abstract
| - Darakuya Store Monogatari (だらくやストア物語) is Yoshito Usui's debut series and predecessor to Crayon Shin-chan. The series was first published in May 1987 in the Manga Action magazine, winning the Newcomer Award in that publication, under the editorial Futabasha. It was published following the yonkoma format, with each short story consisting of four panels of equal size ordered from top to bottom and it is based on Usui's personal experiences when he used to work at a department store. Darakuya Store Monogatari tells the story of the staff of Darakuya (だらくや) store, a big department store. There are no main protagonists in the series: different characters are shown in different stories and very rarely the comic strips remain focused on only one of them. The salesmen and women in the store, the cleaning staff, the managers... all of them are featured in the series. The story was published monthly until 1990, when Yoshito Usui decided to focus on his new creation, Crayon Shin-chan. Until that moment, a total of three volumes of Darakuya Store Monogatari were published, each of them consisting of more than one hunderd 4-panel-comic strips. The stories are definitely targeted to adults, as high quantities of sex jokes and drama are present there. Some of the stories that were not compiled in the three volumes of the series were republished in 1993 under the name Super Mix (すぅぱあ・みっくす). The complete series, featuring all the stories, was published again the year 2000 under the comercial name of Usui Yoshito Connection (臼井儀人こねくしょん). The series were also published in China with the name (不良百貨公司物語) by Tong Li Comics.
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