That was a first impression (somehow only) 4 years ago but yeah now having read all of one and a bit more of the other, with a girl protagonist + kind magical teacher they both have a similar maybe YA-ish kind of feel? but in pretty different directions. 夜の名前を呼んで feels… gooier? Very heartfelt, where Witch Hat can feel a little austere maybe (I also didn’t fall into it as much as I might have expected).
落し物日和
I would say that these old friends reunited over the one girl’s dropped item are joking/teasing with each other in a way that shows their closeness.
たまには何か落としなよ - “Drop something from time to time” is in this context coy, even flirtatious, since she’s telling the other girl to drop stuff just to keep going this little oddly intimate relationship based on knowing each other well enough to know intuitively both who dropped the thing and who picked it up. In particular the form of 落としなよ is hard to translate or describe perfectly but contributes a lot to the feeling and the response. 落としなさい would be like (たとえば) a mother telling a child to drop something - 落としなよ is more-or-less the same but feels because of the contraction and よ more like, say, the situation the other character next invokes - a woman telling her boyfriend to leave stuff lying around so she can pick them up.
The 男をダメにする彼女か！？ is then a reaction to all that, and based on a yahoo answer like this I would interpret it as like, a retort pointing out that like, telling someone to go ahead and leave stuff lying around so you can pick it up is overly pampering. And she’s picked up on the flirtatious vibe but she’s cut the tension by lampshading it. Like the follow-up to アンタそれは could have been like, かっこいい or somesuch - you can tell she was moved. But in a friendly way instead she’s joshing the pretension of it a bit by pointing out it sounds like an overbearing partner in a relationship.
That retort then gets its own retort that it’s moot since on those lines the short-haired girl already fits the ダメな男 role. And so the tension remains cut.
I would interpret it as like, a sweet and friendly joking interaction, where the flirtatious element and the explicitly drawn potential parallels to a (heterosexual) relationship are probably intentional. It’s always especially fun to go back and reread these shorts and recognize the art style from the author’s later series, and the short-lived later series クラスのアイドルは今日も推せない is about girls being fans of each other. So at least close friendships between girls is certainly among the author’s artistic interests.
Anyway, I feel like that explanation was a bit disordered, and I feel like it’s kind of more the thing you feel than pick apart, but that’s my attempt!
Okay, real quick before I peek @rodan’s answer … I think 男をダメにする彼女 is one of those culture-specific concepts that is so well-known that people reference it without need for any further context. (I’m not sure I realized that the first time I read it.) Based on the things that came up when I googled that phrase (eg), I think the idea is that a girlfriend spoils her boyfriend to the point that he becomes a ダメ男. So in this case, the main character is just choosing a kind of silly and romantically-tinged phrase to say that her friend is spoiling her. (To which her friend essentially tells her she is already ダメ, but also in a kind of silly and romantically-tinged way.)
After reading @rodan’s answer … I think we kind of said the same thing, aside from that rodan addressed the entire situation, whereas I was focused on the one phrase that I initially found a bit confusing. (I think considering a broader range of things when answering language questions is one of rodan’s great strengths. )
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
…
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
…
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)
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.
…
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
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
…
🌐 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
…
🌙 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
…
🛎️ 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
…
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.
…
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…
I like hearing that! I think it’s a good way of looking at things/art a lot of the time in general, and I agree there’s something conducive to it about reading the variety in a manga magazine like this.
Something I’ve said I think a couple of places about Harta is that although there’s plenty of things in it I’m not that into or have problems with or even actively dislike, it seems like everything or nearly everything in it is at least interesting which in a lot of ways is probably more important to me than everything being extremely up my alley (and seems very impressive in its own way too).
Thanks rodan and MaraVos for the explanations on 落し物日和! Both of your comments were super interesting to read and I now understand the ending very well (at least I think I do haha). I’m so glad I got the flirtatious undertone now thanks to you both, because that adds a lot of flavour to it imho.
Harta 81
one-shots
私設図書館カルセドニーの回顧録
Was a bit too cheesy for me
キュリオシティ
I didn’t really understand the point of any of this, haha. The setting was super odd, somehow. Like having this play out in a boring courtroom when I just want to see all the Aliens and more about that, haha. I get that it led up to this big resolution, but I felt like it was somehow a bit of a miss for me.
影と愛の挨拶
This one was enjoyable! But it was a bit too long? I think this could’ve been pretty good if the story was a bit more tidied up and we had less of the repetition.
嵐の君
The panty shot ruined this one for me
LEFTY WAS HERE
Are we getting more from this author? I am intrigued.
人魚のムニエル
I loved this one for how unexpected everything in there was! This was a nice palate cleanser in the end. I would also like to see more from this author, seems like they think out of the box! And I really liked the design of the female main character.
眼鏡のふたり
So this was released in February 2021. In my country there were still extremely strict lockdowns around that time. It seems like in Japan there weren’t anymore, at least that’s what I gathered from a wiki article on it. I wonder how I would’ve felt about this lighthearted Manga if I read it directly during February 2021. Anyway, now I find it somehow comforting to remember the awkwardness and newness around the masks. Although over here we predominantly used FFP2 masks (and every time I use the subway I still see at least 5 people who still wear those FFP2 masks), so at first I didn’t even associate it with covid until I read MaraVos’s comment.
continuing
アンリの靴
Oh, what a relatable chapter. I once worked as a graphic designer / IT person in a very fancy tourism related company. I never saw clients and was just behind a computer in the back office but they forced me to dress a certain way that made me super uncomfortable. I also quit this gig because of that. Funnily enough, my male colleagues were never held to this standard.
ホテルメッツァペウラへようこそ
While I wrote my Harta 80 notes I had already read this chapter in Harta 81 and couldn’t really write anything about the Harta 80 chapter because my thoughts were completely stuck with this chapter. How heartbreaking! With ホテルメッツァペウラへようこそ the breaks in between chapters somehow work super well for me, even with cliffhangers like that.
生き残った６人によると
MaraVos said it best:
アビスアジュールの罪人
When I read this I thought all 6 short stories will be after each other and thought this is another one shot so it was a super surprising twist for me when it turned out that this is actually アビスアジュールの罪人 which made the experience super fun haha but unfortunately that was not intended
夜の名前を呼んで
I was a bit sad this got more serious in the last chapter, but this chapter (albeit starting equally serious) brought back the lightheartedness which I really enjoyed!
Forgot his name, but his character design/outfit doesn’t fit the vibe/story for me at all always took me out a bit.
ことり文書
We now know that this apparently plays in current times, at least people are using smartphones and stuff. I loved this chapter!
Also this relatable progression over several pages:
Next issue will have あかねさす柘榴の都! I am excited for that one. I wanted to read this one since I discovered it unrelated to Harta, so even better that it’s included in here! (Thankfully I didn’t buy any volumes of that one yet, haha!)
Also the drawings featuring Dungeon Meshi’s characters in a modern setting were sooo good, really makes me want to read something from the author that plays in this setting haha
Volume 6 and I am still struggling… But it’s so much fun! Not sure if it’s possible to slowly catch up with us but if you have the opportunity, would love it if you’d join us!
wrote down a bit less notes this time, but I enjoyed a lot of what was in this volume and not only the ones I wrote about.
debuts
あかねさす柘榴の都
I really was looking forward to this one and wasn’t disappointed. I really love the art style and how it feels like very dynamic and lively. It makes me feel like I am actually in Andalusia!
shorts
魔王
This felt like a Studio 4°C Genius Party short film, can they please animate it?
ききみみ図鑑
oh man that one was definitely a stand-out. I am very sad to hear about the author passing away. Apparently there will be another story from the mangaka in the next volume, I am definitely looking forward to it!
タナトローム
I loooove the cover. I thought the setup and general story was very interesting, I wish the author would’ve explored it more. In its current form it was pretty predictable. I still really liked it.
裸足のマジカルホームタウン
I was longing for more when this one ended! The art style in this one was also one of my faves in this Harta.
continuing
アンリの靴
Noise from shoes is such a big thing (like hearing heels is such a trope in films!) but hardly ever acknowledged. I really enjoyed this chapter going all in on it
夜の名前を呼んでく
Super curious to hear from MaraVos more about how this might be a metaphor for depression… since the last thoughts were intercepted by Covid. I think it would make total sense, but I can’t really connect the dots yet.
Btw I also got sick while reading this volume, I hope mitrac will break the curse …
Got inspired by everyone else in the thread to add more images!
debuts
虎は龍をまだ食べない
I read the first chapter but this will be an instant skip in the future. Really goes against everything I like.
涙子さまの言う通り
This, on the other hand, I very much enjoyed! I like the detective and how humorous he is. It is a bit brutal which is difficult to stomach, but I am fully invested. I’m not good with dogs and always hated my grandparents dog jumping around when I came to visit them, so I felt that panel in my soul
Pretty sure I’m just repeating the sentiment from what I wrote about the last chapter, but I love the art style so much! It’s so unique and it feels so lively. I have no ties to Andalucia and never ever been there before, but very strong ties to Croatia and this Manga often also reminds me of my many times on the Istrian coast and the locals there.
アンリの靴
I mentioned this before but I don’t really like the chapters where Anri primarily interacts with fellow businesses instead of customers. I just prefer the contained stories around one person looking for new shoes. So this was not really my fave.
Hmmm I feel like this would’ve worked better as a one-shot, at least I don’t really see the appeal of having more of this setup as it feels fairly repetitive? But I guess you could say that about other series that I enjoy too, so this one probably just doesn’t mesh with me.
ホテルメッツァペウラへようこそ
I enjoyed the previous chapters a bit more but this was fine too.
I LOVED everything about this one! I am heartbroken that the Mangaka apparently did no other Manga after this?? (At least I couldn’t find anything) But they created some games which I probably have to check out at some point. https://image-labo.com/
Very excited to soon reach the new era of Harta covers, which were what initially drew me to Harta in the first place
This prompted me to go back through my own issue 83 post, which is the first one I added images to and I got to relive some great moments through that.
I am surprised this is not a one shot because it read like one. But I am curious to see how this will progress!
one shots
I won’t say much about the much discussed weird detective story (you know which one I am talking about ) because I have nothing to say about it that hasn’t been said. I didn’t even saw all of it it because I just skipped most of the pages after reading the previous comments on it.
I wasn’t expecting to like this as much as I did, but this one was the thing I remembered the most from the whole issue. I couldn’t tell where it was going the whole way through and it was just so charming and weird. I liked it!
Good reaction for when you meet someone for the first time.
I read this in the morning before work and totally forgot to check the time because I was so absorbed in it. My central European ass is still learning the lesson of being less quiet when visiting the south of Europe
Eh… my least favorite Kotori chapter so far… I don’t have any good reasons for it, I just didn’t like how realistic the guns looked and the whole premise wasn’t as charming and it bored me a bit.
真柴姉弟は顔が固い
84 is such a wild issue in retrospect!
Last issue before the 染平かつ redesign, first digitally archived issue with an installment of 少年探偵冥司郎 (the most “uh oh I’m implicitly recommending strangers read that…” series by a mile), first digital appearance of my favorite author 田沼朝 but before I actually recognized them myself, the issue with the 僵屍 story I did recognize at the time and the first 司書正 chapter?
I’d say people who get past it deserve some kind of reward because it’s probably the #1 “if you’ve made it this far, you’re stuck in Harta for good…” kind of barrier since now you’ve got a glimpse of the most off-putting stuff and enough of a taste of the good stuff to get an idea of what’s to come…
To be honest, I had a way longer paragraph there musing about exactly that – am I done for good with Harta? Although more along the lines of “sometimes I feel like this magazine is not for me”. But I thought to myself I will at least read all the other issues I got from the big sale, because all the good things inside Harta are really good. And even if in the end I decide against continuing with reading it, it definitely sparked a new joy in reading Magazines (and Manga in general) for me and I would still check out a Harta every now and then to discover some new series.
Of course – why not just skip the bad parts and enjoy the rest of Harta, if I like it so much? The only problem I have is that I sometimes can’t really let my guard down and just enjoy Harta. For example, I couldn’t really get into 司書正 because seeing an adult character and a minor made me immediately uneasy, since there have been too many series (for me!) that depict adult and minor characters in romantic relationships.
But I don’t really want to to jump to conclusions yet. I can see this just being a time in the magazine in which randomly a few of those rather repulsive series were featured at the same time and all of this gets exaggerated because I currently read through those magazines at a high speed. (At least 虎は龍をまだ食べない and 煙と蜜 are similarly repulsive to me like 少年探偵冥司郎 is. Even if they are not as sexual or use a “he’s actually 1000 years old!” cop out, I dislike them in very similar ways.)
Yeah I regretted the specific way I worded that reply! (I was a bit tipsy yesterday )
There’s an interestingly high level of trust required (that something will remain worth your time / that it won’t suddenly spring anything repulsive on you) in following really anything ongoing, but also maybe especially so for something like a manga magazine, since the variety means there’s way less of a guarantee against change in vibe issue-to-issue. And I think what I was trying to say is that - it’s interesting to me looking back on that issue since I can see both my own personal biggest “Oh! I should uh… actively extend less trust to this magazine” moment, alongside the seeds of what would eventually earn that trust back enough from me, at least enough to get into “I’ll be reading this for the foreseeable future at least” territory and share enough about it to accidentally cause this thread to form.
There’s definitely a world where I stopped reading when Dungeon Meshi ended, but discovering another favorite author (in the form of 田沼朝) with another favorite ongoing meant I was locked in past that once the time came. And my impression at least has been that in the post-redesign era, while the off-putting elements aren’t exactly walked-back or anything, the arc of gradual change I would say in general has been an appealing one to me, when I definitely wouldn’t have been confident in predicting that when I’d just finished reading issue 84.
So it’s an interesting inflection point, looking back, is all! Everyone’s mileage demonstrably varies on this stuff (which is what makes this thread so fun) so I really shouldn’t comment too much on my own journey with it all in retrospect, especially not with any kind of implied assumption that any of y’all will react the same ways, (and I keep saying it but so many people reading so much Harta of this era without being already being a fan following along with Dungeon Meshi is bewildering to me to imagine in the first place since it’s so different from where my headspace was at at the time ) but for what it’s worth, if it helps as an encouraging comment at that inflection point, I do think in general Harta only gets more inviting from here (with the caveat that the series in question are mostly still running - I guess I’d say they just aren’t joined by others, and the proportion of attention they demand gradually decreases).
But again, mileage varies so who knows! And ultimately I suppose it’s all about that future unknown managing to say exciting as opposed to foreboding. I selfishly hope Harta remains in the former category for you, but please do never feel obligated to keep reading, and finding a newfound appreciation for manga magazines and a handful of stories you might not have read otherwise is absolutely more than enough payoff in my book! If this thread ends up a collection of people reading a chunk of Harta and then going off and finding some other magazine or series that’s more their thing that would be ideal for me since I want to find those things too but have time taken up for the moment still reading Harta!
I do find that encouraging! Because I feel like our tastes align (even if I am maybe a bit more strict (for the lack of a better word) about my dislikes). And I didn’t post my first draft(s) of my above ramblings because I didn’t wanted to sound too negative when I am still very positive about Harta as a whole. And like I said, even if I don’t continue following Harta as a magazine regularly, I would still absolutely check out new series published there because the heavy hitters are sooo good! So I hope I didn’t come off too negative or judgemental, which wasn’t my intention at all! (Which is also why I reworded my first draft 10 times and then ended up deleting it anyway because I couldn’t get the words out in the right way… Still unsure if I did… )
Also, I love this little club over here! This is my favourite book (?) club by far, so that alone gives Harta a lot of bonus points.
Btw, I am already almost through 85 (posted my thoughts about 84 really late, it’s not like I read this one in a day haha) and am really enjoying this issue again! And looking back on my first Harta till today, overall I see an increase in series that I very much enjoy and an reduction in series that I dislike or that annoy/repulse me. So I hope I didn’t come off to negative or like I wasn’t happy with how you worded your original post! I am very happy that this, in your eyes, was the worst to come, but still felt compelled to share my original thoughts on it. Although I feel like you gave me another reason to look forward to upcoming issues of Harta.
Not at all! And I in turn nearly deleted my first reply since I was worried it was too positive / too much expecting you to continue, so perhaps it was お互いに余計な心配.
This is my favorite book club too! And the only one remaining that I really follow. I’m glad it came together! The amount of different series to react in different ways to, and the chance to share stories that wouldn’t ever come up another way is really special! I’m glad you’re enjoying it too!
Interesting discussion, can’t wait to get to this issue to see what it’s all about. For some reason I am not really worried about the presence of off-putting series I would otherwise be embarrassed to own, the parts I enjoy and this club way more than outweigh coming across it. I find the range of responses really insightful. The club actually does help in that regard in terms of filtering things, so from the beginning I skipped some things based on existing reviews and that may have saved me a sour taste. And I haven’t even started Dungeon Meshi yet, sounds like I better get on that
To be fair you’re so careful to leave open other interpretations and likes and dislike, don’t worry, really! I like hearing about your journey! I’m on issue 80 right now and it’s sooo fun reading your reactions post. It’s like club origin lore (before you could have even imagined this club I guess) and I’m loving it
Aww, I love this club so much! Everyone so thoughtful and respectful of each others’ experiences.
Now that you mention it, that issue really was a rollercoaster!
The garden shears incident was probably my worst Harta moment. I actually questioned when you last wrote about this series if I should let you know to brace yourself. But ultimately, it’s not as if it was made light of or anything like that, it’s just a sensitive spot for dog people and/or probably most people who like animals.
but yeah now having read all of one and a bit more of the other, with a girl protagonist + kind magical teacher they both have a similar maybe YA-ish kind of feel? but in pretty different directions. 夜の名前を呼んで feels… gooier? Very heartfelt, where Witch Hat can feel a little austere maybe (I also didn’t fall into it as much as I might have expected).
)
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
I am intrigued.
I would also like to see more from this author, seems like they think out of the box! And I really liked the design of the female main character.
I think it would make total sense, but I can’t really connect the dots yet.
… 
I’m excited to read your updates when I get there
) because I have nothing to say about it that hasn’t been said. I didn’t even saw all of it it because I just skipped most of the pages after reading the previous comments on it.
