Gaikotsu Shotenin Honda-san

To be honest, I almost gave up on this anime around episode 5, as at that point despite the good vibes of the show in general, none of the jokes had really landed. I'm glad I stuck it out, and really when the episodes are as short as these it wasn't any real struggle.

The strongest point, for me, was how visually interesting this anime ended up being, despite how few setting changes there are. I really enjoyed the styling of the various booksellers and employees. I also tend to like episodic structure, and that was no different for this anime.

The main sticking point for me ... ends up being the content itself. I just wasn't particularly entertained, overall. I didn't find the stories that interesting, and I didn't find the jokes that funny. As the story and comedy are the backbone of this anime, the art can't really make up for the fact that I found this anime to be a pretty bland experience. I don't think this anime is bad, there's really no harm in giving this show a shot, watching an episode or two to see if the jokes land with you. If they do, you will certainly find enjoyment in it. If they don't, you've only invested 10-20 minutes into finding out.

One further note on an aspect of the lens of this anime, which I genuinely appreciated: there is a refusal to outright make fun of the customer characters, regardless of what they were in the bookstore shopping for. Too often, I see jokes made at others' expense when the only thing the butt of the joke ever did was genuinely appreciate and be passionate about something. I was nervous when I realized the setting that I was headed for tasteless jokes about fujoshi/fudanshi or mocking of foreign manga readers or any other combination of a joke that consisted of "Hey, that person likes something ... let's make fun of them for it!". I am truly glad to report that, while there are good-natured jokes related to both the various genres of books for sale and to their varied readership, none of them, in my opinion, even approach the line of mean-spirited. I suspect this is due in large part to the actual lived experience the author drew on in order to write the original manga. I just wanted to highlight that. While the humor didn't exactly land with me, the respectful attitude behind telling these day-in-the-life vignettes did.

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.