Category: Gaikotsu Shotenin Honda-San

Welcome one and all to the final episode of Honda-San! It was a… well it was a rather short road to get here all things considered, so lets skip the preamble and jump right in!

I have to say, that Honda-San managed to drop its Christmas episode basically on Christmas, impresses me. It was impeccably timed and the content made all the better for it. Not only that, but the theme of closing naturally fits perfectly for the end of the season, year and holidays. All around, a good play by Honda-San here. It also managed to get a good number of laughs out of me, with the over the top reactions and good usage of foreigners. Simply put, it is an all around good episode to close on. That Honda-San managed to have its best episodes be its first and last confuses me to no end. But its better to go out with a bang than a whimper I suppose.

Continue reading “Gaikotsu Shotenin Honda-San – 12 [Merry Christmas, Mr. Bookstore/It’s Time to Close]” →

Hello one and all, perhaps the most confusing production I am covering this season. This time Honda-San teaches us about publishes and dives into a world of demons and fantasy. Let’s dive in!

So to start off, I want to apologize for the lateness and doubling up of this post. Simply put, Honda-San isn’t very interesting to me anime. Not being a comedy sort of man, I was impressed when Honda-San got genuine chuckles out of me in the first few episodes. It was a very fresh, sort of blase comedy. The subject was soe mundane that anyone could relate to the situations. Simply put, Honda-San was unique in the beginning, and I think I was taken in by that. But this late in the season, the enthusiasm just isn’t there anymore. Episode 11 definitely brought some of that back, I quite enjoyed the unique premise. It really broke up the otherwise dull past few episodes. But was it enough to close out the season? I suppose we will have to see next week how it pans out. For now, onto the episodes.

Continue reading “Gaikotsu Shotenin Honda-San – 10 & 11 [An Outstanding Bookseller/Swapping Section Heads & The Alternate Honda-San/You Can Quit Your Job Whenever You Want]” →

Hello and welcome to perhaps the best week of Honda-San yet. This time we get one long skit, clever writing and well mixed in education. All in a 10 minute package! Lets jump in.

To me, this was the best episode of Honda-San since the first. The gags were clever and the single topic allowed for them to build on each other. For instance the topic of the week was the Life Cycle of a Book. Had this been a normal 5 minute segment, we would have gotten maybe a single joke on each part of the cycle. Surface level at best. Instead, this longer time span let Honda-San hit each from both the comedy and educational sides. For instance I had no idea about “dead books”, that got eventually removed from the shelves. I just assumed they sat there are got sent to the back, until they sold. But that it is actually a struggle, and someone is in charge of making that decisions? And that it was presented in such a funny way? Fantastic.

Continue reading “Gaikotsu Shotenin Honda-San – 9 [A Book about Life, Death, and Rebirth]” →

Hello everyone, I hope you had a good Thanksgiving! This week Honda-San is back in form, as we refocus on the customers. We see a cavalcade of book lovers, the terror of children, and a peek into the publishing life of Honda. Let’s dive in!

As I sad in the intro, Honda-San is back at it with the customer stories this week. Once again, it shows that these eccentric personalities are the strength of the show. I can’t say it was hilarious, I didn’t laugh out loud at any point in the episode. But it was consistently entertaining. I giggled from time to time and the stories were, if nothing else, interesting. I think a short series like Honda-San benefits from a rotating/perpetually new cast of side characters. This way our set leads can bounce off them and show something new each week, occasionally bouncing off of each other. Both segments had numerous new customers with their own quirks, and with how short the segments are, none overstayed their welcome. With how short the are on screen, they don’t have to be more than interesting caricatures.

Continue reading “Gaikotsu Shotenin Honda-San – 8 [Bookstores are so Wonderful!/The Shelves with and without Restrictions]” →

Hello and welcome to another week of Honda-San! A quick note before we jump in. Since this is Thanksgiving week, no doubt most of my posts are going to be delayed. I am flying to Texas for a few days and will write when I can. I will try my best, but wanted to let you know. That done, let’s jump in!

This week, Honda-San was rather dull I found. The topics were generally un-interesting, and while the gags were decent, I was already partially checked out before it even really began. I understand the series is meant to partially educate, but these industry episodes are simply nowhere near as amusing. Our two topics this week were of course Wholesalers, unique to the book industry and already partially covered by Wizard Man last week, and networking. Wizard Man is fun, but no one likes Networking. The only people who like Networking have business degrees, it is literally their job. For everyone else, Networking is a necessary evil I have found. Interesting enough, Networking actually had the better jokes, but I think that is mostly down to Japanese culture vs Western culture myself. Still, they are worth looking at.

Continue reading “Gaikotsu Shotenin Honda-San – 7 [Tell Me! Wholesaler-san/A Networking Drinking Party for Booksellers]” →

Welcome fellow book lovers, to another dip into Honda-San! This week was a bit dull as we learn about the difficulties of stocking, but the second half manages to pick it back up. Lets jump in!

So overall this week of Honda-San was pretty disappointing for me. Like usual it had some good gags in there, but nothing has yet to match up to the first episode. Take the first segment of this week for example. It was interesting for a bit. We learned about stocking books, and the magic of the Distribution department. But the jokes simply weren’t funny. It conveyed more technical knowledge than it did humor. The best part of it was the segment with the older customer and their love of a now deceased author. It was sweet, and something I am sure happens. But Honda-San is a sketch comedy series, and the comedy this week was simply not there.

The second segment was better. Once again the festival aspect, since we don’t have book store festivals in the West really, fell flat. However the turnabouts with the book-marks was humorous. Customer’s doing a complete 180 once they find out there was no problem at all. Then Honda basically being dead on his feet. There was some great visual comedy going on. I have said it time and again, but Honda-San is at it’s strongest when dealing with customers. I enjoy the rest of the cast, but every time we focus on them or the back, it’s more technical than anything else. The one time we focused on the back that was funny was the sketch about BL and porn. The reason that one worked was because the focus wasn’t on the technical aspect either.

All in all, while I still don’t think Honda-San wasted my time, it could be a lot better. It makes me very glad that the series is only an 11 minute short, as it would fall apart in larger formats. As is, Honda-San was just short enough that I managed to stick it through until it got amusing this week.

But what do you think? Is Honda-San losing steam, or is my taste in comedy abysmal? Let me know below, and I will see you next week!

Another week, another 10 minutes well spent with Honda-San. This time we have Golden Kamuy references, a Brazilian and lots, ridiculous amounts really, of gay Erotica. Lets jump in!

To be honest, Honda-San started off worrying me this week. It wasn’t until maybe the 3 minute mark that it seemed to pick up. I think it is a clear example of Honda-San’s strengths being the customers and situations, instead of the business side. But it pulled it back fast. Honda-San was great once it got started. Not only does it have a much larger cultural representation than I was expecting, but none of them are offensive stereotypes. To me, at least. We have had French, American, Brazilian and multiple examples of each, up to this point. Not to mention his “Lets Bullshit English Time!”, which was just fantastic. Honda-San is just so… upfront with its actions and jokes. A great example of grounded absurdist comedy. Now I just need to avoid being that Brazilian guy when I go to Japan in February.

Continue reading “Gaikotsu Shotenin Honda-San – 5 [It’s a Book Signing!! Everyone Gather Up / A Fascinating Erotic Story]” →

Ah, another week another short relaxing dip into Honda-San. This week we have mandatory employee training, cults and a step in the right direction. Lets jump in!

So luckily, it looks like Honda-San took my advice and stepped back on the educational bits. This week it focused on taking a basic facet of a service position and magnified aspects of it. Most people in a service position have probably been through something like this. A mandatory, extremely awkward and boring, training seminar. Honda-San took this seminar this week and exaggerated all the worst, or weirdest parts. The teachers became cult leaders, with their masks. The apathetic employee’s forced to be there became humerus caricatures, and the tasks at hand were executed with gumption. Personally I thought it all worked quite well. Honda-San truly is at its best using grounded absurdist humor, instead of educational humor.

As far as the actual jokes, they still came at a slower pace than I would have liked, but largely worked. It setup my expectations with the first terrible smile, which I have seen at these kind of events. But then completely surprised me with the ridiculousness of the pretty ladies actions. The damn “oo ee oo ee” sound murdered me. It came from nowhere and was just unique. Honda-San also nailed some of the visual humor this week, with the “perfect” employee as seen in the image above. I do think it spent a bit to much time actually explaining the seminar though. This is something most people can grasp immediately I imagine, I don’t think the viewer needs to hear it spelled out. Hopefully Honda-San continues to move in this direction though.

So all in all, Honda-San was better this week. It was still just a bit to much on the educational side, and the 2nd Skit of the episode might as well not of been there it was so short. But for a 9 minute a week short comedy sketch, I still think Honda-San is worth your time. Watch it on the bus, or during lunch or something for a quick chuckle, and I would say its time well spent.

Apologies for the shortness of the post here this week, but there really isn’t much to talk about with a comedy skit like this. I would rather be succinct and to the point than waste your time with a 1000 word essay. Hope you enjoy, and see you next week!

Hello and welcome to week 3 of Honda-San! This time around we have real people, more customers and an official best girl! Lets jump in!

This week Honda-San dived a bit farther into the business side of things, showing us both the sales-people and the horror of pushy Japanese businessmen. Despite how bland business can often be in anime, Honda-San did a good job with it here. There was a good balance between actual educational content and humor I found. For instance I had no idea that the little pamphlets and additional cards and such were made by the salespeople. Yet Honda-San still found time for humor in all of this with Pest-Mask being this cute manager girl and then a terrifying section chief. I have no idea how Honda-San managed to make a mask representing death for a couple centuries a cute girl, but it did.

Continue reading “Gaikotsu Shotenin Honda-San – 3 [A Battle Without Honor or Humanity / Lost in Manga]” →

Ladies, Gentlemen and everyone in between, I welcome you to the 2nd episode of Gaikotsu Shotenin Honda-San, the funniest thing I have seen in a long time. Lets jump in!

Considering Honda-San’s material, I am not even going to bother with spoilers. It’s a comedy short, deal with it. These posts will also be a little shorter than my normal ones, simply because Honda-San is a short. So that out of the way, I have to say, god I love this series. It’s the sort of grounded absurdist humor that just clicks with me. The jokes are short and sweet in the minute, and then manage to wrap around together at the end for a single theme. It helps that Honda-San runs at a mile a goddamn minute, throwing jokes every sentence. If one misses, you barely have a moment to process it before the next comes flying in. It’s the sort of comedy the Simpsons employed before it went downhill in Season 8.

Continue reading “Gaikotsu Shotenin Honda-san – 2 [Let Me Introduce My Crazy Colleagues in This Bookstore!]” →