Holiday Reviews: SKULL-FACE BOOKSELLER HONDA-SAN

More than ever, the internet is an important place for manga.  It's not just where an increasing number of manga get their start (thanks to sites like pixiv), but also where they can take on new life as memes and viral sensations.  There were quite a few comedies who benefited from this, including this series.

SKULL-FACE BOOKSELLER HONDA-SAN (Gaikotsu Shotenin Honda-san), by Honda.  First publilshed in 2015 and first published in North America in 2019.

PLOT:

Honda might not be the bookish beauty that most Japanese people expect a bookstore employee to look like, but that doesn't mean he's not busy.  He and his coworkers have to deal with everything: foreign fujoshi, difficult manga recommendations, employee training, and the daily struggles of the stockroom and pushy sales reps.

STORY:

While Honda-san is more ostentatiously comedic than most of its peers, it is yet technically a biographical webmanga in the same vein as something like My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness or The Bride Was a Boy.  While it's not as emotionally raw as the former nor as explicitly educational as the latter, it's not just a gag manga.  In its own way, Honda tries to communicate both the struggles and the joys of working retail.

What struck me about the jokes in this series is how generous the jokes are to others.  It would have been easy to make cheap jokes at the expense of the gregarious, weird foreigners or at his fellow coworkers.  Instead, the jokes tend to revolve more around Honda's flailing attempts to keep up with the demands of the customers and the never-ending churn of new books.  It's a very generous (if slightly self-depreciating) approach that also allows the humor to feel more universal.  Honda-san might struggle with English and BL recommendations, but he's a good enough soul to appreciate the enthusiasm of others and the satisfaction of filling difficult requests.

This manga also brings something of a peek into the less glamorous bits of Japanese publishing.  While there are plenty of manga about making manga, this has to be the first that deals with distinctly mundane activities like how to confront publishing reps to get overdue stock or dealing with corporate customer service training.  Even if you yourself have never worked in retail, there's still something relatable and humorous in seeing the various personalities of the staff interact with one another and other professionals.  Again, it's never mean-spirited, just exasperated at most.  Taken altogether, the result is something that's funny, observational, and sincere, and those are qualities it shares with the other successes of webmanga.

ART:

Honda might not be a pro, but his art is surprisingly polished here.  While the linework is a little rough in the earlier chapters, he has a great knack for drawing faces.  This is most obvious with the customers, but it's equally true for the bookstore staff.  That's no small feat, as he draws himself as a skeleton and all his coworkers have equally immobile masked faces.  Yet he gets so much expression out them just through posture, effects and the occasional bit of exaggeration and it goes a long way towards selling the punchlines.

RATING:


Skull-Face Bookseller Honda-san is a comedy based around a very specific world but its brand of good-natured humor is universal.  Even if you watched the shorts adapted from this earlier this year, go to your own local bookstore and pick up a copy.

This series is published by Yen Press.  This series is complete in Japan with 4 volumes available.  2 volumes have been released and are currently in print.

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