Harta #118
Harta (ハルタ) is a manga magazine published in Japan by Kadokawa which I’ve been reading for a number of years now, and has consistently been a favorite of mine. The name comes from the Indonesian word for “treasure” and I admire how much the magazine lives up to the name, with a large quantity (around 800-1000 pages) of varied and interesting manga published 10 times a year (monthly, but skipping January and July). I haven’t liked every single thing in the magazine, but I’ve loved a lot of them, and they’re always at least interesting, which goes a long way for me.
It’s hard to describe what a Harta series is typically like, because I would say that there’s ultimately no hard restrictions as far as I can tell, but I would say roughly that the quintessential Harta manga might be enjoyable by adults of any age or gender, might prominently feature a craft or hobby or discipline, might be set abroad or in a historical time period or fantasy world, might be on the cozy and quiet side, might feature light romance, might be literary but not avant-garde, and might be a little gay. I can think of examples that avoid one or all of those criteria, but that’s more or less the sort of vibe to expect.
I get a lot out of reading it! And this post is meant as a way of sharing some of that, particularly with non-Japanese-readers or fellow learners.
If anything here sounds at all interesting to you, I’d encourage you to check it out yourself! Harta can be bought digitally or ordered wherever Japanese books are sold. I personally recommend Bookwalker, as it is easy to sign up for and use from outside Japan, and Harta back issues going back to June 2020 along with collected editions of Harta series can all be found there, often at a discount. Harta also has a companion website of additional free comics (that rotate) called Harta Alternative. And it’s also worth noting that you can often find the first chapter for any given series on Harta’s website (best found by googling the title - I honestly don’t know if these are listed anywhere on the site itself).
Finally, if you can’t read Japanese but are interested in all this, I can’t help but recommend learning to read the language as a hobby, as I have found doing so to be extremely fun and fulfilling, and I wouldn’t have expected reading this magazine to be nearly as attainable as it ended up turning out to be. I talked some about my experience with Learning to Read 2 in this WaniKani forum post. And you can also find other posts etc. from me elsewhere on this notion site, navigable from the top left corner or this landing page.
NOTE: I’ll try to hide direct spoilers under a dropdown, but screenshots or summaries may inadvertently indirectly spoil small things.
Issue #118 is the October 2024 issue, and features series from teams は and る.
Right out of the gate there’s a 新連載 (debuting series) this issue! 現象X 超常現象捜査録 (Genshou X / ”Phenomena X: Paranormal Investigations Case Log”) by 温泉中也 (Nakaya Onsen). My first impression is that it’s unapologetically setting up an X-Files type of series (I mean… it’s right there in the name), but with the core duo character-design-wise being like, a goofy foxgirl and Vash the Stampede from Trigun. Could be cool and we’ll have to see how they develop.
In the second chapter of 狼よ、震えて眠れ (Okami yo, Furuetenemure / “Wolf, Sleep Uneasily”) by 犬童千絵 (Chie Inudou) the premise seems to be developing nicely in the kinds of ways my friend was hoping for, with the protagonist’s backstory so far being that
