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REFILING: BizTrend: Coffee shops with manga rebound after redrawing themselves Date: 5/9/2005 |
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(Kyodo) _ Coffee shops featuring manga (cartoon) libraries are regaining popularity with improved services, including Internet services and showers, chiefly attracting people in their 20s to 40s who grew up on a steady manga diet. The ComicBuster E-Drive's Nishi-Nakanoshima shop, which opened near JR Shin-Osaka Station in January last year, has a library with about 20,000 old and new cartoon books. Personal computers for Internet use are located on 27 tables with reclining seats that are separated by dividers. The shop's workers wear suits and ties, jazz plays in the background, and the lighting is soft and indirect. The charge per hour is 420 yen, which includes both services and coffee, juice or other drinks. "We'd like to provide a high-quality space for relaxation," said Makoto Sato, the shop's manager. "During the noon break, some people come in with their box lunch. Others spend two or three hours here after work." A 24-year-old single man living nearby said, "This is definitely more comfortable than my room." A woman of similar age said, "Nobody bothers me, and I can relax and read cartoons at my own pace." At Rechercher's Takada-no-Baba shop, located in the Tokyo's Takada-no-Baba district, about half of the 200 or so daily visitors are women. Some 30 percent of the western Tokyo shop's 25,000 cartoon books are for girls, and dozens of fashion magazines are available for browsing. The shop also has different rooms, including some with tatami mats and others with sofas, along with a well-lit cafe-style corner and showers. Some people even stay overnight after failing to catch the last train home. "For women, cleanliness is important," said shop manager, Hiromi Yamamoto. Chairs, tables and headphones are wiped clean with alcohol after being used. A 30-year-old female company employee said, "You can't really stay at coffee shops and restaurants very long, but you can comfortably spend time at cartoon coffee shops." According to the Japan Complex Cafe Association, such coffee shops came into being in central Nagoya in 1980, becoming a rage nationwide during the assets-inflated bubble economy. But after gaining a reputation as places for "manga freaks," they went into a period of decline. Such coffee shops began transforming themselves in the latter half of the 1990s by introducing a variety of new services, including Internet use, restaurant-quality meals and nail art. Last year, their number increased by about 500 to reach some 3,000 across the country. |
| Source: Yahoo |
