Ever wonder what it's like to sell comics at a Japanese bookstore? Honda provides a hilarious firsthand account from the front lines! Whether it's handling the store, out-of-print books, or enthusiastic manga fans, Honda takes on every challenge!

Whether it's foreigners asking for "JAPANESE EROTIC MANGA," navigating the tricky government definition of "morally harmful material," or helping a customer who's awfully "criminally organized," there's rarely a dull moment for Honda-san. The true stories of a Japanese bookstore employee can be stranger than fiction!

A new story about one man's creative struggles arrives courtesy of Satsuki Yoshino, author of Barakamon! Can a ten-year manga artist with experience only in the fantasy genre pivot to drawing a down-to-Earth story about regular folks? It's sink-or-swim for Naruhiko Toono and his career!

Fantagraphics Books is proud to launch its manga line with MotoHagio's collection of short comics, A Drunken Dream and Other Stories.Hagio is one of Japan's most influential and critically lauded comicsinnovators; she has been reinventing shojo manga (Japanese comics marketed at10-18 year-old girls) since 1969. Unconstrained by boundaries of genre, she hassculpted a career characterized by intellectual curiosity, psychologicalauthenticity, and an esthetic sense that has elevated the shojo genre into theliterary. In "Autumn Journey" (1971), a boy's pilgrimage tothe home of his favorite author has more meaning than either the author or hisdaughter can imagine. In "Marie, Ten Years Later" (1977), twoestranged friends learn too late how their actions had destroyed the balance ofa perfect triad of intimacy. In "A Drunken Dream" (1980), twoscientists--one a hermaphrodite, the other a tribal priest--meet on aspace station orbiting Io; but they have met before and are destined to meetagain. In "Iguana Girl" (1991), a girl who appears to her mother andherself to be a hideous anthropoid iguana struggles to overcome hermother's rejection and find happiness ... but her mother has a secret.Learn for yourself why the creator of They Were Eleven! (adapted into an animereleased on DVD in 2005) continues to garner international critical praise andappeals to readers across ages and generations.

The Reiwa Women's Swim Team is an elite program that has broken numerous records over its prestigious tenure, but on the other hand, the Reiwa men's team has been lacking achievements for years. It's not their fault, though. They try their best when competitions happen, but as the women burst with energy, the guys are sluggish and slow! There's rumors of a special advanced program and when a few guys team up with their fellow female all stars, these jocks soon realize they'll be graduating from the shallow end to adult swim!

Honda-san is stuck: It's hard to keep drawing about your bookstore job after you've quit! But being a full-time manga artist opens new doors-stories from the publishers' perspectives, to the nitty-gritty of e-books, and even to Taiwan's book industry. It's the final volume of Skull-face Bookseller Honda-san, but the joys and agonies of bookselling last forever!

When you work in a Japanese bookstore like Honda-san, there are a million and one things to keep track of. Managing new releases, accounting for the revival of titles from the grave, understanding the unique(ly maddening) quirks of each manga publisher-it's enough to leave anyone bone-tired!