Justin: A couple years ago, Skull-face Bookseller Honda-san was an anime that aired and seemed interesting. You got a look into the daily lives of one particular bookseller in Japan, in skeleton form, alongside other kooky looking characters, in a short and sweet format. It certainly seemed worth checking out.
Little did I know that it’d be one of my favorite anime of the Fall 2018 season! So when Yen Press announced they licensed it, this was certainly a title to look forward to when it came out.
And after spending time with the first two volumes…I can confirm that licensing this was a great idea, as this manga’s super fun.
As explained at the top, the story is about a bookseller. But this is actual bookstore knowledge straight from the source: the author! Honda did work at a bookstore, and thus, we get many interesting and harrowing stories in the first two volumes. You get to learn the types of responsibilities each bookseller has on a certain day, how they prepare when an anticipated title comes out or how they handle a title that’s surging in popularity, and how they manage to deal with different types of people — from your standard unruly customers, to foreigners, to dealing with a BL girls group, to the Kadokawa sales reps.
Yes, even the Kadokawa sales reps, and references to Kadokawa, are made in this manga. They’re also not the only company…or work referenced in this series! But it’s shown only to emphasize where they stand in the market, but also to show how each company interacts with a bookstore, and that was really fascinating. There’s even networking involved, which leads poor Honda into meeting a fan…a fan that’s a wholesaler…and wants MORE criticism!
As mentioned earlier, there are a lot of different stories that are drawn in the first two volumes that paint a typical day. It usually isn’t always normal because as a bookstore selling all types of pop culture books, you’ll meet an assortment of customers every day who need help. You’ll also have situations where even a hectic day turns frantic for something out of their control (like a famous death — the one highlighted here was Shigeru Mizuki). And as this is from the authors’ own experiences, even this manga had to get two sets of approvals – from the editor and from the bookstore (since they want to make sure the information going out is ok).
While the main focus is on Honda and learning about bookstores, the cast of characters are the biggest draw in the series. I mean you have a character called Fullface and one character wearing a paper bag over their head. The only time I ever see that is when a sports team is so terrible they place one over their heads so no one sees them on TV. So yeah, you combine these oddball characters and have them deal with the day-to-day life of selling books, magic and harmony is created! In other words, much fun (and lots of stress on these characters) is had.
Skull-face Bookseller Honda-san is certainly not only worth your time if you want to get information on how Japanese bookstores are run, but also if you’re in need of a great manga in general.
Justin’s Rating: 4 out of 5
Helen: When I started reading the original material for the 2018 Honda-san anime I expected to find maybe a few new gags that the anime couldn’t fit in (I would expect to find more of them in volumes 3 and 4), but mostly I expected to just have a laugh re-encountering the jokes that made me laugh so hard the first time.
What I didn’t expect was to find out that Honda-san is in fact a woman!
There are multiple references to this in the translated text and a few references in the actual art which left me feeling utterly baffled; there is a gag at the back of volume 2 about how Honda’s editor wants a “hunk” to play them in a (theoretical) live-action adaptation and maybe casting the male voice actor/idol voice actor Soma Saito was supposed to be the anime equivalent???
Once I got over this initial shock, I was again shocked at just how many of Honda’s customer interactions involved fans of BL books! I don’t remember if every single one of these situations was included in the anime, or perhaps they were spread out a bit more, but it certainly seemed like domestic and international BL fans alike have been embarrassing booksellers in Japan for ages with their unrepentant love and specific tastes. As someone who has worked retail in a very busy environment (and coincidentally one with a large number of foreign tourists), I certainly sympathized with the woes of trying to keep a routine (like, stocking before something runs out) in a sometimes fickle environment (why did every customer want to buy this one specific thing today???). I may not have had to deal with BL fans but I had to deal with literal busloads of teenagers (something that is missing from Honda-san, as all of the customers appear to be adults) which are their own brand of hardship.
I have to admit that Honda’s coworkers are far more chipper about everything, from holidays messing up their stocking plans to pushy sales reps, than any retail environment I’ve been in. Perhaps that’s the result of “editorial meddling,” — while Honda’s actual editor seems perfectly fine with any story they propose, Honda’s managers are spooked after some higher-ups took some offense with the “customer service training” chapter (which strikes me as a defensive and telling action) and now Honda has to run everything through their managers as well.
That is a shame, since I certainly don’t want a story of retail work where folks far removed from the floor are more concerned with “branding” and “image,” I want the story of common workers like me! While this certainly doesn’t detract from my enjoyment of the story, “weird shenanigans in retail” is easy comedy, I will be looking at volumes 3 and 4 with that thought, of managers and common people, in the back of my mind.
Helen’s Rating: 4 out of 5