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.
So this week’s main gag consisted of an intro of the cast, and so it wasn’t quite as funny as the first weeks. Still, everyone is established now, so I expect good things going forward. That is not to say it didn’t have it’s moments though. For instance, I simply love Honda’s voice, it is both soothing and humorous. The setting of restocking day, every retail employee’s nightmare, was also great. However the best part for me was without a doubt the back cracking sound effects and setups to get to them. Who hasn’t encountered a deceptively large box that made you feel exactly like this? And there is something about these hidden faces, perhaps how it forces the bodies to be expressive, that adds to the comedy. For such a short, limited animation show, Honda-San really does make the most of its resources.
As for consistent themes through the episode, there is no better example for this week than the clock. Honda-San perfectly captured the work day that feels like its never ending, yet instead of existential dread, it was humorous. I suspect the funny sounds were the main contributor there. It managed to both separate and connect the scenarios as one long day at work. On the opposite end, there was the common problem of returning to work after a break, to find nothing done. You escape for but a week and yet once you return, all the problems come back. And for just a moment, you contemplate, is it all worth it? Before continuing on with your day. No doubt it helps that the series author actually worked as a book clerk, so all of these are from his own experiences. Makes you wonder about the father from last episode, huh?
The last bit, that I wasn’t expecting at all, was the sort of meta reference to the original manga and the editor. My only prior experience with this sort of thing is Bakuman which provides a much deeper look into the process. Here though it looks like Honda-San’s author had a very good relationship with their editor. Going so far as to put them in the series, as some kind of… otter thing? It was a short but humorous look into their relationship and I hope to see more of him. The fact that it managed to fit so many topics into a single 11 minute short however was rather impressive. Honda-San is, quite possibly, my favorite comedy of the year.
So all in all, I quite enjoy Honda-San. It’s a nice change of pace to be able to blog an anime without any great overarching story or serious themes., that also isn’t shit. Honda-San is just some quality, good natured fun. I am curious how many more stories Honda-San has up its sleeve for a 12 episode run.
But what did you think? Is Honda-San your kind of humor to, or am I just boring? Or maybe you have any humour retail stories! If so, postem below, because I love looking back on my time in retail. See you next week!
