Offering a slew of comedic relief, Skull-face Bookseller Honda-san is an autobiographical slice-of-life anime that can be enjoyed by anyone. Based on the homonymous manga, it depicts the day-to-day life of an awkward bookstore employee named Honda in an eccentrically drawn animation style. 

Honda resides in the manga/comic book section of the store and is drawn as a skeleton. While the series depicts them as a male, the manga never really discloses Honda’s gender. All of their coworkers and colleagues are also drawn with some sort of outlandish disguise or as an animal to hide their identities. This in itself supplies a great deal of laughs, especially with the majority of the side characters drawn as normal looking humans. All of them work together to tackle impatient or strange customers, developmental workshops, and your typical, yet annoying, retail obstacles. 

Throughout the series, Honda breaks the fourth-wall to speak to the viewers on the technicalities of the job and everything it entails. They teach us about the different manga/comic genres, the ups and downs of different customers, the pains of restocking and dealing with publishers. The beauty of this is that no scenario we see is exactly the same. Honda will sometimes even take a different direction and try to persuade the audience to not want to be a bookstore clerk. 

Living in a world of customer service, the anime balances all of the comedic, serious, and educational elements of working retail in a relatability and light-hearted manner. If you are looking for an anime that doesn’t take its plot too seriously, Skull-face Bookseller Honda-san will give you an escape from your typical tropes. Each of the 12 episodes lasts around 15 minutes, consisting of an average of 2 anecdotal mini-stories; all are available to be streamed with subtitles on Crunchyroll for free with ads.