"This place never changes."
Convenience store tropes:
- Arc Words:
- "Foreign object," referring to how anything that doesn't belong is expunged from the system—be it an unruly employee at the convenience store, or a weirdo in larger society.
- "This place never changes", said by the customers about the convenience store. Since Keiko considers herself and the store to be one and the same, the phrase also applies to her.
- "Stone Age" is often said by Shiraha when he rants about society and gender roles, saying that how they were established from the very start and never changed even if humanity changed in other ways across the years.
- The Beard: Keiko considers a Marriage of Convenience to Shiraha so people will get off her back about her total lack of interest in men (or anyone, for that matter).
- Celibate Hero: Keiko is asexual and sex-repulsed, a virgin at thirty-six and perfectly fine with that. Part of the conflict arises from the fact that no one else is fine with that. She's implied to be aromantic as well.
- Chaotic Stupid: Shiraha complains nonstop about his life, but sabotages any chance to improve it and insults everybody who tries to help him.
- Child Hater: Downplayed. Keiko doesn't hate kids (or anyone, it seems like), but finds them tiresome and doesn't see what all the fuss is over a newborn baby.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Subverted. You might think that this is what caused Keiko to be how she is, and so did the therapist her parents saw, but Keiko assures the reader that she had a normal childhood with lovely parents.
- Entitled to Have You: Shiraha feels entitled to any woman he likes, not caring too much for her opinion on the matter. We don't see him assaulting a woman in the story, but he does stalk a few.
- Happiness in Minimum Wage: Keiko's obsession with her menial job is one of her defining characteristics. Despite quitting her original job in an attempt to better fulfill societal expectations, by the end of the book she's taken up an identical role in a new store.
- Hypocrite: Shiraha scorns societal norms and the pressure to conform to them at the cost of one's own happiness, but doesn't hesitate to push those same norms onto Keiko.
- I Just Want to Be Normal: Deconstructed. Keiko wishes to be perceived as normal, but the things that people consider "normal" (marriage, a fancy career, kids) don't appeal to her. Furthermore, she only cares about coming off as normal because she doesn't want people to worry about her, or hassle her about life choices. If people would leave her be, Keiko would just keep working at the store, socializing only occasionally, not dating, and continued on her merry way, perfectly happy. In the end, she decides she doesn't care about seeming "normal" anymore, and resolves to keep doing her thing.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Some of Shiraha's critiques of modern society are valid; the fact that there's constant pressure to conform to social norms even if breaking them isn't hurting anyone, and how, for all of people's talk about how much more diverse and accepting society is now, people who don't conform are still punished. The problem is, he's a colossal dickwad who does hurt people, and he's a hypocrite to boot.
- Loners Are Freaks: Keiko's lack of close friends or a romantic partner is a major sticking point for her family, who want her to be "cured" and join normal society. As a person, Keiko is harmless and usually polite, and her coworkers genuinely like her, since she's a team player, always eager to help out, and an expert at mirroring their tone and behavior to blend in. But she is undeniably weird.
- Marriage of Convenience: Keiko and Shiraha consider getting married just so people will accept them as more or less normal members of society. However, Keiko cannot go through with it as she just loves working in her Konbinis so much.
- Mistaken for Gay: An acquaintance not-so-subtly implies that Keiko doesn't date (or at least, doesn't talk about it), because she's a lesbian. Keiko's just not interested in anyone that way.
- Mundane Made Awesome: The way Keiko perceives her convenience store and her work in it. To other people it's just a shop to buy a quick snack in, to her it's her life's purpose to the point that she regularly dreams of it and considers her first day of work her birth.
