With June disrupting things with family stuff and illness, and my physical backlog of stuff reduced… not exactly to the point that I don’t still have a lot, but maybe at least about the minimum I needed to, I find myself wanting to put the first half of the year to bed, and catching back up on Harta feels like one way to do that. Feels good to be back at it, and to not be quite so intense about feeling like if I read digital stuff it takes away from time clearing out physical books, although I’m so used to Harta at this point I feel like I don’t have especially interesting thoughts about it!
A few highlights…
I enjoyed the corny (and rather violent) なぞなぞ in this chapter of 悪魔二世 by 志波由紀.
There’s a 読み切り of the kind that feels like it’s 100% a first pass for a future series called THE 3RD EYE by 大上明久利, the author of 極東事変. The “Dieselpunk” aesthetic definitely plays to Ohue’s strengths and interests! If it does turn out to be a series, I wouldn’t terribly mind.
This chapter of 開花アパートメント by 飴石 centered around different attempts to translate a word in a poem (the German word “Fernweh”), which I enjoyed. It’s always a little extra fun when the interest and enjoyment of reading something in a foreign language is further mixed with language-related fun in the work itself.
As expected, I enjoyed the conclusion of the two-part story in 本なら売るほど by 児島青.
