Anne in Japan 2013: Steins; Gate Café in Den Den Town feat. Coaster Giveaway!

Anyone with even a passing interest in Japan has probably heard of maid cafés, but did you know they also have butler cafés? I’ve summoned the courage to investigate a maid café once before, and ever since I learned that butler cafés also existed, I knew I had to check one out someday. Unfortunately, Osaka doesn’t appear to have any permanent butler cafés (I’m told they sometimes do
“pop up” butler cafés at events and such), so I decided to settle on a cosplay café that featured both male and female staff.

When we actually arrived at the café, however, I was mildly disappointed to find that even the staff cosplaying male characters were women! In fact, looking back at the “members” page of the website, it’s likely that all of the staff are actually women. Whoops!

2.5D Dimensions Café Afiilia Collaborations… Quite a mouthful!

Upon arriving, my cohorts and I were surprised to see that the café was all decked out with Steins;Gate images… Turns out the café was in the middle of a Steins;Gate collaboration event running from April August. If it hasn’t become glaringly obvious, I really didn’t do my research before choosing this café as a destination. See, I actually know next to nothing about the Steins;Gate game or anime!

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I must admit, it’s rather embarrassing going to a cosplay café in the first place, but that embarrassment is multiplied infinitely when you don’t even know the characters the staff are cosplaying as!

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Mayuri, the gal in the center, and Kurisu, the one to her right, were both there during the hour we spent at the café, as was a Faris cosplayer (not pictured). Yes, I had to look up each and every one of those names and yes, that’s a Itaru cosplayer on the right. You had to pay extra if you wanted to take photos of them, but I mistakenly thought that also meant you weren’t supposed to take pictures of the café itself, so all of the following images were taken with my phone. Sorry about that!

After explaining the surprisingly complicated rules of the café (you had to pay by the hour just to be there, and were required to order at least one drink), the Faris cosplayer handed us each a bell and lead us upstairs to the seating area. Of course, literally everything was decked out with Steins;Gate images. The bell was used to summon staff, both when you wanted to order or just wanted to chat. I accidentally rang one of the bells after we ordered and we were treated to a fairly lengthy and rather awkward conversation with the Mayuri cosplayer.

The menu cover

The Steins;Gate portion of the menu consisted of both alcoholic and non-alcoholic character-inspired drinks and a number of whacky overpriced food items (some of which are in the staff photo above), but my posse and I decided to stick with just drinks. Knowing nothing about the characters themselves, I ordered the alcoholic Rintarou drink in the top left corner because I was intrigued by the fact that it contained root beer (root beer is notoriously unpopular in Japan). It was pretty good! I would’ve liked to try more, but the drinks were rather expensive, so for the sake of my wallet I decided to save my pennies for the retro game shops. 
We received a random Steins;Gate coaster for each drink ordered. Apparently they’re only available at Steins;Gate cafés! And guess what? I’ve decided to give one of them away! 
Steins;Gate fan or not, comment on this post by Saturday, July 27th at 9 pm EST for your chance to win this adorable Faris coaster! And, if you share a link to this post on Facebook or Twitter and leave a link to it in the comments, you’ll get a second entry! I’ll select one random winner on Sunday the 28th. Good luck! 

I was rather proud of my sneaky photography skills here – you can see one of the cosplayers chatting with a patron in the background (fun fact: aside from myself and my friend, everyone else in the café was male).

If you spend over 3,000 yen (approximately $30), you’ll receive a special character sticker. Unfortunately, the quality of the sticker itself isn’t all that great… but it’s cute, none the less!

All in all, the café was a lot of fun! Many thanks to my friend Saori for suggesting we check it out! Now I feel obligated to learn more about Steins;Gate…

Note: The Steins;Gate game is getting an official English release courtesy of JAST USA!

About Anne

Also known as apricotsushi. Anne can be written with the kanji for apricot (杏), and sushi was the most quintessentially Japanese thing I could think of when I was 13, resulting in my goofy, albeit memorable, nickname.

14 thoughts on “Anne in Japan 2013: Steins; Gate Café in Den Den Town feat. Coaster Giveaway!”

  1. First time posting! Love your blog.
    I stumbled onto the pre order post. I just recently stopped working for gamestop so I feel your pain about bonus. How was etrian odyssey I was thinking of picking it up. I got shin megami that is fantastic.
    Im with you on the maid cafes they had a few in Kuala Lumpur when we go back for my mom. There was a butler one that had a cute menu.b
    Your animal crossing post got me further into my custom town lol.
    What would you recommend as a good starter book for learning Japanese?

  2. If you have the time, you should watch Steins;gate! I just finished watching it a few weeks ago, just wonderful. Knowing that these kind of places exist is plain awesome.

  3. Hello Jade! Thanks for your comment!

    I can imagine working at GameStop would be tough… You’d know all about the cool preorder deals and release dates! I bet it was hard to stop yourself from ordering all the cool things!

    Unfortunately, I haven’t actually started playing Etrian Odyssey yet >_< I also ordered Shin Megami Tensei… I can only handle one dungeon crawler at a time, so I’ll probably start Etrian Odyssey IV first! And there’s that Etrian Odyssey 1 remake coming out later this year… I don’t know if I can keep up!

    I didn’t know they had maid cafes in KL! I’ve actually been there myself 🙂 Next time I go, I might have to check out the butler cafe!

    And I’m glad my Animal Crossing posts inspired you to work on your own town 🙂 I still have a ways to go in mine!

    Finally, regarding a book for starting learning Japanese… I’d probably recommend the book series I used, called Genki. Their website is here: http://genki.japantimes.co.jp/index_en

    If you want to learn hiragana and katakana, they have some good free resources on their site: http://genki.japantimes.co.jp/self_en

    This website is also a great place to start, as it has a lot of free resources and guides and suggestions for where to get started! http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/

    I hope that helps. Good luck! I’ve entered you in the Steins;Gate coaster competition, as well.

  4. I really should! I imagine it’d be easier to squeeze an episode or two of the anime in a day, rather than trying to find time to play the game, so I’ll definitely take your advice and give it a watch 😉

    Thanks for your entry to the coaster competition! Remember, if you write about this post on Facebook or Twitter, you can gain an additional entry ^^

  5. I just heard about the English release the other day, I think I’m going to have to give it a try! This was so cute, the whole cafe!! I’d love to go Japan some day and try these things out 🙂

    I’d also love to be entered 🙂
    littlebearries@yahoo.com

  6. Wow, that’s certainly … interesting! Did you enjoy the experience in the end, or was it something that made you feel, “well, I’ll probably never do that again?” Also, I’m guessing you weren’t able to visit a butler cafe at all during your recent travels, or are you holding out on us for a future post? 😉

  8. I love these themed cafes – one of my favourite things about the more otaku parts of Japan.

    I’ve been to quite a few of the maid cafes in Akihabara, and they’re always good value – expensive, yes, but they do a wonderful job of building an atmosphere of fun that I can see why they’re so popular.

    Did you also go to a cat cafe? That’s on my list of things to do, but I haven’t been to one yet.

  9. Hi Heather! I’ve entered you in the giveaway. Remember, if you’d like an additional entry, all you have to do is write about this post on Facebook or Twitter!

  10. Well, in all honesty, it did feel a bit weird… Not only was I not a fan of the series, meaning all references were lost on me, but I got a strange vibe from the girls that came to chat with us, like they were immensely bored with being forced to make small talk with the customers. It was a neat experience, but I would’ve loved to see more enthusiasm on their end (maybe they didn’t bring their “A game” since they knew we weren’t fans anyway) or go to a cafe for a series I’m personally a fan of.

    And no, there weren’t any butler cafes for me to visit! I think I’ll have to go to Tokyo for that, unfortunately.

  12. I imagine the maid cafes in Akihabara are the cream of the crop! Were any of them themed after a particular series?

    Of course I don’t have any problems paying a little extra considering that you’re paying for all the work that goes into creating the atmosphere, but since I only really went on a whim I didn’t want to sink $50 on 1-2 hours of hanging around 😉

    I’ve been to cat cafes before, yes! My favorite is Cafe Nyanny in Kobe. I didn’t make it this last trip, but I’ve been quite a few times! Unfortunately my husband is allergic to cats so going to a cat cafe wasn’t high on his list for this trip 😉 You should definitely get to one if you have the chance!

    I’ve counted you for an entry in the giveaway, by the way! Feel free to promote this post on Twitter or Facebook if you want another entry 😉

  14. I’m just tallying the entries now, so I’ll let it slide 😉 Look for the winner announcement soon!

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