Gaikotsu Shotenin Honda-san
Skull-face Bookseller Honda-san

Edit

What would you like to edit?

SynopsisBackgroundAlternative TitlesPictureChapters/VolumesPublishing DatesRelationsTypeExternal Links  

"Stories are free as birds until someone picks them up"

An educative and somewhat eccentric manga! Very strong first volume: an incredibly funny and honest depiction of life as a bookstore employee. A lot of interesting insight - take for example the little anecdote about the 'western comics' section manager's back pain caused by restocking books made from thicker materials than japanese manga! I also loved chapter 19 of volume 3 (a little bookmark for me haha), where Honda-san compares the publishing schedules and work reputations of the major manga publishing houses. It's an example of edifying insider information presented in an entertaining and funny ... style. In the first volume particularly, the punchlines, reinforced often by heavy brushstroke visuals, always land! An efficient way of demystifiying 'otaku' tropes, shown for example in the almost noble depiction of yaoi fangirls and recognizing manga as no longer a niche product but a true global sensation.

But it becomes clear that the author has saved his best stories for the first volume, and chapters became less funny and even slightly repetitive, not too mention a bit infodump-y as the story progressed. It will be interesting to see if he will reach some kind of stable ground from which to build a strong recurrent cast like the one from previous volumes.

I bought two volumes of the manga and had to drop this title. The drawing isnt bad. The main character lacks personality. It is a typical person who would always say "I dont know" or "Ah ok" to anything. But anyway, it is more about the experience of working at a bookstore right?

The books are pretty informative about it. There are detailed things I did not know before about working at a bookstore. But either the Yen Press translation is bad or just weird paneling, it is DIFFICULT to follow the story on many pages. Some sentences dont make sense, or it is hard to ... know wth is going on. It killed the enjoyment of reading the series.

too bad beacuse i had high expectation of the title.

At first, the setting is really fun, and it's super interesting seeing the ins and outs of a working bookstore, and all the quirks of the business and the customers. The exploration of different types of manga and manga-buying customers is entertaining, and the novelty of Honda's skeletal appearance adds to the humour, especially as her character is constantly flustered or shocked by something, and she has to express that with the limited emotive potential of: the skull.

As much as I did enjoy it, the manga quickly starts to feel like it doesn't have much to say. We see several versions of the foreign customer ... who act in similar ways, we revisit the "lewd" manga over and over again to talk awkwardly about how they're sexual (wow), and it all seems to fall into a boring, repetitive cycle that isn't very much fun.

By the fourth volume, it's become ridiculous. The entirety of this volume is about, I kid you not, how Honda has no material left. I'm baffled as to why they bothered to publish it.

There's also a really uncomfortable anecdote in chapter 18 where employees talk about how rare it is to see children in the shop. They talk about being excited when they see cute kids, and there are some really off-colour jokes about how they're saying this in a non-creepy way. One employee corrects herself when she refers to a little girl she saw as a "loli". It's just like... ok? Very, very odd and uncomfortable little segment.

Overall, the manga has some fun moments, but it gets a bit tiresome in some aspects (especially in relation to going on about erotic manga that the store sells), and massively overstays it's welcome.

Maybe just read the first volume.