So there’s (第1弾 of) a ハルタ特大フェア through 2026年1月5日.
Harta is a manga magazine I’ve been reading for about 5 years now, so it’s very much my wheelhouse. Something I appreciate about it a lot is that I would say just about everything in it is at least interesting - which isn’t to say that I like or even don’t dislike everything in it or that there aren’t some off-putting series or stories, rather that I just think they do a good job assembling a variety of quality and interesting stories. And that’s while generally maintaining a warm, enjoyable treasure box feeling of wondering what kind of story you’ll read next (as opposed to the also interesting, but I would say somewhat edgier and more experimental/abrasive feeling of something like the magazine it developed out of, Comic Beam).
The magazine isn’t really bound at all by genre, so it’s a little hard to describe the vibe with any kind of completeness, but period stories, slice-of-life stories about specific hobbies/interests/jobs, fantasy stories, some amount of action/adventure, relatively understated romance… something like that is Harta-ish I would say. Off the top of my head, recently debuted series include supernatural triad crime action with jiangshis in 80s Hong Kong, a comedy about a domineering salaryman getting bodyswapped into the body of a 17th century English seafaring captain, and a series about professional painting restoration.
You may also already be familiar somewhat with Harta via book clubs, as ダンジョン飯, ハクメイとミコチ, 夜の名前を呼んで, アンリの靴, and ウスズミの果て are all Harta series.
Anyway, as part of this promotion, Harta back issues from (the oldest digitized) 80 through (this September’s) 127 are on sale for 100 yen (pre-tax). I think it’s really cool that they keep their back-issues for sale like this (Beam, for example, only has new issues on sale at any given time) and discount them. It is, if nothing else, a cheap way to get a lot of comics at once - the average size of an issue is roughly 1000 pages, so this is like .1 yen per page.
The last time such a sale happened, I was shocked to find that several people actually took Bookwalker up on it, and a whole Harta book club sprang up, which I at least greatly enjoy. I think it’s a super cool and unique thing to be able to pick through a back history of a magazine like that together with people, answer questions, see what stories different people gravitate to and appreciate them in a new light, enjoy together the good parts and commiserate about the bad parts, etc. I’ve especially been really really glad to share stories I never thought in a million years I would ever have any chance to share with anyone (since how often do you get to compare notes with people about a comic that was only published once in a foreign language in a magazine five years ago?).
So if you do happen to be interested and bought up some back issues, I’d be thrilled you’d have a welcoming (albeit sometimes quiet) thread to ask any questions and share any thoughts. As for whether you should, I think it’s fair to say:
- these will very probably end up as 積読 and sit wistfully in your backlog for a chance when you have time to power through thousands of pages of comics you aren’t already interested in - although for backlog material it does seem relatively enjoyable to pick away at slowly (and the Harta book club has no expectations of pace whatsoever).
- Although each issue has enough one-off short stories and debuts to I would say be worth 100 yen, obviously the more series you’re interested in the more motivating it is and the more it’s actually worth it - I for one only began reading Harta because I was over the moon for Dungeon Meshi at the time and wanted to read new chapters.
So - it’s up to you! I definitely wouldn’t even be mentioning it in such detail if last time the development of the Harta book club hadn’t taken me by surprise and if I didn’t love that club so much.
As for non-magazine-issues, it seems like some series have first volumes discounted to 100 yen (pre-tax).
I would certainly personally recommend (to pick a handful somewhat arbitrarily):
- いやはや熱海くん is my personal favorite manga these days. It’s an odd, quiet slice-of-life about a boy who gets asked out (by girls) a lot but frequently develops crushes (towards guys) himself, but mostly it’s about the series’ very unique and naturalistic Kansai dialogue as the characters chat about whatever in a way that frequently hits that perfect mark of feeling delightful and profound despite also feeling like a completely innocuous everyday conversation.
- ホテル・メッツァペウラへようこそ, a sweet series with the feeling of coming into the warmth from a cold winter’s day, about a Japanese teenager with a troubled past finding a home in a hotel in Lapland, Finland.
- 贋 (まがいもの), a period story about a found family of a struggling horror artist and a couple of kids he’s ended up looking after, attempting to eke out a living via art forgery.
- かわいすぎる人よ！, a very warm and (as the name suggests) cute series about the bond between a girl and the uncle who became her legal guardian after her parents died.
- ふしぎの国のバード, a Meiji-era Japan travelogue, based on an Englishwoman’s real account.
Also, it’s not on sale, but I did want to shout out that I heard 本なら売るほど won first place in このマンガがすごい！2026 (オトコ編) and I can confirm that そのマンガがindeedすごい. linked short stories involving a used book store, which always feature a real book in interesting ways. An interesting way to hear of an assortment of interesting books, and really strong stories in their own right too.
I dunno when or what 第２弾 will be, but I guess you might be stuck hearing me blather about Harta for a while yet.