Common Name: Gaikotsu Shotenin Honda-san
Alternative Names: Skull-face Bookseller Honda-san
Score: 8/10, 5/5
Length: 12 Episodes
Genre: Short-Form, Comedy, Slice of Life, Job Shadow
Summary: Tired but generally happy with the work he does, Honda-san shares his experiences as a bookstore clerk. Sometimes rewarding but mostly stress-inducing, his days are full of handling the requests of his customers, co-workers, and publishers alike.
Review: To say this show spoke to me might be a bit of an over-simplification. After all, as a librarian who frequently deals with the drama and insanity of my patrons and co-workers, I can say I've actually lived some of the ordeals Honda-san goes through over the course of this show. From struggling to interact with non-native speakers to putting up special displays and making sure our shelves are stocked and orderly, the job of a librarian isn't all that different from that of a retail bookseller. So, for me, this show served as a form of catharsis that always left me feeling bad for Honda-san but glad that there are other people out there who get it.
Especially the horrors of trying to offer good RA (Reader's Advisory) services
when the patron gives you nothing to work with.
Granted, that level of relatability was kind of the point all along considering how Honda-san is actually a work of nonfiction based around the life of a former bookseller. Sparing his former co-workers and editors the pain of being directly named or presented as their human selves, it opts to caricature them with various masks and headgear that likely fit their real-world personalities. So, as Honda's daily adventures take place, we get a good understanding of who all of Honda's former co-workers, from the perky but awkward Kamibukuro-san (who wears a paper bag over his head) to the more intimidating Pest Mask-san (sporting a plague doctor mask), really are as people.
Meaning we get a solid understanding of how weird they all are.
With that important bit of information brought to light, it should be said that the show itself essentially functions on two different levels. On the first level, we get a down-to-earth and relatable story of a bookseller's everyday life, a clear understanding of what working in a bookstore is like, and a very personal understanding of Honda's feelings toward his former job that can range anywhere from fanboyish excitement to soul-crushing existential dread. Perhaps not as dramatic as Aggetsuko in its depiction of the struggle of working in the adult world, Honda-san still features a similar kind of learning how to get by story. Each episode, Honda bumbles his way through various interactions and is forced to contend with his weaknesses as a person, especially those that don't particularly mesh with the bizarre duality of public service where you need to forcefully promote things but not be so aggressive that you inconvenience or upset the customers. Yet, while we are given multiple moments when we see him question whether he should keep working a job that doesn't really fit him, we can see the logic of why he might stick around for the benefit of his co-workers or simply because there are some moments that make the hassle of it all worth it.
Oh boy does it revel in how tough all this is for him, though.
On the second level, Honda-san functions as a kind of schadenfreudic comedy centered entirely around Honda and the rest of the cast just suffering through the insanity of managing, ordering, and sorting through the mountains of materials all the different publishers are putting out. Informative as it is to learn how dealing with a book going out of print or fist fighting the middlemen and other bookstores for some title, all of these skits are firmly planted in a comedy that so real that it feels unbelievable. From the back pain of lifting boxes to the trauma of talking with a disgruntled patron on the phone and tolerating the stupidity of people that are in your face, Honda-san has a comedic genius to it that is almost entirely planted in the #tooreal mentality. Yet, due to the layer of separation the author gave his co-workers and managers, all of it is made all the funnier as you see these masked characters offer the most meme-tastic reactions as they deal with these issues.
Honda alone is a gold mine of reactions.
To add to that schadenfreudic layer, though, there is also the comedy of playing the "spot that reference" game that pervades the entire series. As a show steeped in the consumer culture, it figures that it would want to talk about the manga, anime, and other forms of media that people will be able to recognize. All the more so when you want/need to throw shade at the companies that make your job even harder to do well. Yet, to avoid copyright infringement, it becomes necessary to bleep out the titles of various companies and series that Honda wants to talk about. Thus, the spot the reference game is born. Played through noticing hints in the form of vague deceptions that skirt the copyright laws and Wheel of Fortune-style fill in the blank, this show is just chock full of old and new references alike that make it a joy to watch as someone familiar with the medium.
Some of the entries in the game are more obvious than others, but they're all great.
Regardless of what approach you take with this show, though, it is almost an objectively fantastic show. While it is targeted mainly at working adults who will empathize with Honda and his co-workers, it still serves as a fantastic piece of educational medium. Adults, millennials especially, will get a laugh at how similar his daily life is to there own. Younger people, though, will have a good time with the show's meme awareness and instructive elements on what to expect from the working world. From the ground up, this show was built to be an easily accessible show you can devour within a couple hours. Yet, in spite of being a short-form title, it actively works to have a point to it and give its audience something worth watching. That fact alone makes it stand out in the short-form genre in much the same way Aggretsuko set itself apart from the standard, fluffy, pointless chaff of this genre. Yet, unlike that show, Honda-san is fairly simplistic in its execution. Expressive as the show is, there are a number of stock reactions that Honda has that are played on repeat. The art and animations, in general, are minimalist in nature since it is clear that this show wasn't given much of a budget. Yet, that's not necessarily a problem since it sticks to the look and feel of the original comic that was similarly amateurish in its execution. So, putting it as bluntly as I can, I feel everyone should give Honda-san a shot. If it doesn't speak to you now, wait a few years or try your hand at retail and you'll see where the quality of this show's overall purpose and comedy lies.