Figure it Out! Exploring Nagoya’s Anime Figure Cafes

Oct 25, 2022

Figure it Out! Exploring Nagoya’s Anime Figure Cafes

While many people come to Japan due to their deep-seated interest in Japanese culture, I arrived here with absolutely zero knowledge of what was happening around me, popular culture-wise. I couldn’t tell Pokémon from Doraemon, AKB from Arashi, or Pet Cafes from Maid Cafes.

I had such little understanding of otaku [pop-culture obsessive to a nerdy degree] culture that when a new friend told me that he was ranked number six in the UK at Yu-Gi-Oh!, my first question was, “what the hell is that?” before taking a wary step backward, presuming it to be some dangerous martial art. After he informed me that it was a card battling game (and after explaining what it was), I re-tracked my step confidently and followed up with two further questions: “But aren’t you twenty-five years old? And don’t you have a girlfriend?” To my mind, this sounded like one of those childish pursuits we put away when we become adults, like believing in Santa Claus and getting drunk in the park.

But that seems not to be the case in Japan. As well as enjoying a few Asahi beers in cherry blossom-lined parks in spring, grown adults seem to relish what I consider ‘kids stuff. My friend Yoshi is a prime example.

Yoshi is in his early thirties, a salesman for an aeronautics company, and engaged to be married; someone you would very much consider ‘an adult.’ However, having been invited over for dinner, his fiancé gave me a guided tour of their home, and we came to his ‘office.’ But rather than the regular trappings of the businessman as I expected, this room was lined floor to ceiling with cases of anime and manga figures.

When I voiced my surprise, my friend’s fiancé just shrugged. “It’s normal, no?” No, I replied. It’s crazy. My friend smiled broadly. “You think that’s crazy? Let’s drink at a little bar, I know.”

Figuring it all out

Yoshi slid open the door and quickly made his way to a stool at the end of the bar, which, I was to discover later, was his regular seat. I, however, had barely passed the entrance, mesmerized by the insane number of figures that took up every square inch of the surface.

Amusement Bar Water 7 is dedicated to the famous pirate anime One Piece and is one of the growing numbers of figure bars springing up around Japan.

“When I was younger, I used to hang out at Manga Cafes and game centers, but at uni, I discovered the joys of drinking, and when I started work, I kind of slipped away from the otaku life,” Yoshi explained. “But about three years ago, I noticed these places springing up around town, and I found that I could share the adult side of my life – drinking and partying – with my favorite figures.”

Yoshi wasn’t the only one, and while we ordered a pair of beers served in pirate tankards, (naturally) Water 7 soon started filling up. As my only prior experience of otaku hangouts had been walking past maid cafés, where young girls in terrifyingly skimpy uniforms loiter outside, touting for the business of a particular clientele, I was surprised to find it was a varied crowd. In one corner, a pair of women in their twenties sipped a One Piece-themed cocktail; in another, a group of men and women of mixed ages seemed to be regulars, and along the bar from us, a trio of German tourists took selfies.

Otaku are regular people too.

I was intrigued to find that, although they shared their table space with dozens of character figures, they weren’t all deeply ensconced in detailed, nerdy conversations of obscure episodes and fan fiction, but they were chatting about regular, day-to-day stuff: work, family, boyfriend troubles.

“What did you expect?” Yoshi asked as we headed out into the street towards the next spot. “They’re otaku, but they’re just regular people like me. Think of these places as sports bars where you get together with friends, chat, and watch the occasional game. Our sport happens to be anime figures.”

Sieg Zeon is a Gundam-theme figure bar, and though there are fewer figures on the bar and counter than in Water 7, Yoshi pointed out to me, with a hushed reverence, boxes of the toy robots that animators and voice actors have signed. I was more interested in the bar’s landlord, a regular-looking middle-aged guy, who, if you poured him into a polyester suit, wouldn’t look out of place working in a low-level accountancy firm, but dotted around the bar, I found several photographs of him in impressively-full cosplay. Appearances can be deceiving…

Everyone loves anime.

We left Sieg Zeon after just one drink (it was too quiet, and it doesn’t usually pick up in there until well after 1 am, according to Yoshi) before ending up in Toaru Anime Izakaya. This was a decidedly younger hang out, and the clientele was heartily engaged in the young folk pastimes of getting drunk and chatting up the opposite sex.

Flicking through the menu, I became confused by the vast array of anime-styled cocktails and plumped for a beer. As I placed it amongst a few figures on the bar, I chatted with the barman, who informed me that the figure bar phenomenon had really started to explode just before the pandemic, and now they are permanent fixtures. I asked him why he thought they were so in vogue.

“Everyone loves anime, don’t they?” he asked. Recalling Yoshi’s comment that these places were like sports bars and that saying in a couple of bars in which I have drunk in the past that you aren’t interested in the sport is tantamount to saying that you enjoy drowning kittens, I replied with caution. “Well, I don’t know much about it.” “No? Do you know who this guy is?” the barman replied, picking up a figure from the bar. “Yeah,” I replied confidently, “that’s Lupin.” The barman looked impressed, if not entirely sincere. “You know well. So, you’re from England; you like soccer, right…?”

As figure bars grow in popularity, we’ll likely see many more of them springing up around town, which gets me thinking about returning home. I wonder if there is a market for figure bars there? What do you reckon? Bar Thundercats, Ho! It could be a winner.

Details

Amusement Bar Water 7

Where: 3 Chome-11-34 Osu, Naka Ward, Nagoya (map)
Website: ameblo.jp/bar-w7

Gundam Bar Sieg Zeon

Where: Nagoya, Naka Ward, Osu, 3 Chome−22−12 Dai-ni Daito Building (map)
Tel: 052-784-6866

Toaru Anime Izakaya

Where: Nagoya, Naka Ward, Osu, 3 Chome−22−12 Dai-ni Daito Building (map)
Website: facebook.com/toaruanime/

Images: Bert Wishart (Own Work)