Hey, remember a couple of days ago when I posted about a new manga cafe opening up in San Francisco, and how sad I was that it was opening the day after I leave the bay area?

Well, I got in touch with Bruce Nakahira, who is one of the people in charge of the cafe (along with his nephew, who’ll be taking care of the manga acquisitions), and managed to arrange myself (and you!) a little sneak preview. Since I’m hitting the road back to Portland (12…hour…drive…) today, I figured this might tide you over.

Now, be forewarned: the place wasn’t fully open yet, so there was still a lot of work being done in the location while I was there. I’ll start off with a little video to give you a sense of how much manga there is (over 23,000 books, I’m told):

The vast majority of the manga is in Japanese, but they have a small selection of English manga that they hope to expand. They haven’t yet firmed up their price, but it will probably be $5-6 an hour for all-you-can-read manga. There are computer stations (below) being set up as well, so you can research up what titles you want to read. They also hope to eventually expand into DVDs and CDs, and apparently the aforementioned nephew is related to a voice actress and has many connections there, so they may be able to bring in seiyuu for events and things like that.

The location is fantastic. It’s in the Kintetsu mall (home of a video shop I’ve been a customer at for ten years and running and STILL don’t know the name of– which has some awesome Haruhi Suzumiya bags at the moment, by the way), right across from the “Belly Good” crepe stand and May’s coffee shop, if you know the mall well. The Kintetsu mall is right across from the Kinokuniya building and it also has plenty of parking for those of us crazy enough to drive in that city.

The cafe also plans to be active in the local manga community; in addition to making connections with Japanese publishers they’ve also been talking to VIZ (who has a pretty high investment in Jpop culture in Japantown; demolition has just started on the building that will be the Jpop movie theater that VIZ is a partner in). They also plan to do something at the upcoming Fanime Con in May.

As of this moment they’re not entirely sure what direction the cafe will eventually take, particularly because similar attempts in other cities have failed. They’re depending on the customer feedback to dictate that. They ARE aware of how bad their website is though; Bruce told me they’re looking for a bilingual (English and Japanese, natch) employee who can man the shop and who also has web design skills. So if that sounds like you, let me know and I’ll get you in touch with them! (Or just go visit when they open tomorrow.)

All in all it sounds like it’ll be really excellent and I wish I could be here for the grand opening. Since I can’t, I’ll be sure to visit them when I’m back in town in May! And if you live in or visit the area, you should definitely check the place out (as part of a larger Japantown tour, I’m sure). ♥

Posted by gia in Features • Comments (5)

Yes, it’s true: this badly-designed website belongs to what will hopefully be a better-designed manga cafe that’s opening up in San Francisco this very weekend, on April 26th.

Why do I weep? Because I’m leaving town on the 25th. Yeah, I know. Those of you who are in town should definitely check it out, though! (Via Japanator.)

Posted by gia in Manga, News, Otaku, Western News • Comments (2)