NABC Store Manager's Diary — Tuesday, August 25, 2026

This month is already in its last week, so I checked this month's purchases. I photographed the invoices and had Chappie do the calculations. Compared with daily sales, the amount for direct purchases (ZINEs and others) is high. Overall, it looks like we're within budget. There was one group of customers buying books. One register transaction. I might forget how to use the register. We're holding a talk event on November 28. We'll invite Megumi Tsuji, the author of Akita Shoten's comic "のこりものにはメシがある". It's a coming-of-age story about young repatriates from Manchuria set in postwar Nagoya's black market era. The scenery of the station's west side(?) is depicted. I'm looking forward to seeing what kinds of black-market food will appear. The author recently visited the station west area for research, so we'll formally invite her to speak. We'll also have Professor Hayashi, author of "Nagoya Station West Time Trip" (Fubai-sha), as a guest. In the afternoon, Kotobuki from the Tokai Pleasure-District History Research Group will hold a lecture, so Kotobuki should be able to join us after it ends. I got information from Jizo, a member of Zindies: there seems to be a group in American libraries working on ZINE archives (ZINE librarians). https://www.zinelibraries.info/ There are even photos showing the Zine Librarians unConference (ZLuC) held in New York in 2024! Amazing — that's so American libraries. I'd love to participate someday. A message from Akira Yoshikai, who works on simplified Japanese. He'll be coming to Nagoya in December and asked if we could hold a talk event! He seems to be free in the afternoon, so maybe a library in the afternoon and our shop in the evening — we'll quickly look into venues. We should be able to manage an evening event at our shop. Three additional ZINEs by illustrator Keita Mizutani arrived. Lately it seems he's getting more work with publishers, which makes me happy. Near closing time a young customer came in and bought three ZINEs! They were today's second customer, so I ended up talking with them a lot. They said Osu Kannon is within their activity area, so I introduced them to Kuroroku lakeside and Bookshelf Detective. Sales were low again today, but it was another good day.