A Short Tour of a Japanese Bookstore

This is going to be a terribly indulgent post. At the end of 2018 and the beginning of 2019, I was in Japan with my family. This trip was in part to celebrate my older son’s bar mitzvah and to satisfy our collective enjoyment of really long flights. (As I write this, the 14 hour jet lag is still kicking my ass.) We spent time in Kyoto, Hiroshima, Osaka, and Tokyo, and loved every minute.

One thing I noticed immediately, as we spent a lot of time on Japan’s incredibly complex yet efficient rail system, is that everyone around me seemed to be reading constantly. You certainly don’t have to feel self conscious about looking at your phone because so many people were doing so as well, but just as many people were reading print books. Some folks had a book in one hand and their phones in the other, and would switch back and forth.

And as we walked through train stations, malls, and other shopping areas (as part of our quest to visit as many Pokemon centers as possible) I noticed not only that there were bookstores, but that those bookstores were mammoth. I think the last time I was in an American bookstore that size or similar, it was a BN, but the first floor of that BN was 98% toys and electronics. In the Japanese stores, it was books for meters and meters.

So I took some pictures and thought I’d share them. Please note: these impressions are solely my own, and I don’t have a thorough understanding of book culture or the publishing economy in Japan to report definitely on what reading statistics and book sales are like there. If you know more about Japanese book reading and book culture, I welcome your input!

Before we went, I used Mango via my local (library) to learn some basic conversational Japanese. I was comfortable saying hello, excuse me, thank you, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, do you speak English, where is the bathroom, it’s cold outside, and are you hiking, but Mango knew my priorities and taught me this phrase the day before we departed:

Mango knows what’s up.

Here is a quick video tour of a bookstore. I think this one was in a large shopping complex adjacent to a train station.

See what I mean? Mammoth, right?

I could not read most of the books in the store, and I am very much a digital book reader because the ability to alter text size accommodates my eyesight comfortably, but I got a rush every time I went into a bookstore like this one. Look at all those books!

At first I took pictures of the books that caught my attention, mostly in the manga section as the covers were illustrated. I was trying to find any sign of romantic elements, knowing that what cover art conveys and communicates in Japan would be very different from what I am used to in the American book market. So I was probably off base in terms of marketing messaging, but it was still a lot of fun to look at the cover art.

This cover I liked because of the cat. Either he’s bored af or he’s really mad and hissing. But the dude in the background looking directly at the reader was also interesting.

This one confused me a fair bit, and I’m betting one of you knows instantly what this is. There seems to be an ad on the bottom half of the book for a film version of this story, which I’m inferring from the near-match of the costumes between the illustrated part of the cover and the picture below. The English text reads, “King & Prince,” but my attempts to learn more brought me to a J Pop boy band and a yaoi manga that didn’t seem to match this cover, so I remain confused.

I do like the illustration, though, and how the connection between the characters is conveyed through their physical position and they way they’re looking at one another.

In the shelves I looked at, there were more covers that featured men, or one man and a cat, than there were images featuring women and men. That said, it wasn’t a thorough investigation. We had a train to catch.

This cover caught my attention because of the number of characters featured, and also because of the juxtaposition of the image, and how the top half seems to be a scene from the book while the bottom third features the characters all looking at the reader.

I used the Google Translate app sometimes to translate Japanese characters into English, which sometimes worked like a charm and other times confused the heck out of me. The camera identifies different words and shows the translation on the screen, but often the words move, change, or cycle through several choices, so it’s not an exact science.

This title has something to do with “Wait in Provence” and “reunion,” but I honestly was hoping it was a YURI!!! On Ice manga, given the illustrations on the front. I don’t think it was, but I could very easily be wrong.

Perfect Crime seems to be a popular series (there were several of each one on the shelf).

Speaking of, here’s an image that might warm the heart of any book series completist. Not only were many series displayed with the cover facing out (as opposed to the spine only), but when a series was displayed, every book was present.

This one, Slam Dunk, is very popular, and has increased interest in basketball in Japan, according to its Wiki article. I was extremely charmed to see the series displayed in order with multiple copies of each book.

I was also delighted when I recognized a cover! Carrie reviewed this book, which in English is called Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness by Peter Godfrey-Smith.

“But, Sarah…what about the romance?”

Of course I went hunting for the romance section. While I wasn’t sure of my ability to spot romance fiction with little in the way of cover illustration, I did spot…

The Harlequin shelf! These books had their own end cap shelf display, clearly labeled with “Harlequin,” though a few versions of the logo were shown, as you can see.

Shall we take a closer look at some of the covers?

I’m always, always curious how the genre of a book is communicated, most especially when the genre in question is romance. In this case, what caught my attention first was “Harlequin,” because I know that publisher, but the cover images were photographs instead of illustrations, and featured couples or single objects.

The cover with the bouquet of roses is, according to Google Translate, Lonely Fiance by Carole Mortimer.  I’m not sure what the title was in English markets.

The one of the right stymied Google Translate (in the app, you can aim the camera at the words and it’ll translate them). This cover featured the words, “young,” “narrow,” and “Silicon,” according to G:Translate.

Harlequin Desire featured individual photographs of women, with what I think of as the “Touched by an Angel” Vaseline lens treatment.

G:Translate (the app) tells me the one on the right is “Unrequited Love to a Boss,” or “Unrequited Love for Arrogant Bosses” by Red Garnier, while the left might contain the words, “About to have no love” or “Love no promise.” (Google Translate showed different options.)

I’ve definitely seen that cover image before, but I can’t recall where. The author is definitely Louise Allen, since I can read that part.

A Google Image search tells me this image has appeared on a Terri Brisbin book, and translating the page on the Harlequin Japan site yields the title, Mermaid Princess in Love with the Marquis. 

I’d read that! Are there mermaid princess historical romances? I am very interested if there are. Please email me, all mermaid princesses!

I’m not sure what this one is, but I have to say, I really like the embroidery and the color of her dress.

Google Translate app says this is Bought the daughter of captured earl of cool. Earl of Cool? Awesome. Translating a webpage based on a reverse image search yields Brilliant Revenge of Count by Sylvia Andrew.

One more thing: the size and weight of each book was so different. Each volume is much smaller than a mass market paperback. Here’s a picture of Lean In, and for scale purposes, please know I can usually wear child-sized gloves or mittens. I’d say this book is about 6-7″ tall.

The printed books are much smaller than mass markets from the US, and weigh less than category print books, even. The paper is very thin – I tried to get a picture of the translucence of the paper here but it might not come through as well as I’d hoped.

The paper is very, very light, almost like tissue, which means each book weighs so little it didn’t seem preposterous to carry one or two in a bag for reading on train commutes. I couldn’t weigh one, but when I put one in my husband’s palm, he was shocked at how little each book weighted.

One last photograph: this was a sign outside a building in Tokyo, but alas, it was closed so I couldn’t go in. I’m not sure what Book Drunk Rock’n Roll Book Fabulous is, but I’m 99% sure that’s the same font as used in The Godfather posters. And nothing could be more tempting than a place called “Book Fabulous.”  The opportunity to visit this shop is one of several reason I want to go back to Japan someday (the toilets, no lie, are another).

So that’s my peek into Japanese bookstores. I hope you enjoyed it!

Do you go into bookstores when you travel abroad? What discoveries have you made?