Weeelll… might have enjoyed this one more if it weren’t for the lady’s huge ginormous boobs. I couldn’t really tell what vibe the series was going for from this chapter, tbh.
This is an intriguing looking horror manga. Looks like the detective is going to track down the cult activity. The dog-people at the end were actually pretty cute.
At first I wasn’t sure what this one was going for, since I’m a little cautious whenever a Japanese manga is introducing South Asian-flavored characters, but once I got to the ending I really liked it!! I loved the theme of instruments in museums, it always makes me sad when I see an instrument in a museum and its strings are broken or something, like the museum doesn’t care about it as anything more than an object.
Made it to a new chapter of this! Why is little dude carrying the mailboxes on his back, it looks heavy The chapter was cute but it did strike me as kind of deceitful in a way that I don’t think the author intended, using magic to transform someone so Mira doesn’t actually know she’s talking to a regular person.
This was my first time seeing this 助っ人 (すけっと) word, thought it was kind of a fun one!
Cute chapter, honestly not sure I’d read this in volume form because I don’t choose to read a lot of slice of life type stuff, but I like reading the slice of life stories in the manga magazine format!
I think she says リタ, the cafe proprietress from the first chapter, gave it to her for Natsuki to use (since she knew he would be coming). It slipped her mind at first since she was just woken up (so why he got a different cup at first / why she was hazy on the details).
It’s just a nice bit of like – the feeling of getting used to a new place and its mundane but unfamiliar details like the different table settings, plus the feeling that in small ways people are looking out for you and making space for you, plus reflecting on all the same mundane details from his old life that are all gone. I don’t think it’s significant beyond being evocative of that kind of thing.
Ah, that makes sense! I think I forgot who リタ was. Also, sometimes Japanese media requires so much reading between the lines that I start overcorrecting and thinking, should I be intuiting a lot more significance here, when really it was just saying something fairly straightforward.
Yep, good read. He’s saying roughly like (in a way that works better with Japanese phrasing and the order of the dialogue) “that’s rich coming from somebody who bought a weak little magnet”
(incidentally I for all of the reference links here I’ll pretty much just be searching “X 方言” or “X 大阪弁”
やねん I think is fully declarative. Seems like ねん is like なん and や is like だ.
So it’s like なんだけど or んだけど
Here he’s saying like,
“This is neither here nor there, but uh I have tickets for like an insect exhibit kind of thing, wanna go?” “It would be with friend as well but - actually well, they’re his tickets so.”
So there’s a lot of やねんけど’s because he’s adding in explanatory context but not being presumptuous about what it means for Atami’s response.
Note also the あんねんけど is also there and is also affirmative, like あるんだけど (rather than a negative).
(all of that a little hazy as I start wondering if I mistakenly glossed over nuance differences between なんだけど and んだけど etc., but the point is - ねん does not negate anything in these!)
Watch out!! We never established you didn’t know what やんね is… we established that about やねん!
This is one of those one’s where it’s a real pain in the neck to work out the derivation just because it ends up sounding like other bits of kansai-ben. So you’re normally well served by looking for like, やs and ねんs and stuff but it gets confusing here.
I’m pretty sure after looking at it for a while what’s happening though is he’s talking about the baseball game they’re watching, and he’s saying like roughly “but say, how long do they do this? The same thing over and over…” (as he’s starting to blithely comment on the game that he doesn’t really care about).
I think やんねや ends up that way because it’s やる followed up with a ねや
んねや is like なんだね.
So it’s like he’s saying いつまでやるなんだね or like “just how long do they do this for huh?”
… anyway I do seem to recall that a lot of the dialect in this series opened up for me more once I realized stuff I was taking for ないs was more like なんs, so hopefully some of this is helpful for you as well!
So, I was curious about how long exactly it would take to be caught up to Harta at my current rate. I knew it was some kind of math, so I called my brother (who’s a computer scientist) and he made an equation for me. If I’m at issue 83 right now, the newest issue is 135, it publishes 10x a year, and I’m reading at a rate of 2 issues per month, it would be:
AKA, 44.5 months. BUT! If I were to read at a pace of 3 issues per month, I would catch up in 2 years, which seems much more reasonable. So I’ll definitely have to pick up the pace at some point, or else I’ll see you all in March 2030
Oh wow, a new historical series! This was really mysterious. Why is he catatonic? Why do the maids have to be killed? Why do the librarian dudes only last a few years?? What is the emperor using them for? [wild speculation] is there some kind of supernatural element? The art also had some gorgeous interior shots.
This author debuted in issue 81 so I went to check what their one-shot was and… it was the one I didn’t like about the homeless dog liking girl with the panty shot. Oh… okay then. The first chapter here was fine (no panty shots this time), it again features a spunky girl who will break the shy boy out of his shell (picture me yawning in the background). I do like that he draws cute magical girls though.
one-shots:
少年探偵冥司郎の嬉戯
Luckily I saw the conversation about this one so I didn’t open it at work I opened it at home and flipped through, and had a good chuckle at the author’s tenuous grasp on anatomy. So I still got some entertainment value out of that, and a newfound appreciation for other authors that draw horny manga but with a more realistic grasp of the human form
Maybe it’s because I just flipped through that 少年探偵 manga, but the lady’s boobs were less distracting in this chapter. I guess this is kind of an odd pair romance (?) where they bite each other sometimes. Actually didn’t mind this chapter so I’ll keep reading.
I’m (occasionally) a classical musician and one trope I like to note is when evil characters listen to classical music. It’s pretty common and sometimes it’s super lazy (pops up a lot in Hollywood action movies and such). Here you can see she’s evil because she wants to listen to opera.
This was a cute chapter, although I was kind of shocked for a second when Kotori pulled out a box with a realistic looking gun on it then actually read the panel and realized it was a BB gun. This series is super cute and readable.
Actually a nice chapter where a rival appears and our main girl learns about jealousy. I do appreciate that one aspect of her crush is genuinely loving the books he writes. Like, at least she’s not an idiot who doesn’t read or something. I wonder if new character will get another love interest besides 先生
Ahhh, so 師匠 has a similar backstory to Mira where he was also an outcast and that’s why he understands her so well. Naruhodo, naruhodo.
ガラスの瞳で覗かせて (final chapter)
This one is over. Can’t say I’ll miss it much Just felt like it never turned into much.
yatagarasu hai winners:
Whoa, a new section!! It’s a bit easy to miss in the TOC for this issue, I only noticed after looking at Mara’s issue 84 post. Question for rodan, about how often does the contest run? Just curious how often I’ll be seeing this segment from now on.
I decided to go ahead and read all of these at once so I wouldn’t get to the end of the regular issue and then be annoyed at having a roadblock towards starting the next issue.
I thought the first few pages of this were gorgeous. Then I read the story and felt that it was just okay. One thing I notice with shorts is that sometimes the art style that the author chose doesn’t feel like it really fits the story; that was kind of how I felt here. The art style was just so over the top with the flourishes that it was distracting from what was actually going on, plus the sort of juvenile joking about a missing penis and then everyone being blasted into shojo world didn’t feel like it fit with the arty decorative style from the beginning. In comics, the art is a part of the storytelling, so if it’s actually distracting from the storytelling or something isn’t clear, then you didn’t really do a good job making a comic, no matter how pretty overall it is. I usually would guess that this is a problem amateur comic writers have, but I saw from the discussion that amateurs and pros can both submit so who knows. Anyways just my 2 cents
Y’know, I was thinking about what to say on this subject (e.g. “y’all are still like, actively learning and looking stuff up, right? It’ll speed up!”, “seems like chances are if it happens it’ll involve a dungeon meshi style binge somewhere in there right so idk if the general rate matters so much” etc.) but honestly I think the main thing I’d express is that the issue you’re on now is from 2021, and like, it’s from right when I caught up so my post about it on this very forum is from full on, deadass, feels-like-it, half a decade ago.
So in my book at least, any rate faster than that is pretty incredible!! And it goes to show how cool it is the harta back numbers that are digitally available even go back that far… Beam is about as closely related a magazine as there is, and those are timegated (which admittedly has netted a prolonged FOMO driven subscription from me that probably wouldn’t have been as profitable if I could buy those issues on sale)…
It’s a pile to get through for sure, but a pile that’s arguably undeniably cool on some level to get the chance to get through, something I gotta remind myself sometimes about my own 積読… (e.g. those Beams…)
Yes to both of these! (I’m thinking of trying to read one Harta in 24 hours for a future readathon!) But also, there are multiples of us on this journey so we can have plenty of fun on the journey without getting too worried about the destination I think. I love getting inspired to revisit things from previous issues because of new questions or comments.
Oh, yeah, the general rate doesn’t really ‘matter’ in the sense of, this definitely has to happen at this speed or else. I calculated it more for myself, to be able to get my brain around what kind of timescale I’m looking at, just to make things feel more concrete. I definitely don’t think a dungeon meshi style binge happening somewhere in there is out of the question, either
Oh man This all must be very なつかしい for you haha
That’s a good point too. When I get caught up I’ll be such an expert on Harta manga and all the series in it. (Oh yeah, you like such-and-such series? I’ve been reading it from the beginning in Harta Yep, I’ve read all the backissues since 2020 )
That is definitely a familiar variety of smugness when one say, gets recognized by friends, is nominated in a book club, places highly in このマンガがすごい!, or wins the Osamu Tezuka cultural prize…
Seems like twice a year!
From that first one on, it feels like 八咫烏杯 is pretty much always either being announced, taking submissions, or publishing results.
He’s wearing a shirt where narutomaki are placed like nipples.
He chose the shirt because they were going to a store selling Chinese-themed goods to buy this shumai cushion, figuring it matched since narutomaki is strongly associated with ramen, which in turn is associated with China. Everything in these panels therefore (including the noodle bowl-ish bit of design in the background) fits in with “Chinese” aesthetic (not necessarily the same as being actually Chinese).
The part that sticks out much more to her on the other hand, is the way the shirt draws strong attention to his nipples in a weird way. She’s remarking that it’s rather agressive/flashy/attention-getting choice of clothing, which he has not noticed at all since the point of the story is about how his perspective tends to not match the norm.
She’s remarking that he has a good/fast metabolism, which appears to be the kind of phrase Japanese people might say if they sweat/get hot a lot (even if the correlation is maybe dubious). In this case it’s just an off-hand remark about him feeling warm enough to take off his jacket, which serves as an excuse for the author to have the shirt reveal she wanted.
She’s talking a lot (emphasized with the ペラペラペラペラ) and not to him, so I think probably he just stopped paying attention and started thinking absent-mindedly about dumplings, just since it again fits with the kind of store that they’re in (they’re buying a dumpling-themed cushion after all - these are just other kinds of dumpling).
Yep, it is indeed context from the previous chapter. There was a larger than usual gap since the last one in which to forget things as the series moved to a bimonthly schedule and skipped an extra month, but in issue 92, their meet-cute (AKA the only time they’ve ever actually interacted) involved him stepping in to help her reach high on the blackboard while on eraser duty.
So in that part in this chapter, he’s saying like roughly “I just noticed how she was working hard despite being short, is all” as in like, he noticed her struggling to reach what she was supposed to erase on the blackboard.
P.S. - just on the off-chance the “not that I’m interested in romance” you mentioned is referring to the 「恋ッ…!!してみたくなくはない!!正直!!」if so, you may wish to double check the number of negatives in that conjugation! As he’s confessing there (under light mostly self-inflicted duress) like, it’s not that he isn’t interested in trying romance, if he’s being honest.
(no worries if that part was just a general description of the stance he was trying to take though!)
Oh thanks! Yes, their blackboard-erasing meet-cute
Ohh, yes, I had very much miscounted the double/triple negatives there! Thanks for pointing that out! But his earlier side comments were things like “I didn’t say she’s cute” … I just missed that he was finally sort of confessing “it’s not that I’m not interested” at the end there …
If they took out the two ladies in the foreground I would probably LOVE it. But with the foreground ladies I find it very MEH. I mean, actually they could probably just take out the main foreground lady with the green thingamajig and I’d probably love it. JUST STOP OBJECTIFYING WOMEN SO MUCH EVERYONE. :grumble:
New series starting! Yay! But also, ack! The writing style is definitely on the more difficult side. Only made it to page 12 so far. The illustration is very elegant though, look:
So, in the panel below, is the detective guy saying that … actually I have no idea. At first I thought he was saying that translator guy must make more money doing that then it seems like you would. But then I looked up the definition of 見合う and now am thinking … maybe something about it being rewarding to work with authors? I dunno, I’m really confused now.
I would say that he’s saying like, (quite) roughly “oh, there can’t be too much money in that. You must love it a lot I imagine?”
見合わない as in like, the pay not matching up with the work involved. Like 見合わない報酬 as in “insufficient compensation”
I don’t really have a direct source or reason why that feels right to me or why I could identify it… other than I guess vibe of example sentences and instinct? Trying to pinpoint something: 見合う sounds like it would be good to me, since 合う generally feels like good/matching. So 見合わない報酬 sounds like not corresponding in a negative sense, i.e. bad pay, rather than like, not being proportionate in a positive sense, like “disproportionate reward” would be (which it sounds like is more the line you were starting to drift towards).
Haha, I would say rather それ is the sandwich, and he’s letting the main character know that he’s pretty sure the sandwich contains a lot of butter on the inside.
Surmising that the butter disliking western food novice picked it to try specifically since he couldn’t tell it was loaded with butter since it’s all on the inside.
The whole exchange is that kind of fast-moving dialogue where the characters are responding to each other from different angles each time so there’s no shame in getting tripped up, and it’s satisfying when you can keep up with it!
catch-up corner for manga I’m reading outside the issue format 
The chapter was cute but it did strike me as kind of deceitful in a way that I don’t think the author intended, using magic to transform someone so Mira doesn’t actually know she’s talking to a regular person.
Now she’ll have to work together with dude to save her friend? Hope he has a submarine or something, that prison was pretty deep underwater.
work in progress 
So I still got some entertainment value out of that, and a newfound appreciation for other authors that draw horny manga but with a more realistic grasp of the human form 
then actually read the panel and realized it was a BB gun. This series is super cute and readable.
This all must be very なつかしい for you haha
Yep, I’ve read all the backissues since 2020 
