Manga Cafe

After the baseball game on Saturday, I spent most of my weekend alone in Tokyo. I figured that because I was alone, I had more options in terms of where I would sleep for the night. Having stayed in a regular hotel many times, I figured I would try sleeping in a capsule hotel or manga café. Both are much cheaper and offer very small compartments for sleeping.

Capsule hotels basically offer a small cubby, or capsule, where one can slip into for the night. I’ve heard that you can often have internet and television screens included in them as well. I think that they usually go for about $40-50 a night. I wanted to go to the photography museum the next day in Ebisu, and most of the capsule hotels that I knew of were in Ueno, so I opted for a Manga Café in Shinjuku.

Manga Café’s can be even cheaper because they’re not exactly intended as a formal means of accommodation. Still, people often spend such extended amounts of time, and often sleep there, that it’s often considered an alternative form of accommodation. I paid less than $20 for the first six hours and because I needed the extra hour, I paid another $7 or so for the last. Even though many Japanese people seem to frequent the place for several hours at a time – both men and women, for the average visitor, it’s a cheap place to crash after a night of heavy drinking. Not having had anything to drink except for a coffee earlier, however, I was in for a bit of a rough night.

The café itself was called “Popeye’s” and was recommended to me by a friend I met the night before. I also read on a few sites that this one was one of the more expensive, but more decent café’s to spend a night. It also had free showers and a soft drink bar.

The reception was on the ground level and its floor was covered in clean white tile. After booking a room, there were stairs in the back that led me down to the third basement floor where my room was. Each floor was very dimly lit except for the stairwells, which radiated funky colours that I think changed every few minutes. Each floor seemed to house about 50-60 small rooms. As I walked past bookshelves full of manga (Japanese comics) books, I could hear the tapping of keyboards and clicking of computer mouses beneath the buzzing fans in the ceiling. There was also the odd page rustle or murmuring – I think, if I read the menu correctly, the ‘floor rooms’ could fit up to 5 people.

The first basement, which is the non-smoking section was full, so I ended up in the third basement level, which smelled of beer and tobacco. The bathroom also reeked like vomit. And aside from smelling bad, the bathroom was very small and awkwardly laid out, so that anyone at the sink could see you doing you’re business at the urinal, and when someone ‘really’ had to use the toiled in the morning, there was still barely enough room for him to get by as I moved aside for him, “mid-stream.” Both of us awkwardly bumped into each other as we fought over the immediate square footage that seemed to hold the double duty of providing a place for someone like me to stand while peeing, and also serving as a swing space for the door leading to the toilet. I’m pretty sure that I didn’t get any on him, but of this I can’t be sure.

The room – if you can call it that, I opted for was a “floor room” rather than a “chair room” where the floor was covered by a soft cushion. The “rooms” themselves are not much more than cubicles, where when someone tall like me stands up, can see partially into all of the other cubicles on the floor. When I stood up on the raised floor of my cubicle, I could probably see much more. There was also a small floor chair where patrons could sit in front of the screens and then lay down on the floor when they got tired. The floor itself was a decent size; when I laid across the room diagonally, I could stretch out fully head to toe. The computer and television were on a platform over where I put my legs.

I’m usually pretty good at falling asleep anywhere, and with the jacket and towel I brought for my pillow, I was relatively comfortable, but unfortunately, I just couldn’t fall asleep. I couldn’t tell if it was because of the strange noises and rank smell around me, or if it was the coffee that I drank earlier, but despite feeling exhausted, I don’t think I fell asleep until about 5 in the morning. I was off to a rough start, with my clothes reeking like tobacco and beer when my alarm went off at 7:30 and I was on my way without brushing my teeth (by this time, there were clear signs of vomit in the bathroom sink).