The People You Meet At The Bookshop

Skull Face Bookseller Honda San Episode 8 Review

I’m forever wondering why Honda-San continues to work in customer service considering every type of customer seems to freak him out. This week we get a series of encounters that just more or less demonstrate how ill-equipped he is for dealing with other people including an encounter with a man missing part of a finger, a man buying lots of books, children, and yet more foreigners looking for manga.

One thing I do like about Skull Face Bookseller Honda San is that it doesn’t talk down to its audience in terms of the manga references it makes. It assumes you know that the foreigners shirt isn’t a Natu** shirt and that you can draw your own conclusions from Honda’s single line rather than explaining it to you. While that means some references the anime makes will probably be missed by members of the audience, it also makes the references you catch that much more rewarding, and they aren’t overly obscure in the first place meaning anyone with a general knowledge of anime and manga will enjoy the odd nod to known titles.

I think where this anime is ultimately going to be forgettable is that other than the characters all having weird masks on and being named after their headwear, none of them have an overly distinct or memorable personality. They are strictly one-note and while they fit within the context and it allows for some reasonably amusing banter in the moment, they aren’t the kind of characters who leave an ongoing impression and there certainly isn’t a lot of value in revisiting them.

Still, for a morning watching the goings on in a bookshop, this anime certainly does provide enough entertainment and it continues to offer some insight into the daily life of a book store employee in Japan. Fun enough but eight episodes in and Skull Face Bookseller Honda San remains pretty average.

Thanks for reading
Karandi James

Consider supporting the blog by:

• Episode 1 – Just Your Everyday Bookstore
• Episode 2 – Too Many Books in the Bookstore
• Episode 3 – Sales People and Recommendations
• Episode 4 – We’ve All Been There
• Episode 5 – Overcoming the Trials and Tribulations of the Bookshop
• Episodes 6 + 7 – What Happens When Our Skeleton Bookseller Leaves the Bookshop
• Episode 8 – The People You Meet At The Bookshop
• Episode 9 – Book-lovers Can Relate To The Pain in Honda-San This Week
• Episode 10 – Were You Considering a Job in the Bookstore?
• Episode 11 – Bored at The Bookstore? Just Add Monsters
• Episode 12 – Tis The Season To Be Jolly and Wear Funny Hats