A Skeletal Anime Star Is Teaching Me a Lot About the Japanese Comics Industry

One of my favorite new anime this time of year is n’t full of volatile action or high drama . It ’s not even the one abouthigh school archery . It ’s about a skeleton named Honda who trade books . As well as being hilarious , he offers some fascinating perceptivity into the world of sell comic strip in Japan .

Honda is the star of Gaikotsu Shotenin Honda - san — or , as it ’s prognosticate in its currently - broadcast medium subtitled release onCrunchyroll , Skull - cheek Bookseller Honda - San . Based on a comedic manga series that set out out online on the Japanese art site Pixiv , Honda - San is a dramatized recollection of the mangaka ’s existent yesteryear as a bookstore employee . Every character at Honda ’s bookstore is broadly speaking base on a former conscientious objector - doer , so they ’re all put on masks — and are only identified by them — to fog their faces . And Honda himself is just straight up a skeleton in the cupboard , conduct to the fantastical absurdity of a skeleton , a woman in a full - on knight ’s helmet , another in a kitsune masque , and a dude in a bike helmet moping around in a bookstore .

Honda - San mostly gets its slice of life drollery out the general stresses of sour retail — deal with long lines and obtuse customer questions , having to put out blood line and keep the fund , handle with over - strong-growing PR people trying to incline promos , things like that . It ’s a series that find delight in clashing together the over - exaggerated absurdity of these masked employees with the relatable humdrum nature of this kind of employment . But because Honda himself is in tutelage of make out with manga and foreign comics at his store , a lot of the personal humor in his stories also lean to take with comic strip themselves — and so , as well as laughing your ass off at the put-on of it all , you also get a sliver of perceptiveness into how comic are treat and sold in Japan .

Argentina’s President Javier Milei (left) and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., holding a chainsaw in a photo posted to Kennedy’s X account on May 27. 2025.

Honda - San has only aired seven episodes so far — they run about 11 minutes long , cover two little vignettes apiece . Even in that short time it ’s managed to impact on everything from the literal physical differences between American strip and Japanese manga , the mainstream rise of “ Boys Love ” love story books — especially how it collide with the amount of actual LGBTQ - centric strip material in Japan — to doujinshi ( self - published manga ) , and even content and censorship issues that mainstream retailers have to deal with when selling adult material . It ’s all of course , play in the first place for laughs ( specially the sex - centrical clobber , because , well , awkwardness about erotic cloth is an easygoing laugh ) . But even then , it ’s all done while giving lilliputian bit of brainstorm into just how comics retail operates in the country , and insight into industry trends that you would n’t really look out of a cute little Zanzibar copal series about a gaunt bookseller .

Honda ’s unidentified place of work is n’t just consecrate to sell manga , like a Mandarake or Animate , so it ’s not like all of his customers are diehard comedian nerds . It ’s parents buying stuff they do n’t understand for their kid ( stuff like , as you might have seen in viral clips of the show making their way around societal metier recently , R - rated erotic books ! ) , or most interestingly , strange tourists bet to get a slice of Japanese acculturation . Honda does n’t dismiss those customers just for being nerdy gaijin or whatever , but instead patiently guides them with a hapless earnestness that is just a joy to watch . Whether it ’s gay men looking for comics that comprise LGBTQ+ love story in a more fundamental manner , or hordes of irritable women just looking for some inconsequential bishonen agonist to squeal over , Honda welcome them all with a smile . A slightly exasperated grin — and , well , as a skeleton the grim grinning is almost the nonpayment anyway — but it ’s a smile nevertheless .

It ’s that centering on outsider that makes Honda - San so interesting to find out as a foreigner , declare oneself you a weird , funny picayune windowpane into a world that ’s not really impart a caboodle of attention in gum anime . You come to Skull - face Bookseller Honda - San for a few absurdists laughs , and in the process , but you outride to learn a small something about the Japanese comics manufacture in a delightfully kinky path .

William Duplessie