate recipe, but this time she cooks something she makes for herself all the time off the cuff and it goes much smoother.
恋の絶望行進曲 by 富沢未知果 ended this issue, with a tankoban edition to be published in the fall.
I liked this one and would have liked it to get more time to develop! Looking back I’m not 100% sure how perfectly the character developments came together in the time available, but I’d be curious how it is as one complete package. And it ended gay so that’s good.
It’s early on but I’m liking 犬火の兄弟 by 吉田真百合 quite a bit as it develops. The art style is cute and unique, and it seems like it’s going into serious and complicated emotional territory. Makes me curious to read the author’s previous work, ライカの星, since I can see how the story of Laika would exactly play into their strengths.
ともだちの泉 by 三卜二三 (very cool name) is a pretty fun 読切 that’s a play on that folk tale concept I’m struggling to place specifically at the moment, where a supernatural being asks someone which of two alternatives is their lost belonging.
帝都影物語 by 比嘉史果 concluded this issue. It’s a fun story about a double for a prince of a fictional empire. I didn’t stay fully invested to the point that I followed every bit of the plot, but I think if the premise and setting seem interesting to you it could be a good one to check out. I think an early chapter of this was the first or second story in the first issue of Harta I read, so it’s got a good length of being long enough to be full but still manageable.
I forgot to mention last time, but the back cover comic changed over from 侵略ペットポテ by 犬島ななこ, about a small and cute alien invader, to たつのこ こたつ by 多良見かな about a boy and his dog like dragon. These are I guess like - more of a bonus comic than a full series since they’re literally just printed on the back cover of the magazine, but hey, they’re fun!
One sad real world bit of news that doesn’t directly relate to this issue since it hadn’t happened yet, but was on my mind some while reading, is the author 佐野菜見 of past Harta series 坂本ですが? and ミギとダリ was announced to have passed away from cancer. I think of all the authors I’ve read in the magazine, I would have been able to picture least what her next series would have looked like, and I would have looked forward to finding out. It’s a tragic loss.
Other stuff I read recently:
鋼の錬金術師 （１４）
This is the last volume I have in physical format, and I’m a little worried about the transition to digital just since I’ll have a little bit more barrier to entry in terms of reading a bit here and there (consciously waking up the tablet and picking out the right window and getting bookwalker going vs. noticing the book and picking it up). FMA still hasn’t really been in “I’m actively excited to read more” territory for me, although I don’t particularly know why not.
ゼロの焦点
This is the original novel version of a movie called Zero Focus! What happened is that the movie came up as ordained in my backlog system from those sets of Criterion Channel Japanese noirs I put in gangs of five, and since previously I had especially enjoyed 張り込み/Stakeout because I read the short story before watching the movie and found the comparison fascinating, and this has the same author (松本清張, Seicho Matsumoto), the same director (野村芳太郎, Yoshitaro Nomura), and the same screenwriter (橋本忍, Shinobu Hashimoto), it only made sense to do the same again and read the original first. I think being able to do that is one of the experiences I really treasure about this language learning business! So anyway I immediately rolled a different ordained and set about reading the novel in the meantime.
I haven’t watched the movie yet – I figured I’d make sure to write this out before doing so.
I didn’t read it very smoothly (as far as I remember, I was very into the first chapter but didn’t come back to it for a long time and ended up rereading it, and then I went pretty smoothly for most of the novel but had another big gap right before the end) but I enjoyed the novel quite a bit!
Its biggest strength by far is the premise and perspective: the protagonist is a woman who has an arranged marriage with an older man who is essentially still a stranger to her, and after very little time to adjust to married life, her husband vanishes mysteriously, leaving her to try to work out what happened to him and why. Her unsettled position and feelings around all of this I think is really well conveyed through her perspective, and I think it’s really easy to relate and be drawn into the mystery because of that, and it amplifies the uncertainty. Is her husband alive or dead? How upset should she even feel either way when she barely knew the guy? How much can she trust her instincts about what he would or wouldn’t do? What is there to do except to search for some kind of truth to hold onto about the situation?
This also plays into a strong low-key romance subplot, where an especially helpful character helps her investigate, and I think their organically developing feelings for each other works especially well because again – that’s such a strange and uncertain position to be in, and this one helpful guy provides that genuine bit of certainty to lean on.
Something I have mixed feelings about, is this really isn’t the kind of novel where there’s multiple threads in play at once; you are just following the one thread of her as she uncovers this mystery through the entire book. On the one hand, that focus (ha) is appreciated and carries a lot of momentum, especially when that perspective is so strong and anchoring. But on the other hand, the book is nearly 400 pages, which feels like a little too much for me for this one thread.
In particular – due to kind of the nature of the mystery… the outcomes aren’t always mind-blowing. You kinda figure early on that the likeliest explanation would be that he had a secret second life and was having an affair, and I mean… yeah. And early bits telegraphing that a bit like “this is the only unidentified body and it’s not him” don’t exactly help. Not all the details are obvious of course, but I wouldn’t describe the mystery resolution as the main draw here, so much as wanting that sustained uncertainty to be released for the main character. And so I think that’s mostly what caused my hiatus in reading further once I was getting into mystery resolution territory – the details weren’t what was pulling me forward at that point and I was about to get a lot of them.
And also I did feel a loss of momentum when the possible love interest was abruptly killed. I suppose it does dig in the stakes more for the main character but… I dunno, I did kinda want her to have some upside out of this whole thing, and it felt like that put the nail in the coffin that just knowing what happened was absolutely the only thing she was going to get out of any of this. I related enough to her as a protagonist that I think I would have preferred a bit more there.
The story deals with a really evocative Ishikawa Prefecture setting. It also involves women working as prostitutes for American GIs following the war who transitioned into normal lives afterwards, and I think the topic was interesting and handled well, with I think the perspective of the novel not condemning those women and empathizing with both their struggle to survive and make a life for themselves and not wanting their past known to the world.
I think that’s it! Curious to see the movie now – I think it should be a straightforward adaptation? I can think of one plot beat that I suspect might be changed, but – again despite this being like 400 pages – I could see this fitting just fine into a tight noir.
大ダーク （６）
More Dai Dark! Not a bad thing! This whole volume they’re still dealing with the Lighthead folks and the action is fun and Dai Dark-ish. Even when Sanko is clearly hurt and in peril I wouldn’t really say the tone of the series makes me especially worried that he might not pull through – but it’s fun to see what bizarre further developments will take place.