2025年01月02日

Making a Japanese Bookstore-style "POP"

Last year, I started going to a Japanese language school with the goal of improving my Japanese. Inside the school there was a small library of Japanese-language books, manga, and other study resources that students could borrow. It was a very humble facility - just an area of nine or so bookshelves and no dedicated staff, hardly something a school could brag about - but I always thought it was charming. It’s rare among similar Japanese language schools to have any library, however small, so I just appreciated it being there. That said, I hadn’t really used the library other than to casually glance at some books during break time, and I never saw or heard of anybody else using it either. I started to feel it was a shame that it was being neglected.

The library at my Japanese language school (Source: ISI)

One day, our teacher asked us if anyone had any ideas for what our final assignment should be for the semester. I thought about the school library. I remembered the fun of being in elementary school in America when our class walked down to the school library and everyone picked out a book - I chose a biography of Betsy Ross - and then we each read our books and made book reports and presented them to the class. I raised my hand and - in my best Japanese - pointed out that the library just outside our classroom doors rarely gets used, and suggested we choose books and do book reports.

There’s something sweet about a teacher listening earnestly to and taking to heart a student’s idea, and even now as an adult I felt amused by this. She came back the next week with the final lesson plan, incorporating my idea and adding to it. Just like in my elementary school experience, we were to all go to the school library and pick out a book to read, only for this assignment, we were to create what in Japanese is called a “POP.”

A POP is, generally speaking, a colorful illustrated index card-sized recommendation for a book or other product for sale in a shop. The word comes from the English “point-of-purchase advertising.” They are displayed alongside books in Japanese bookstores, where they are hand drawn and written by the staff. Indeed, if you walk into almost any bookstore in Japan, you will see many of these colorful little POPs decorating shelves throughout the store. They usually feature a catchy phrase, a short blurb about the book, and some cute illustrations.

A POP at a bookstore near my home

Another POP at the bookstore near my home

Similar handmade signage may sometimes be found at bookstores back in America too, but POPs are serious business in Japan. Japanese schools and libraries often hold POP-making competitions, and there are numerous books and Youtube videos devoted to teaching people how to make eye-catching POPs. Seeing the enthusiasm with which many Japanese people make POPs, I was excited to make my own.

A few of the many books on the market in Japan about how to make eye-catching POPs (Sources: PIE International, Rironsha, MdN Books)

Though I could’ve chosen a quick read like a manga or even a picture book, I decided to take this opportunity to challenge myself to finally read a full novel in Japanese, a goal that had eluded me through all my years of living in Japan. I picked out a book called Konbini Ningen, or “Convenience Store Woman,” as its English translation is titled. It was a slim volume, but still a novel by any definition, and the Japanese was just hard enough to force me to learn some new words while still being able to enjoy the read.

Over the next three weeks or so, I read Konbini Ningen in bits on the train to and from school, to and from my part-time job at a coffee shop, and before bed. Whether it was thanks to my gradually improving Japanese abilities or the pressure of a school assignment I can’t say, but for the first time in my life I was finally able to read a novel in Japanese, cover to cover. I finished it the night before the deadline and reflected on what I wanted to say about it. It was a great book - at times laugh-out-loud funny, at times extremely grim, but ultimately hopeful. With my still considerably limited Japanese vocabulary, I wrote and drew my POP, providing a brief summary of the premise and what I think the book has to say. A rough English translation of my finished POP follows below.

A “convenience store worker” - that's the kind of animal I am!
“Konbini Ningen” by Sayaka Murata

Furukura is a 36-year-old part-time worker at a convenience store. She has never had a career or romantic experience. Ever since she was born she has always been a little different from others, so she copies the behavior and manner of speech of the people around her at work in order to appear “normal.”

The new part-time worker Shiraha is a repugnant man. He doesn’t do his work, he constantly makes sexist remarks, and he hits on female customers. When Furukura and Shiraha start living together, he slowly begins to take over her life with his poison. In order to escape, she’ll have to find her own purpose in life!

Some months have passed since then. I finished Japanese language school. Recently I decided to buy my own copy of Konbini Ningen. I placed the book on my bookshelf along with my POP, as if it were really for sale in a bookstore. I know buying the book defeats the purpose of using a library in the first place, but I wanted to own it to commemorate finally achieving my long-held goal of reading a novel in Japanese. (I actually really wanted to keep the library book and just pay the lost book fee, but I’m too much of a rule-follower to do a thing like that).

It’s an objectively silly display, but to me it’s like a trophy. It reminds me of that chapter of my life and the people in it, like the kind teacher who listened to my idea. It reminds me of the person I was during that time. I was a person who often raised his hand and shared ideas, and I like that version of myself. And it reminds me of a goal that I set, accomplished, and enjoyed accomplishing.