My Hero Academia (MHA) X Animate Cafe Shop

Check out my visit to the My Hero Academia X Animate Cafe Shop in Japan back in September 2018. ** Please note that this MHA cafe campaign has ended. The Shinjuku Animate Cafe Shop has closed. 

With Season 4 of the anime starting in October 2019, I’m pretty sure we will see another cafe campaign soon! It should be at the main Animate Cafe.

Hi all! Wow it’s already 4 months into 2019 and I haven’t posted anything on this blog yet. It had been a couple of busy months with planning for my Europe trip and then just coming back from a great holiday in Europe (I know excuses.) So I’m back! And I’m excited to say there will be more posts/updates to the blog in the months ahead!

Okay, enough ranting. ^ ^ You are probably just interested in the MHA X Animate Cafe Shop experience that I had back in 2018. This was actually my third My Hero Academia themed cafe since I started watching the anime and buying the manga back in 2016.

So in 2018, I went to Tokyo twice (and filled my days with loads of anime/manga events). I found out that Animate Cafe was having another collaboration with MHA, so how can I not go?!

You can check out my other MHA posts for more Plus Ultra escapades in 2017: My Hero Academia X Animate Cafe + Other Plus Ultra Stuff! ; My Hero Academia X Namco

Interestingly, perhaps because it’s a cafe shop (and thus smaller than the usual sized Animate Cafes), there were slightly different rules to it which I only found out during my first visit and was then able to share it with others on my second visit. ^ ^ (Yes, I went twice!).

So unlike the main Animate Cafes, at the (Shinjuku) Animate Cafe Shop, the rules for buying merchandise is DIFFERENT. After checking your ID against your reservation,you actually have to first pass through the merchandise area and take the items you want to buy before ordering your food/drinks.

This means that you can ONLY buy the merchandise once. The staff will not accept any more orders once you have paid for the goods and/or made your orders for food/drinks. (For the main Animate Cafes, you can do so at anytime till your designated cafe time-slot ends). Another difference is that you can only order 1 of each drinks (total 8 different types) and only 1 dessert out of 2 choices.

The main merchandise area is outside the cafe ( although they do display a small selection of the items near the food/drinks ordering counter for you to do some last minute impulsive purchases before you made your payment ). For the cushions, everyone can only buy a maximum of 3 per each character for each visit to the shop. Similarly, each person can only a maximum of 15 can-badges/acrylic stands per visit. (Do note that the limits differs from campaigns to campaigns so always check the signs before you buy.)

As you can see, the sitting/dining area is actually quite small so they absolutely do not entertain walk-ins. The time duration per reservation slot is much shorter too than the usual Animate Cafe experience.

The menu also offers a smaller choice of food/desserts, with drinks being the predominant selections on offer. (Image taken from Animate Cafe website)

Kirishima is my favourite character in the series, so I just had to order his theme drink, which was really very good to my surprise. ( So much so that I ordered it again during my second visit!) I also couldn’t resist buying his cushion. (So cute!!)

And of-course, if I ordered Kirishima’s drink, how can I not order Bakugou’s one too? As with all Animate cafes, every drink ordered gets you a random coaster and for my first visit, I got Ochako and Bakugou!

The blue coasters seen in my photo with the drinks are the special ones you get for spending at the cafe shop. This includes both merchandises and drinks/food. Every 2000 yen spent gets you one coaster and there were a total of 5 different designs you can get. You can see all the designs of the special coasters below. (Image taken from Animate Cafe website.) And yes, I got all 5 designs ^ ^

For my second visit, I ordered Kirishima’s drink again , Yaoyorozu’s iced tea and Todoroki’s (hot) drink! Kirishima’s, as mentioned, was delicious, but I kinda struggled a little with Momo’s drink. It really wasn’t to my taste.

Fun Fact: I actually met a MHA fan from Philippines (on holiday to Japan as well) during my second visit to the cafe shop and we ended up sitting at the same table chatting about MHA in general. I think the staff was a little surprised because our reservations were for 1 pax and we ordered our drinks separately but we ended up shifting to the same table. (This was possible because unlike the main Animate Cafes, you are free to sit anywhere you like.)

It was really fun chatting with him (hi!) about MHA & other anime stuff.  This reminded me of the sweet Card Captor Sakura fan from Korea whom I met at the Card Captor Sakura x Animate Cafe a few months earlier. She was also a solo diner sitting at the table next to mine, we ended up chatting and becoming friends!

Anime really brings people from all over the world together, doesn’t it? 🙂

MY MHA x ANIMATE CAFE SHOP LOOT

Here’s a little peak at the merchandises that I picked up at the cafe shop:

I generally had a pretty fun time at this Animate Cafe Shop. Admittedly, I was caught a little off-guard by the rules of the cafe shop (with regards to buying merchandises) during my first visit, but it wasn’t anything a second visit to the cafe shop couldn’t rectify. And yes, the cafe shop was a little small but as it is reservation-based, they are able to limit the numbers within the dining area so it doesn’t feel crowded.

There was the added bonus of a Namco Pop-Up Shop next to the cafe when I was there too which really made my trip even more worthwhile. The atmosphere was pretty laid-back as well so everyone was really just chilling and drinking their drinks.

So would I visit another My Hero Academia cafe collaboration in Japan if I have a chance to do so again? Absolutely! And I strongly encourage all of you to try so too!

PLUS ULTRA!

MY HERO ACADEMIA FAN ESCAPADES

If you enjoyed this post, you might like to check out my other MHA posts :

• My Hero Academia Figurines and Anime Goods Recommendations [ Coming Soon ]
• My Hero Academia X Namco [Namco Pop-Up Event Shop]
• My Hero Academia X Animate Cafe + Other Plus Ultra Stuff! [My very first MHA Animate Cafe in Tokyo!]
• PLUS ULTRA CAFE 2017  [MHA Pop-Up Fan Cafe in Singapore!]

Check out “My (geeky) Treasure Trove” page for more of my MHA (and other anime/manga) collection of goods. Or you know, follow me on Instagram^ ^ 

ANIMATE CAFE SHOP VS ANIMATE CAFE

This might be helpful to some of you so I’ll do a little summary of the main differences between the Animate Cafe Shop and the main Animate Cafes are:

• You can only buy merchandise once and you have to pay for it together with your food/drink orders before entering the dining area for the Cafe Shop.
• The time duration for the cafe experience is much shorter than the main Animate Cafes.
• The menu selections are much lesser.
• You are free to sit anywhere in the Animate Cafe Shop but you are assigned a table at the main Animate Cafes.

If you find this post useful or interesting, please remember to share it! Thank you!

Random photos of the MHA x Animate Cafe Shop:

PLUS ULTRA! See you again ~

Check out my other Anime Fan Escapades!

• Mister Donut: Pokemon
• Attack on Titan x Aniplus Cafe
• Mob Psycho 100 Anime Review & Thoughts
• Pikachu Sweets by Pokemon Cafe
• Genshin Impact x Aniplus Cafe