&gt; <i>The bookshop-keeper here, is eking out every single edge he can out of books to operate his shop.</i><p>It could be, but it could also be the case that he&#x27;s trying to be &#x27;quirky&#x27; and happened to implement this particular idea, picked more-or-less randomly from a set of other quirky ideas. Walking around Tokyo it is not hard to find shops where you really struggle to figure out how they are making money, and often it&#x27;s the case that they actually aren&#x27;t and they close their doors after a few months or a couple years.<p>I guess it&#x27;s just really easy to get a loan in Japan even if your business plan is utter shit?