A is the Japanese term for a book that is complete in itself and is not part of a series or corpus (similar to a monograph), though in modern Japan it is most often used in reference to individual volumes of a single manga, as opposed to , which feature multiple series. It can be used for a novel, a nonfiction work, an economics textbook, a book of beauty tips, a book presenting a coherent set of photographs, an exhibition catalogue that samples earlier books, and so forth in a hardcover format. It is more specific than plain hon, which encompasses such books but also one or more issues of a periodical, one or more volumes (or the whole set) of an encyclopedia, etc.