Galette No. 28 (ガレット) ended something I felt might never end, but I get ahead of myself.

I am finding it harder to read things on the computer than I used to and manga on my phone was absolutely too stressful for my eyes, especially at the end of the day, so I recently invested in a super cheapo tablet to function as a reader. I find that manga looks good on it, despite complaints that the images for this model are fuzzy. The complainants’ eyes are better than mine I guess, because I find it to be perfectly fine. More importantly, when reading something like Galette, which is designed to be a magazine size, having the whole page in front of me at once makes it much easier to read. I got myself a FEONAL Android tablet. This is not a paid sponsorship, it was just a cheap Android tablet that had everything I wanted, including a keyboard. ^_^

But let’s talk about Galette. There are three stories I want to highlight for various reasons, I’ll save the best (IMHO) for last. But to be fair, I was very checked out of the high school Yuri stories. It’s not that I dislike them, but was just not in a mood to be very receptive.

That said, the first one I want to talk about is the final chapter of Hakamada Mera’s “Aikata System.” On the one hand I am very sympathetic to Hakamada-sensei, who has had more than one series cut short mid-story and had to move publishers to see it finished. On the other, I really hoped she would take some risks with this story and show us Kairo just burning the system down. Sadly, we did not get the ending the story deserved.  It was a happy end of a sort, just not the one I hope. ^_^; It went on so long and had so much anger and angst, a happy ending felt discordant.

Secondly I want to briefly touch base on “Watashi no Kawaii Neko” by Morinaga Milk. Again, I have a great deal of sympathy for the creator, who is very much writing out of her comfort zone. But we got *so* close to a real story, then pulled back into something pat and comfortable. It’ll make a nicer end for the series, but for pity’s sake, Yuna and Reina need to really talk some stuff out. You’ll see when the next volume of My Cute Little Kitten comes out in English from Seven Seas.

Lastly, I want to tell you about a short that I genuinely enjoyed, this one, by Aneido titled something like “An Isekai about a salarywoman who becomes a knight and complains about it.” The titular character is doing the Isekai version of Groundhog Day – reliving the same scenario over and over. Sent to rescue the Princess from the Demon Queen, she just cannot get a break. Even when she does rescue the Princess, she treats the Knight like crap. This time, she sneaks into the Demon Queen’s Palace and learns why! The Demon Queen and Princess are having a passionate affair. The Knight helpfully offers to join and is violently rebuffed. This story honestly made me laugh out loud. Thumbs up from me on this one. ^_^

This volume also contains a short story, and the 140 character stories sent in by fans, which were interesting.

I know I’m still behind, I received No. 33 in the mail and won’t get to it for a while, but now that I have my new tablet, hopefully I can finally make my way through the next couple of volumes more quickly now.

Ratings:

Overall – 8

I now have Volumes 1-21 (except 14 which was the COVID volume, and has a short printing) in print, Volume 22-30 in PDF from Pixiv Fanbox, 31-32 from Bookwalker and 33 in print, again. As I said on the Okazu Discord, it’s a good thing I am not an obsessive completist. I just want to read the stories! ^_^