TECHNOBOYS PULCRAFT GREEN-FUND featuring Hiroshi Takano -- Book-end, Happy-end

 

Golly! I had never been to a Tokyo book apartment before and I probably never will because the above facility is apparently closed down now. According to some of the images online though, it looked like a stylish and relaxing (and probably expensive) place to browse through those books. When I was in Japan, I used to really enjoy visiting the conventional bookstores including the big brands of Maruzen, Kinokuniya and Yaesu. But I also dropped in on the neighbourhood places across from my subway station on the way home where a lot of office workers shared my idea and were browsing through the variety of weekly and monthly magazines. The staff were always wearing Business Casual with those aprons.

Maybe I should have caught this 2018 anime "Gaikotsu Shotenin Honda-san"（ガイコツ書店員 本田さん...Skull-face Bookseller Honda-san） when it had its run near the end of the year. From what I've seen above, it's a pretty hilarious slice-of-life comedy with zany staffers of a bookstore wearing various masks while dealing with some just-as-hilarious situations. I guess it didn't really fit my anime buddy's aesthetics, though. Incidentally, that first foreign customer in the video above made me wonder whether retired NCIS SAC Gibbs had opted to take a vacation in Japan for a few weeks.

I'd also been wondering how both singer-songwriter Hiroshi Takano（高野寛）and the technopop unit TECHNOBOYS PULCRAFT GREEN-FUND have been doing these past few years because I hadn't heard too much from either of them. Well, at least back in 2018, the two acts got together to collaborate on the ending theme for "Gaikotsu Shotenin Honda-san", "Book-end, Happy-end". With lyrics by Takano and melody by TPGF, it's got the plummy and groovy arrangements that I have recognized the latter band for, and the overall tone fits a nice long visit to a beloved bookstore where customers can pick their favourite tomes or manga to flip through for hours.