Harta #79
this is a TA volume
🍵 general club chat
ラアカの星 ends in this issue and so I’ve finished my first series entirely contained and discovered in Harta. It’s absolutely not something I would have bought based on the description and it probably wouldn’t have come to my attention anyway. I have a visceral reaction against revenge stories, and yet I enjoyed it. I’m glad it led me to read the other stories in the collected volume. It’s made me realise I’ve become a lot more flexible in my reading and I allow for more ambiguity, and even less and less judgment about whether a story is “good” or “bad”
What I mean is, when something goes outside my comfort zone I see it more as a process of discovery, not just entertainment. Maybe I won’t like what I find, but I still try to ask myself what the mangaka was seeking or attempting to realise with their work. I don’t have to understand or agree or anything, it’s just a new way of looking at it that I didn’t have before. It’s hard to push these boundaries, because it’s not always rewarded, but overall, I am happy about this development. The collected ラアカの星volume is also really fun for that because after each story the author literally writes about what motivated the story
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Ok, enough philosophising, I gotta get this post out, I want to read Harta 80 and see what all that discussion is about. I love Harta so much and I’m so grateful for everyone in the club to discuss it with 
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cover story
so fun
I love the Harta High School Science Club and how they plastered 科学部 all over, even over this sign 解体工場予定 (planned demolition site)
debuts
⚾️ ことり文書 / Kotori Report
I’m not sure if a baseball is the right emoji, but it felt more fun and less obvious than a bird 
Looks like potential to become a wholesome cute story.
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one-shots
yes - I totally get this and I think I’ll follow you on that one!
🐠 ナッちゃんはテンションで水深が変わる
Daily life scenes - summer days with great friends, what more could you want? Random fish appearing from the depth of a character’s mood! 
🦤 アリスの小さな夢のあと
I had the feeling after reading this that it wasn’t targeted at someone like me, like we’re on totally different wavelengths, and funny enough it’s by the same author of the one shot in 78 (ねえさん、起きて) where I had that same feeling.
The anthropomorphised dodo was impressive though!
I’m not sure which part hung you up because your translation looks like exactly how I understood it, so I think it might be a technology thing catching you out. This is back in the day when the exposure time for photos was so long that if Alice talks while the camera lens is open, it ruins the photo if she talks. There is a scene that mentions she needs to sit still for 40 seconds or something like that! Which is presumably why Lewis Carrol has to think up such good stories to tell the children while taking pictures, so that they will sit still long enough
☔️ 延長戦の雨やどり
I asked a question about this one (link here) that helped a lot.
By 木原悠里子 (Yuriko Kihara) the same author as 姫と忍 from Harta 75. Highly textured gorgeous art, but Discourse isn’t letting me upload images atm
It took me a while to figure out in the flashback he asked her out and when she says 罰ゲーム she means, did he play one with his friends and lose (and his punishment is to ask her out)
I love the spirit/yokai’s carved acorn mask, it’s an amazing idea
The attraction of the spirits to Numata’s art is reminiscent of the cute story about エルツ in the back matter of Harta. Love that! I felt sad for the spirits when they left empty-handed. But although they left with nothing, Numata and Kuroki now have a reframed view of their strengths - nice trick there.
continuing series
In the order I started following them with the magazine
☄️ ライカの星 / Laika's star (おしまい / last chapter)
Laika realises she had a home with Mushuka all along, and goes back to their star
seconding!!!
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👾 紙一重りんちゃん / Paper thin Rin
I explored this because I saw it was another one-off story rather than the usual 4 koma. I have nothing against 4 koma, just find it impenetrable in this series. And I like the artist’s style in the open spread format (as in Harta 75) so I keep an eye out for these.
This features the ultimate anthropomorphisation - of the universe 
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🌐 手つかずの国 / Uncharted territory (おしまい / last chapter)
Synopsis: school festival is coming up and everything’s just about ready, until a careless misstep means repairs are needed…
Didn’t have the spark of originality / surprise like the last chapters, but the one thing in common with all the stories in the series that I was able to read since Harta 76 - the relationships all feel unsettled. A tinge of hopefulness, but an overarching unsettled dynamic.
I couldn’t help thinking more about it, later, how different it was to the other chapters. It makes me wonder about this being the last chapter, and the volume not getting collected. Was there a disagreement? Was it cancelled suddenly? The theme in this episode, where the boy is terrified of angering his father and getting abandoned - it made me wonder about what it’s like for artists in the face of cancel culture. Is the mangaka making a statement about what it’s like to worry that you make a wrong statement or one poor story and you get dropped? I’m probably reading too much into it, but it did remind me not to get too caught up in snap judgments or to view things too black and white or always framing as good or bad. As one of the characters said, it’s more complicated than that…
🧟 生き残った6人によると / What 6 Survivors Told
Ok, so I I’m totally accepting this as a reality drama with flawed characters, and I’m going to go along for the absurd ride 
れんれん is interested in リリ and he talks 平坂 through how he intends to win her over with his SOS strategy. It’s hard to get uppity and take it seriously / get annoyed by his tactics working when In the end she opens up with an amazingly outlandish reveal: tells him she’s the illegitimate child of the prime minister and is worried he wants her to die in the disaster (like what, he’s so cunning to know where she is and use a surprise zombie apocalypse to dispose of her?! As if anyone cares about that right now)
I’m sorry but this is so funny and what I love most is how believably naive リリ is
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🥿 アンリの靴 / Anri, a Shoemaker
OMG that scene with the bird taunting Hana and I love how wholesome this story with the stray cat is 
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🌙 夜の名前を呼んで / Call the Name of the Night
Cuteness overload, I like the mechanism of the magic bringing forth the plant memory to see the moment her parents put it in the envelope.
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🧜♀️ アビスアジュールの罪人 / Deep Sea Rebel
I love how I have no clue where this was going. This episode had some fun twists and turns. I’m so intrigued. Jo’s friend Ryuu is quite the character, and I’m curious how Jo gets her amber
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🛎️ ホテル・メッツァペウラへようこそ / Welcome to Hotel Metsapeura
A pretty believable rural shenanigan 
going on there. We’re just getting warmed up here, I feel like it’s setting the scene so we better understand the character dynamics for later events, I’m excited for this one
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For any other series not listed here or in the catch-up section below, if/when I catch up on it later, I’ll link notes from my Harta 75 or Harta 76 homes posts depending on which issue was that manga’s first digital appearance.
end matter
⛏️エルツ / Dazzle
I love the エルツ story and world I was sad to see that it looked like it was over - but it continues in Harta 80! It looks like this is a new expansion of the one page Dazzle cover to just a bit more story paneling.
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previous issues / catch-up notes
🌄 山を渡る -三多摩大岳部録 / Traversing Mountains - Records of the Santama University Mountaineering Club (Vol 1: Ch 1)
I read Ch 1 (it took me ages because I’m reading way too much in parallel), and I loved it. There is way more dry humor than I was expecting (or that I would expect to even understand in Japanese), and I adore the outdoors / climbing art. I’m also trying to read my first novel, though, so I decided until I finish it to simplify things and put my catch-up here on ice. I will come back to it, though, and will dig into the books on the club room shelf, stay tuned…