Skull-face Bookseller Honda-san, Vol. 1 by HondaMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Skull-face Bookseller Honda-san was one of the anime titles of the past year that I had heard so much about, and had really enjoyed myself. When I saw that the manga had been translated to English, I was very happy to be able to pick it up to read the comics from which the anime had came.
As the title suggests, the manga follows a bookseller - Honda-san, who also happens to be the mangaka - during his work shifts. Honda-san is depicted in story as being a skeleton, but we also see that other members of staff are drawn with unusual heads or masks, so this is clearly just a narrative device to distingush staff members from customers. Honda-san works within the manga section of a bookstore, and this leads to many interactions with all sorts of different types of customers, some of which we see in the book.
Honestly? This manga has this really easy pace, and the humor of it feels accesible to anyone who likes books and has ever been in a bookstore. The endless requests for recommendations that someone who works there would have, the being asked for books that may not be in stock or no longer be in print... The chapter about the hassles of dealing with new stock will feel so familiar to anyone who has worked retail, regardless of which section they have worked.
I genuinely enjoyed the manga, and am really glad Yen Press have translated it. I'm looking forward to the next volume coming out, to see what else can happen in this one section of the bookstore, and what Honda-san makes of it all.
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