Gaikotsu Shotenin Honda-san

Quick Summary: The show follows Honda-san and his coworkers at a bookstore. The Hook: Honda-san and his coworkers are all depicted as odd mascot representations of themselves. Honda-san, to no one’s surprise, is a skeleton. Others include: a fencing mask, a paper bag, and a knight’s helm. The Good: The show is charming and funny. It doesn’t overstay its welcome and can be very wholesome without sacrificing humour. The Bad: Though the show uses it to its advantage (think Inferno Cop, dialed down from an 11 to like a 6), the production quality is minimal. Some of the side-stories fall flat, though not many. Overall: Skull-face Bookseller Honda-san was a great ride. The episodes were about half-length of traditional length episodes of anime. In that time, they usually pack 2 or 3 little vignettes in there. The start of the show starts out dealing with only the outrageous and slowly blends it with industry foibles and some wholesome workplace goodness. It is worth a watch–the short episodes and character packed in make it an easy watch to laugh after a long day.

I haven’t watched much short-form anime- a.k.a, anime that runs for 12-minute episodes- over my brief period as an anime fan. When there’s an extensive back catalog of classics and blockbusters you want to get through, it’s easy to let the more minimalist stuff slip through the cracks. But if Skull-Face Bookseller Honda-san is anything to go by, I need to add more short-form anime to my diet. This show is a delightful little gem of a thing, smart and fun and pleasantly relaxing in its little bite-sized chunks. If this is the kind of low-stakes enjoyment the best of short-form anime can offer, then I’m definitely looking forward to see what else it’s capable of. The premise is simple: based on an autobiographical manga of the same name, the titular Honda-san is the author and narrator detailing his day-to-day life working in a popular Japanese bookstore. The show follows him and his co-workers over a series of vignettes exploring difficult customers, behind-the-scenes turmoil, customer service training from hell, after-work parties, and overall just what it’s like to work such a bustling retail job, as well as the amusing specifics of what goes on behind the operation of your favorite bookstores. I’ve only dabbled in working in retail before, but even with my limited experience, the gags at the expense of the occupation’s oddities are fresh and specific enough that they never get old. There’s a real human touch to Honda-san’s sharply observed observations of the complicated social interactions of the service sector, both in how overwhelming it can be and also how fun it can be at times. The show’s one major stylistic flourish is that to keep everyone’s identity anonymous, all of Honda’s co-workers are identified not by their real names and faces. Instead, there’s section manager Armor who wears a helmet, Pumpkin-san who has a pumpkin for a head, one dude wearing a plague mask, and so on. And as the title suggests, Honda himself is a skeleton with a halfway-realistic skull. Everyone’s faces remain pretty static throughout the show- it enacts a limited, almost cardboard-cutout animation style for simplicity’s sake- yet so much of the humor comes from how damn expressive everyone manages to be in spite of that. Turns out, the average human skull has an impressive emotional range, even when it’s literally static bone that can only move at the jawline. The bookstore crew is such a lovable bunch of eccentrics, bursting with personality and fun little moments. Honda himself is delightful in his social insecurities; having a window to his internal monologue means we’re always painfully aware of just how hard his mind is racing to keep up with the situation, and his voice actor does a fantastic job of selling his constant brushes with utter collapse without it slipping into cringe comedy. In the end, I don’t have that much to say about Skull-Face Bookseller Honda-san. It’s a deliberately simple show with a deliberately simple outlook, existing mainly to kill 12 minutes a week as pleasantly as possible. But it achieves that task wonderfully, and I don’t regret a single second I spent with it.

This short anime is a real underrated gem. A fun journey that will make you learn a lot about how bookstores work and that will inform you of the general mood of the workers at such stores. I was so enamoured by the daily struggles of Honda and co-workers, as they deal with publishers, wholesalers, foreigners and obsessive manga fans. The animation is super good and original in the way it presents the story and the gags. The writing is hilarious, you can tell the author knows how to ironize his experiences properly. Maybe the one complaint i have is that the pacing is incredibly fast. I had to sometimes rewind back some scenes because I had missed a joke or two. But apart from that, this is a piece that I reccomend wholeheartedly. Just a serious good time spent into the hard life of a bookstore employ. I am now incredibly sad that it's over. I'm gonna miss Honda-san a lot...

As someone who's worked in retail, this whole series made me smile. I feel heard by this show and the wide variety of situations you can be put in while on the job. The fun designs of the characters make this show very unique from other shows with similar premises. All the characters feel like my old coworkers, so even though the show isn't that long, it feels like I have a close connection with every single one of them. It's a short show that's a nice watch relaxing after work, or even on your break. I highly recommend this show to you. Please watch this if you work in retail.

I didn't realize going into this that it was a short-episode anime, with the episodes being roughly 10 minutes which includes the intro and outro. While it has its funny moments, I felt a couple gags be repeated such as the foreigners and how brazen they are about yaoi and BL to be a little repetitive. The first time or two it was funny but after that it just feels like part of the job and it loses its shock with these depictions. I enjoyed the character heads as it helped define each employee. The art in general though is very simple and the use of certain frames and expressions to be noticeably repeated. The most detail went into the foreign customers, but there was never much movement. The show felt informative to the ins and outs of book selling and specifically manga trends. As someone who thought they would enjoy working in a book store, the insight of Japanese culture and how it bleeds into the retail workplace was interesting. It's good it was kept short as by the end it felt like it kept bringing me the same thing over and over. Keep it short and sweet.

Another anime done in a day... loving this short, compacted series that I can binge in one go *sparkly emoji*. Let's get right into the anime basics! Story; A title that is no lie, literally a story about a Skull Face Bookseller named Honda-san. We don't know how he began to work here, but I'll assume that he just loved reading (based off of the amount of books he purchases, says he wants to read and the ending with him chilling with a book every second). Watch Honda-san in his daily life working at a bookstore that specializes in comics; for all ages, genres and interest! Art; I love the quirky, realistic/fantasied animation of this short anime! I love how Honda-san can turn into a science room skeleton in one moment and then a frightened potato in the next. Sound; The OST gets you pumped for the episode you're about to watch and calms you down with a cute, catchy tune by the end of it... love it when OSTs just work out perfectly. Character; Honda-san basically plays the character that all otaku/comic lovers want to be in a realistic situation. You get to learn from all the quirky characters around him as well. Overall, I really enjoyed this anime and I'm happy it was a shorter series (I can't imagine each episode being 20+ minutes) and I've just picked up the manga as well! Can't wait to binge it as well. This anime is perfect for someone who's interested in the way Japanese customer service works, if you just love book stores in general or need another quick slice of life to enjoy (^3^)

I don't think there's ever going to be a time where this series doesn't manage to hold up. I love series that show the lives of retail workers that shows what we, the customers, don't usually see. This series manages to have such an eccentric aesthetic down pat, and tell a humorous story with it. Everything from the moments with foreigners who stop into the shop (see the iconic "SPECIAL YAOI BOOK" instance), to the designs of the characters (come on, who thinks of a different way to hide every employee's face and make them work with the characters themselves?), to the intro and ending (painfully chaotic and colorful, and sets a great tone for the show), all harmonize and manage to showcase the life of a bookstore worker. It's tons of things you'd never think would work together, but they manage to in the most bizarre of ways. I've rewatched this show far more times than I'm willing to admit, but only because I don't think there will ever be another show quite like this. On top of that, it's so much easier for a busy person like me to watch this show, seeing that the episodes are all around 11 minutes long. Overall, I'm truly disappointed that this show doesn't have as much attention as it should. It's a quick, fun show, and gives a nice introduction into the wacky world of a bookseller that just so happens to be a skeleton.

Gaikotsu Shotenin Honda-san or Skull-face Bookseller Honda-san is an anime that can be summed up in a single sentence. "Extremely simple, but extremely effective." It's a show that tells about the real life bookseller Honda-san's experiences working at a bookstore just with a nice skeleton styled look. From the customers he deals with, to stocking the store, to even outside things like publishers and printing hassles, it's generally done in a rather comedic way but takes a more serious tone when necessary. It's simplicity is the strength that enables it to be simply entertaining and that's most of what there is to it. This anime would generally apply to fans of CGDCT, Workplace, or Slice of Life anime. It's extremely simple, but the bookseller work life and comedy can hold their own and make it a very effective watch for short entertainment. It's far too simple to be any sort of masterpiece or excellent watch but it does it's job of entertaining the viewer very well and is worth the short amount of time required to watch. 7/10

An ode to those that have worked in retail or a service industry. From the strange requests of customers to the weird and wonderful work colleagues you meet along the way, it’s short, bitesize episodes encapsulate a job that many of us have done at one time or another. That’s the point where you are either with this show or not. The story will be familiar to those that have seen managers making enforced demands made by someone a thousand miles away and with little understanding of how people actually work. Told with a lightness of touch and a sweetness of intentions, Honda-San may not be for everyone, but for those that it touches it will not soon be forgotten.

I never thought a skeleton could be so cute and wholesome. This short slice of life anime is exactly what you'd expect and I'm here for it. Honda-san works at a bookstore and the series follows his daily adventures. Helping customers, stocking shelves, making book recommendations, and more are all here. Every task is given a comedic spin for the show, really displaying the chaos of the retail environment and how coworkers can support you through the long days. If you currently work in retail, fast food, or other customer service jobs you'll feel represented and if you no longer work those jobs you'll feel almost nostalgic for those times. Honda-san is great at highlighting the good in these jobs and how fulfilling they can be for the right people. Honda-san and his coworkers provide a light, fun hearted vibe to the show. Since there are so many people and only 12 half length episodes it's hard to keep track of everybody's names and personalities. However, every character brings their own fun, unique dynamic to the group. The straight man Honda, energetic supervisor Armor, assistant manager Majutsushi, and everyone in between are all people you would actually see working in retail. The characters are aided by Honda-san basing them off of his real life coworkers. While they're entertaining, nobody is particularly memorable beyond their character design. The art style is cute, almost chibi like, but the animation is obviously cheap being more like a slide show. The character designs are reliant on the masks; everybody who doesn't work at the bookstore and some of the customers are white blobs with paper over their face. For the short and quick nature of the show the art style works well. The music is pretty forgettable but the voice actors did a good job in their respective roles. The opening is a metal song completely different from the rest of the show. It's good but I don't think it fits the vibe. The ending is much better in that respect. It's soft and chill without loud or heavy vocals. The soundtrack isn't memorable but it doesn't need to be so long as it fits the scene at hand. I liked the voice actors since they really brought the chaotic energy the show was trying to portray especially with the broken english. The show even brought in one of the real people portrayed to do their own voice which was nice. There were only some moments where the energy was too much but it was good for the most part. I enjoyed this anime about as much as I thought I would. The obvious appeal is cute mask dudes working in a bookstore and I was given what I expected: a funny slice of life. Despite the chaos it's still relatively chill show nice for ending your day. Enjoyers of the genre will have a good time with this. It's also a good option for something wholesome during the spooky season. Plot: 8/10 Characters: 7/10 Art: 7/10 Sound: 7/10 Enjoyment: 8/10 Overall: 7.4/10

This is a legit slice of life anime. There is like actually no storyline and it just shows his daily life. We get to see snippets of how he started a new section of books but other than that its just a really cute and lighthearted anime. All the characters are funny and relatable and it is based off the author’s real experience working at a bookstore. The characters are also real people. He just named them based on their mask for privacy reasons. He’s so funny and his customer service struggles are so relatable. Especially when he starts to speak english to a french person its hilarious. I highly recommend.