Harta #78
this is a RU volume
(There are three types: HA RU TA. HA series are published every issue, but some series are only RU or TA (but everything is published in HA volumes) )
🍵 general club chat
A note on this series on Natively
https://learnnatively.com/series/a4f81a2a56/
I noticed there were 6 issues in the middle missing, so I requested those and Brandon kindly updated and inserted those issues.
If you request more issues, please make sure you request everything in order without skipping any issues, or tag me and I don’t mind doing it. These have to be added by Brandon manually, so when I request them I put in a link to the month / year / issue number and the Amazon link.
Anyway, I’m mentioning this since it’s so manual and nice that Brandon made an exception to support Harta readers, I thought it would be nice as far as possible to raise awareness to not cause extra work.
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All spoilers blurred/hidden, you can safely open the high level dropdowns to see general comments, snippets of cover art, cultural tidbits, and all the other rabbit holes I went down.
debuts
🧜♀️ アビスアジュールの罪人 / Deep Sea Rebel
アビスアジュールの罪人 1 | L18
Playful and imaginative seaworld! It’s mostly images and very little text in chapter 1. It will be hard to rate as some of the very little text uses less common words and kanji.
a note on the title
罪人 has two readings ざいにん (criminal) and つみびと (sinner). Based on the definitions (I haven’t come across these in context elsewhere so I’d be interested in what others think) they could both point to wrongdoing, but the reading printed (ざいにん) has more of a breaking the law connotation whereas the latter has a judgment of moral wrongdoing to it. Interestingly the English translation takes the latter judgy definition sinner (despite using the furigana consistent with the former criminal). In Harta it’s glossed Sinner of the Seabed which made me wonder what kind of raunchy ride I’m getting into. The collected volume uses A Sinner of the Deep Sea. I steadfastly refuse to read the collected volume blurb so I don’t know, but I’m so curious. There are a few clues but for now, this could go anywhere. Normally, I use the English title the author chose. But for this one, I’m calling it Deep Sea Rebel based on where I predict it’s going. Haha this is why I don’t read blurbs, my imagination is running wild with things I bet are foreshadowed or directly stated in the blurb of the collected volumes, I’ll check after ch 5.
I like how the artist is able to get across sensuality without giving a (to me) lechy feel of sexual objectification. Top marks and I’m looking forward to Ch 2!
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🛎️ ホテル・メッツァペウラへようこそ / Tervetuloa Hotelli Metsäpeuraan / Welcome to Hotel Metsapeura
ホテル・メッツァペウラへようこそ 1巻 | L23
Here we go! I started this when I got these magazines and I’m back at it.
At the time it was niche and unheard of but it’s gotten some traction since then. I enjoyed the opening winter scene and setting it up for a daily life manga with some mystery about the various characters: a butler, chef/ owner (?), and a Japanese tourist/ down and out kid who they take under their wing
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one-shots
🍱 後ろのギャルにナプキンとられた / The Girl behind me took my pad
Yep, that’s what it’s called and that’s what happens
And it started with an image that really disgusted me
便所飯
No! Why is there a word for something like this!
I almost skipped this one at multiple points
It starts off with this uncomfortable feeling like the image above, and it keeps it up - in such a way that kept me questioning my Japanese, but no actually that really happened and so on each page. I would have normally never picked up and read a manga like this. And that’s the magic of these one-shots, I explore outside of my comfort zone. Curiosity kept me going and in the end it was thought provoking in a messy indefinable kind of way. I appreciated Rodan’s comments. This story is about acknowledging social dynamics we don’t want to exist, but yet they do. So all in all - tough to stomach but I’m glad I read it
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🪁 街に鏤め、宙に描く / Scattered in the city, drawn in the air
A girls parcour comedy, set of three short stories
Cute relaxing break from life. I loved the art - parcour is made for manga!
great scene story 1
funny scene story 2
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💀 ねえさん、起きて
A story about a boy obsessed with bringing his sister back to life.
Maybe this makes a statement as a social commentary on the loneliness of AI as friend and depending on one person for your happiness. But it didn’t do much for me, it felt targeted at someone totally different than me, in a different phase of life
continuing series
In the order I started following them with the magazine
☄️ ライカの星 / Laika's star Ch 4 / Harta 78
Yay, I was hoping to meet Mushuka again. This was a much faster redemption arc than expected given the emotional intensity of the first chapters, but still good
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🧟 生き残った6人によると / What 6 Survivors Told Ch 3 / Harta 78
It’s not something I’d normality go for, but I’ll admit I’m intrigued by how the characters will end up developing and interacting.
And I feel like I’ve had so many scenes in my life like Lily - like, is anyone else responsible around here? So responsible yet so naive and clueless.
I also enjoy the light humour poking fun at business manager speech 
same jargon in Japan, just mostly in katakana .
🥿 アンリの靴 / Anri, a Shoemaker Ch 6 / Harta 78
Cute chapter, but makes me realise her back story is going to be sad
I like how the shoes she made for her brother are in one of the photos on the chapter cover
This cat knows just what you need
Closing scene - adorable
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🌙 夜の名前を呼んで / Call the Name of the Night (Ch 2 / Harta 78)
adorable, love the star jam and the whole concept behind the heavy and light stars. The ending really made me question my Japanese when Mira gets drunk from the jam, since it seems a 迷い星 got in the mix from someone drunk.
昴とスーさん - I’m now caught up and following this one! My comments for this one are below in the “previous issues/catch-up notes” section since it spans pre-Harta 75 to the current issue.
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 : intro to Non-stop loving section (reader comments etc) Harta 75+
So cute, the creative energy that エルツ is mining is used to power their village
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✒️ editorial
I tried reading the editorial. It went like this: look at a sentence, get half a gist, then bulk translate a whole sentence at a time since there would be far too many lookups to make sense one by one. So not reading at all, but satisfied my curiosity. 山本さん has done a lot including a manga called レッド (seems to be about a protest movement in Japan around 1969-1972), and here he talks about a load of connections starting with someone he interviewed for that story. So basically impenetrable as I didn’t recognise the books and films, nor many names aside from John Lennon and Yoko Ono. It looked interesting - I’ll come back to these when adult level off the cuff prose is more comprehensible
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previous issues / catch-up notes
👖 昴とスーさん / The Strange Life of Subaru (Ch 13 - 26/Vol 3 - 4 & Harta 75-78) - RU
Volume 3 - aaahhh it felt like every chapter was a different genre The story elements and flow make a lot of work for the mangaka. I like the different perspectives on what it means to look like an age vs be an age, how different people treat him, whether they know the whole story or not. There’s a lot to play with there. I adored the art in the last chapter
Volume 4 spoilery thoughts
In some ways volume 4 didn’t go how I’d like 
but I guess it’s inevitable to have a reaction after getting so attached, especially to volumes 1-2.
(Ch 20-22) - now the stuff Mio starts looking into from the end of volume 3 doesn’t quite tally, I’m surprised in a way that she doesn’t seem to be telling Subaru about these developments, like that she (big spoiler) found his dad and Kuroe was really his mom. But maybe it would be too much for him, I’m not sure, it’s a tough call. The scene with his dad where his dad thought this time the difference was Mio’s love, me in the background going 
nooooo I didn’t sign up for a Disney love story.
Ch 23 - Incredibly confusing, I think I misunderstood something, at the start of the flashback it says 3 years ago, Subaru became 20 for the third time? So I missed one? I thought his first time was the previous life he forgot, the flashback scene in this chapter must be the second, and then the third would be when he grows up now with Mio. But if the flashback scene is already the third, then he must have had two cycles with his mom as grandmother - it would make sense then why his dad looks so old - I need to read Ch 19-22 again. Maybe I misunderstood something, but on the other hand, this mangaka leaves a lot unsaid that you have to piece together yourself, so maybe that is one of those
Ch 24-25 / Harta 75 & 77
I liked the Nishio sequence. A bit confusing to have such timing for Subaru to show up just when Nishio wants to propose but ok! Really tender scenes and I like how Subaru takes some of that tenderness back and it surprises Mio
Ch 26 / Harta 78
See this is why I’m mad at Mio for not telling Subaru about everything she knows 
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next up issue 79
As I’m reading these, I’m tracking the individual manga on Natively with the plan to give some review love to their respective first volumes (and then not tracking later volumes). From issue 79, when ライカの星 finishes, I’ll be finishing about 1-2 per issue of what later became the first collected volume of each series I’m reading!
I am already set on which series I intend to catch on, but 煙と蜜 was the only one I wasn’t sure about yet because I wasn’t quite sure what it is about, especially since nobody mentioned the age gap/romance element here. I wasn’t sure if the romance element is maybe overstated in the summaries etc… I asked now because all the early Harta comics volumes are discounted/have coin back promotions on bookwalker currently and I wanted to see which ones I should buy. I already got 昴とスーさん for example! But it was still very interesting to read your thoughts on catching up! I wasn’t aware that アンリの靴 had only 2 chapters before 75, so I might grab that on as well. Totally forgot about it!
maybe someone who’s following it has looked into that more
so excited!
Depends if it makes sense in the context of the series. 瑠璃の宝石 was just really weird in that it felt so out of place? But from what you wrote 紅椿 seems like to be going in a similar direction 
dip in!
I don’t have much to say about it but I kind of wanted to give it a shout out because it was such a joyful little adventure to read through this! (Maybe because it was also very rainy where I’m at)
I’ll probably do a pass at the end and have a look at some of these…
