One of Japan’s biggest exports to the rest of the world is animation, more commonly known as anime. Anime is hugely popular, both in the country and worldwide, with people falling in love with different series, characters and worlds from these animated series. One of the best ways to connect with your favorite animated worlds is with Japan’s amazing anime cafes!
Today, we’re going to get into the world of anime cafes (and theme cafes) and a quick guide of how to make the most of your café experience!
Types of Cafes
Anime vs. Gaming vs. Character Cafes
This may be self-explanatory, but while many in Japan and abroad mostly talk about anime cafes, video game cafes also happen sometimes. The anime cafes tend to be collabs with massively popular anime like Jujutsu Kaisen, Oshi no Ko, Spy x Family, Pokémon and more.
However, gaming cafes tend to surround Japanese mainstays and games popular in Japan. This means that a lot of games from other countries don't really get their own cafes that often. Some video games cafés include the Eorzea Café (Final Fantasy 14), the Monster Hunter Café and the Apex Legends Café.
Meanwhile, you can also find plenty of character cafes, including Chiikawa, Hello Kitty, Happy Potter and more. The character cafes tend to have less bonus items, opting to focus on the general vibe and atmosphere as well as character merchandise.
Permanent Cafes
Some of the anime and video game cafes here in Japan are permanent fixtures. They keep a frequent rotation of menu items inspired by the series and tend to offer lots of cool bonus items. The one negative is that the merchandise tends not to rotate at the same rate as it does for limited-time cafes, but the merch on offer is always really cool and high-quality.
The Pokémon Cafés, the Kirby Cafés, the Eorzea Café, the Monster Hunter Café, Peanuts Café and Konan Café are good examples. Some of these cafes update the menu and merch to fit the time of year or to promote new movies, seasons, games, or expansions in their series. Some of them require reservations, so be sure to check the websites beforehand.
The Eorzea Cafe is great example of a permanent cafe that changes its menu. The menu can look really different based on the time of year, a new expansion release or even a new patch release.
Limited-Time Cafes
Japan has plenty of limited-time anime cafes that tend to overlap with the release of new seasons or movies from popular series. These places are great for offering seasonal menus and limited-edition anime merch and bonus items that aren’t available anywhere else. The only downsides are that they are very temporary and very popular.
Some of these places are only open for six to eight weeks, meaning that the window is pretty narrow for getting to enjoy these cafes. Because they’re often done for popular anime or games, these cafes are very popular. On top of that, the limited-time ones tend to be reservation-only, so time slots go very quickly as people rush to get a seat and spend time enjoying their favorite characters.
Things to Know Before You Go
Make a Reservation
Most of the theme cafes in Japan require a reservation, even turning away people despite having open seats. While some may allow you to get a seat if there are empty spots as a rule, you shouldn’t assume there will be empty seats. Just make a reservation to avoid a headache.
The limited-time cafes are often very popular, and their weekend slots fill up super quickly. Plus, some cafes may offer a reservation-only special gift to incentivize reservations. The summer and fall Jujutsu Kaisen Cafes both offered special cards for people with reservations.
The summer Jujutsu Kaisen Cafe was super busy and had no empty time slots the day we went. Proof that you should get a reservation before you go.
Check the Timing
The timing that you go to a café has an influence on everything from the menu items to the merch that you can buy. For permanent cafes, parts of the menu may change based on the month. For example, they may have cool treats in summer, like Kirby Petit Café’s orange, green apple or lychee puddings. Plus, if you’re here on a trip, certain locations may have different menu items.
The temporary cafes are a slightly different story. The menu items generally stay the same (with the occasional menu variation between locations). However, where timing is important for temporary anime cafes is the merch available. Many cafes operate on a split, usually split 1 and split 2.
These splits often include different gifts for each menu item ordered and may even include a switch of the merch available in the merch area. You may even get a few different menu items for each split.
For the Apex Café, the postcards that came with each item only featured half of the characters in one split and the other half in the second. The merch also changed to feature different products and characters with each split. As a Crypto main, we timed it to go during the second split where all of the merch of our favorite hacker was available.
Even though we didn't get our favorite character's postcard, we were able to get some merch!
Bring Money for Merch
The fact is that this is your best time to get goods of your favorite anime or game that are only available for a few weeks to a couple of months. Unless you make ANOTHER reservation, you probably won’t have the opportunity to buy any of the merch there again.
Trust me—we’ve had our share of items that we just wanted to get but forgot to bring the money for. Right before you pay for your meal, you’ll have a chance to browse all of the available items and pay for them together with your meal (or separately, of course). So, make sure you've budgeted for some extra merch to take home.
Be Ready for Random Items
Some of the items you buy or receive are just random, and as much as it might pain you to not get your favorite character or illustration, you just have to accept it. For example, the Eorzea Café offers coasters with each item you order, but you choose them at random, only knowing what they are when you open them.
Meanwhile, anime cafes may also offer items, like keychains, badges or acrylic stands, which are also random and wrapped in a foil to make sure you don’t know what it is until you’ve paid. Opening them beforehand is prohibited!
The Spy x Family limited-time cafe made us roll dice for our postcards and sold these super cute vinyl record coasters with one of four random designs.
Check What You Get for Each Item
Part of the fun of the cafes is that you’re getting so much out of one experience. Many of these cafes (and our favorite game and anime cafes) offer extra items based on what you order. The most common bonus items are postcards, coasters and stickers. For example, the Oshi no Ko Café offered a character postcard with every dish.
However, we always recommend looking at the official websites to understand exactly what you get. Some places offer one type of item with a drink and a different type for food. Others offer bonus items for drinks only. Just make sure you know before you go (especially if a café worker forgets your bonus item).
Order First, Pictures Later
Anime and video game cafes generally offer time slots that can be somewhat short. You only have a certain amount of time to order, wait for your food, eat, drink, take pictures, buy merch and pay. While you may want to take photos the second you get there, it’s best to order food and eat first. Photos can wait a little.
This will make sure that you actually have time to wait for and enjoy your food within the strict time slot. They are usually pretty quick, so you’ll have plenty of time to take pictures and buy merch after. Just know that some cafes will give you only one chance to order and take the menu away after, so also be ready to order all that you want that first time around.
You can also take plenty of pictures while you wait for your food as long as you don't bother the other customers.
Now you know all of the tricks of the trade to make the most of your anime café experience! Have you ever been to an anime, video game or character café? Did any in this blog pique your interest? Let us know with a comment!
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