Hunter x Hunter Animate Cafe (Part Three)

In this post, I’ll share about my third visit to the Hunter x Hunter Animate Cafe in Japan and share updates on the new HxH 2020 Animate Cafe.

Update November 2020: Good News! Animate is having another HXH collaboration cafe from 16 December 2020 to 25 January 2021! Check out the details at the 2020/2021 Collaboration section (Can someone help me buy goods?)

So back in 2018, I had the great pleasure of visiting the Hunter x Hunter Animate Cafe collaboration … not once, not twice but thrice!! ^^ You can read about my fun visits to Part One here. (I visited twice!)

To be honest, my third visit to the Hunter x Hunter cafe in 2018 (Part 3) was really a bonus. My entire September Trip back in 2018 was centred on the Jump Exhibition Part III and the JoJo Bizarre Adventure Exhibition 2018 so my travel dates were rather specific.

Fortunately, the first day of the cafe started on my second last day in Japan, so I was able to include it in my list of anime escapades for that year. ^ ^

*Do note that this cafe collaboration was held in 2018 and has since ended.

Page Contents

Overview

Hunter x Hunter Animate Cafe 2018 _ The Phantom Troupe Part 2

In 2018, Animate Cafe ran a year long (quarterly) campaign for Hunter X Hunter. The campaign was divided up into 4 parts, with each part covering a major arc of the series.

幻影旅団 Part 1 (The Phantom Troupe Part 1)
Greed Island
幻影旅団 Part 2 (The Phantom Troupe Part 2)
Chimera Ant

Of the 4 parts, I managed to visit 2 of the Hunter x Hunter Animate cafe collaborations: Part 1 (幻影旅団 Part 1) and Part 3 (幻影旅団 Part 2).

As the cafe location, menu, collaboration goods and theme decorations were all different in Part 3, it was like a totally new experience for me, despite already having visited Part 1 twice a few months ago.

Another key difference was that for Part 3 (幻影旅団 Part II), no reservations were required. Walk-ins (free entry) were allowed and was on a first-come, first-served basis. ^ ^ This was perfect for me as my trip in September 2018 was totally last-minute and I couldn’t apply for many anime cafe reservations as I did in my May trip.

Note: For the 2020/2021 Hunter x Hunter Animate cafe, it is a mix between free entry and web reservations via balloting on certain days. Part 1 (幻影旅団 Part 1) HxH cafe which I visited back in May 2018 was web reservations via balloting only.

Note: If you are not familiar with Animate Cafes and/or have a question or two about reservations etc., check out my guide and tips on Animate Cafes: Animate Cafes (How-to & Tips)

HXH is one of my favourite Shonen Manga series, along with the classic Yuu Yuu Hakusho. In my opinion, 冨樫義博 is one of the best storytellers in the world, and he is always worth the wait, despite the many hiatus that he goes on.

The 2011 excellent anime remake of Hunter x Hunter is on Netflix for those who has a subscription. Watch it!! The chimera ants arc in particular is AMAZING. (I’ve re-watched the arc at least 5 times!)

Hunter x Hunter Animate Cafe Part III

幻影旅団 Part II _HxH Aimate Cafe Shop 2018 — *The welcoming committee ^ ^*

The third theme “幻影旅団 Part 2” was held in the Ikebukuro Animate Cafe Shop (Tokyo) in September/October 2018. This is actually the smallest of the 3 animate cafes in Ikebukuro.

Note: that there are now 4 different animate cafes in Ikebukuro itself! (Animate Cafe opened a new branch in Ikebukuro in 2020)

Hunter x Hunter Animate Cafe Shop Space_ Part 3 _2018 — *Inside the Ikebukuro Animate Cafe Shop*

And just like my visit to Part 1 of the Hunter x Hunter Animate Cafe back in May 2018, there was another staff cosplaying as a HxH character. Do you know who she is cosplaying as? ^ ^ Hint: Pink Hair!

Inside the Cafe

As mentioned, the actual dining area in the cafe space is quite small. Most of the seating arrangements are countertops and bar seats.

With this particular collaboration being a walk-in first-come-first-serve system, it’s free seating (i.e. you can choose where to sit) for all visitors. You can technically share tables with someone else by asking politely. ^ ^

For walk-ins, there’s generally no time-limit on how long you can stay at the cafe. (Web Reservations Systems typically has a time-limit of 90 minutes) However, please be considerate and do not hog the tables/seats unnecessarily.

*This is where you’ll order your drinks and pay for your goods.*

Did you notice the many large round images of the Hunter x Hunter characters in chibi form stuck on to the front of the ordering station?

Well, these are actually the enlarged versions of the random coasters you will get with each drink order! Find out more about these coasters in the section “Hunter x Hunter Animate Cafe Part 3 Collaboration Menu”.

Please note that the photos in this post was taken before the 2020 situation (2018 to be exact), Animate Cafe has since introduced new rules to adjust to the situation.

Hunter x Hunter Animate Cafe Part 3 Collaboration Menu

Hunter x Hunter Animate Cafe Part 3 2018 Drinks Menu — *The Drinks Menu*

Not surprisingly, with the small cafe space, the 2018 Hunter x Hunter Animate Cafe Part III collaboration only served drinks. (Note: Some Animate Cafe Shops serve desserts too)

Unlike Part 1 which had a full menu consisting of food (mains), desserts and drinks, there were only a total of 8 themed drinks for this collaboration. Each drink was priced at 600 yen.

As with all Animate Cafes, every drinks ordered gets you a random coaster. Refer to the sections “My Loot” and “My Drinks” to see which coasters I got!

For more tips and a guide on Animate Cafes, check out Animate Cafes (How-to & Tips) for more information.

幻影旅団 Part 2 HXH Animate Cafe 2018 Drinks Menu — *Decisions, Decisions, Decisions. What to order?*

My Drinks

Seeing how I already had lunch reservations at the Ace Attorney x Capcom Cafe, I had to refrain myself at the Hunter x Hunter Animate Cafe Shop. So as much as I would like to order every drink on the menu (I want those coasters!), I just couldn’t because I had already planned to “over-order” at the Capcom Cafe (which I did LOL).

In the end… I went with three drinks:

Feitan (フェイタン) Black Oolong Tea Set. It comes with a cup of hot oolong tea and a small mooncake. The best part of it is that it comes with a small retractable umbrella that you can bring home!

I have to admit though that it was a little disappointing to have the oolong tea served in a normal paper cup, as compared to the glass cup shown in the menu. While I understand the reasons why, it just wasn’t that aesthetically pleasing. But I got a Feitan coaster with it so I’m happy ^ ^

Fun Fact: It was really the mooncake that made me decide to order Feitan’s drink. ^ ^ My trip in Japan was right during the 2018 Mid-Autumn Festival period so I was prepared not to have any mooncakes that year. Who knew that I would actually still get to eat a mooncake at an anime cafe?

Pakunoda (パクノダ) Memory Bullet (Memory Bomb). The drink is made up of a mixture of Ginger Ale and Lime Juice, topped with whipped cream and 6 peanut chocolate. This is actually pretty good. The Ginger Ale and Lime Juice combination worked really well. I got a Gon coaster with her drink. ^ ^

Fun Fact 2: The 6 peanut chocolates on Pakunoda’s drink represents the number of “bullets” in her 6-shot revolver. I love how anime cafes in Japan pay attention to all these little details about the characters.

Chrollo (クロロ) Coffee Break. This was basically a hot latte with whipped cream and a printed cookie at the side. The cookie was pretty delicious. My random coaster was Nobunaga.

Again I was a little disappointed that it was just served in a paper cup ( In Part 1, Phinks Hot Cappuccino was served in a proper coffee cup). So I jazzed it up with my Chrollo’s bonus card and glass marker. There! Doesn’t it look so much better now? XD

Note: The Glass Marker does not come with the drink. Nor does the bonus card of Chrollo.

I had bought the glass marker separately from the HxH goods corner and the bonus card was obtained by spending 1000 yen at the cafe. (For more information on the bonus cards and glass markers, please refer to the section on “Hunter x Hunter Animate Cafe Shop Exclusive Goods“)

Hunter x Hunter Animate Cafe Exclusive Goods

In every post about my fun experiences at anime cafes, I’ve always talked about (perhaps a little too much? LOL) the exclusive goods one can buy there. Maybe it’s the Disney effect or how the goods are a physical manifestation of the fun experiences at anime cafes, I always end up buying more than I had initially planned for.

Or at least that’s the excuse I tell myself. XD It’s usually because I was trying to get that ONE character’s acrylic stand via the blind packaging that I end up overspending.

*The 2018 HxH Animate Cafe Part 3 Exclusive Goods*

What I had especially liked about the 2018 Hunter x Hunter Animate Cafe Part 3 was that you were able to buy the goods for Part 1 and Part 2! Seeing how I had missed out on Part 2, this was a great chance for me to get my hands on some of the Part 2 (Greed Island theme) exclusive goods. ^ ^

Unlike Part 1 where there was a limit on the number of each type of goods that you can buy, there was no restriction for Part 3. The only exception were the “Glass Markers” where each customer can only buy a maximum of 10 with a drink order.

Apart from the chibi character acrylic stand key holders, the goods that I was most excited for were these glass markers. As the name suggests, these are “charms” that you put on your cups/glasses at home to identify your own drinks from others.

Unfortunately, these glass markers came in blind packaging. (sigh!) Thankfully, I managed to get all three designs. You can only buy these when you order a drink at the cafe.

Fun Fact 3: Glass Markers are actually quite a common anime good nowadays. Apart from these acrylic charms, there are also mini figurines that sits on the edge of your cups that can double up as “glass markers”. (I have a few from Free!; One Piece; Naruto and Sailormoon)

Snapshots of the actual goods on display in the cafe.

2018 Hunter x Hunter Animate Cafe _The Phantom Troupe Part II Exclusive Goods Corner — *All the goods you can buy at the 2018 Ikebukuro HxH Animate Cafe Shop*

2018 Hunter x Hunter Animate Cafe Part III_ Ikebukuro Animate Cafe Shop coasters, acrylic stands and badges — *Coasters, Can Badges and Acrylic Stands. I bought both sets of coasters! ^ ^* They are made out of cork.

HxH Animate Cafe 2018 sweets and cookies — *HxH Sweets and Printed Cookies! Yum Yum.*

Aren’t these HxH exclusive goods positively enticing? I would have love to buy them all but its really too expensive to do so. So I had to pick and choose. (Because I had gone to several other anime events, not just HxH , on this trip so everything adds up. Adulting can be so hard sometimes. TT)

A point to note is that Animate Cafe goods are generally exclusive to the fans/patrons of Animate Cafe. The goods are only available for purchase IF you have a reservation/visit at the cafe itself. Unlike Capcom Cafe and Anime Plaza Cafe, where non-diners can also purchase the collaboration goods, you can only do so within your reservation time-slot and/or visit to the Animate Cafes. So it is recommended that you get something you really like when you are there.

For the Animate cafe collaborations that allow walk-ins, I think you can actually just buy the goods without ordering anything. However there are some goods that might still be order-exclusive, i.e. you need to order a food/drink before you can buy them.

Update: It seems that Animate is starting to sell some of their Animate Cafe goods online! I will update here once I have more information.

Made-to-order Tapestry

As with Part 1 of the Hunter x Hunter Animate Cafe, Part 3 also had made-to-order cloth tapestries. This time round there were only 6 characters to choose from. (Part 1 had tapestries of 13 characters!)

At 8000 yen a tapestry, they are really not cheap. Nevertheless, there were quite a few orders for them from what I saw at the cafe. These cloth tapestries were only available as pre-orders at the cafe to be picked up at a later date. They are really huge though. Each piece is 65 cm x 161 cm!

Here’s a close-up shot of the actual tapestries.

*Killua, Kurapika and Gon in their battle modes! But where’s Leorio?*

Bonus Cards

For the Hunter x Hunter Animate Cafe Collaboration Campaign, there was an opportunity to get additional small character cards. These were not for sale and you can only get them via the HxH Animate Cafe stamp card that was given to all customers at the cafe.

Every 1000 yen spent at the cafe gets you 1 stamp. Thereafter, every 2 stamps earned gets you a random card. If you complete all 30 stamps (which adds up to 30 000 yen), you get to select an additional card. The stamps are very cute. It’s in the form of a chibi Chrollo. ^ ^

What’s neat about is that with each theme (there were 4 different themes for the HxH 2018 Animate Café Collaboration), these bonus cards had different character designs. Part 1 had 13 different cards. Part 3 had 9 cards. A pretty good incentive for fans to keep coming to the cafe, no doubt!

*Please note that this was before the Animate Cafe Stamp Card started.

Highlights of the Cafe

Decorations for “The Phantom Troupe Part II” theme collaboration were honestly not as much as Part One in Ikebukuro Animate Cafe 2 back in May 2018. However, the many capsule gachapon machines outside the cafe does make up for it somewhat. And it was nice to see a large cardboard standee of Gon and Killua. ^^ (I really love their friendship and bond in the series)

Interestingly, the cardboard standees also acted as a barrier for the cafe dining area.

Unlike Part 1 where customers could freely borrow the chibi character cardboard standees to take photos with their food/drinks (which I had so much fun with), we couldn’t do so for Part 3. They were all part of the display at the Goods Corner.

I’ll have to admit that I let out a little squeal of excitement when I saw these figurines on display at the 2018 Hunter x Hunter Animate Cafe Part 3!

As any manga/anime fan in the 80s/90s can attest to, goods and merchandise back then were few and far inbetween, and definitely not as easily available as it is now. Back then, figurines were pretty rare so it was a big deal when a series had them. It is now extremely difficult, not to mention expensive to get a hold of these figures released in the late 90s. (I really want the Hisoka and Illumi figurines)

My Hunter x Hunter Animate Cafe Loot

2018 Hunter x Hunter Animate Cafe Part 3_Geeky Travels and Fandoms Loot

I was really happy that I managed to get the Gon and Kurapika chibi acrylic keyholder stands, especially since they were all sold in blind packaging. As I had gotten the chibi acrylic stands of Killua and Leorio back in Part 1, this means that I now have the whole team ^ ^

Fun Fact 4: Gon was actually from Part 2 (Greed Island theme) and Kurapika was Part 3 (幻影旅団 Part II). Killua and Leorio were from Part 1 (幻影旅団 Part I).

Oh and I was also really happy that I got the bonus cards that I wanted. Back when I visited the cafe in Part 1, I was trying really hard to get Gon and Killua too no avail. Thankfully, I got them in Part 3! ^ ^

My total loot from the 2018

Just to recap some of my loot from both parts of the cafe. ^ ^ I also bought both sets of the cork coasters which isn’t seen in the photos here.

*I love how cute these HxH chibi Acrylic Stands are!*

Some Final Thoughts

2018 Hunter x Hunter Animate Cafe Part 3

Prior to my 2018 trip to Japan, I had never been to a Hunter x Hunter Animate Cafe. So I was really fortunate that I managed to go for not one, but two HxH anime collaboration cafe in the same year! I even managed to visit the Jump 50th Anniversary Exhibitions (both Part II and Part III) which had a wonderful Hunter x Hunter section as well.

If you ever have a chance to visit a Hunter x Hunter collaboration cafe, I highly recommend that you do it! I had a lot of fun at these anime cafes and never let the fact that you are travelling solo stop you from doing so.

I’m also leaving a link to the Yuu Yuu Hakusho Anime Plaza Cafe here that I went to in 2017. If you are a HxH fan, chances are you are also a YYH fan. And if you have never watched/read Yuu Yuu Hakusho, please do. It is one of the classic series in manga and anime history. The anime is also available on Netflix if you have a subscription.

2020/2021 Hunter x Hunter Animate Cafe

2020 Hunter x Hunter Animate Cafe_Hunter Exam Theme — *Hunter Exam Theme!*

Good news! Animate has recently announced that there will be a Hunter x Hunter Animate Cafe collaboration in 2020!

2020 HxH Animate Cafe_Hunter Exam theme — *Taking a break for some bonding time amidst the exam.*

Here’s the information announced so far:

Date: 16 December 2020 – 25 January 2020
Cafe Location: Ikebukuro Animate Cafe 3; Nagoya Animate Cafe 2
Days Closed: 31 December 2020; 1 January 2021
Event Page: https://cafe.animate.co.jp/event/hunter2012/

The 2020 Hunter x Hunter Animate Cafe is a little complicated as it is a mix of Free Entry (walk-ins) and web-reservation via balloting (lottery). Basically Animate Cafe has set aside certain dates that require you to do a web-reservation. Otherwise, it’s free entry (walk-ins).

Dates that require Web Reservation via Balloting:

Every Saturday and Sunday
6 January 2021 to 11 January 2021

Do take note of the closing dates for the web reservation balloting. You can apply for the reservations here.

Note: If you are not familiar with Animate Cafes and/or have a question or two about reservations etc., check out my guide and tips on Animate Cafes: Animate Cafes (How-to & Tips)

OMG! I’m pretty sure this will be the big acrylic stands design for Illumi and Hisoka. I WANT!!! TT But I won’t be able to visit the cafe with global travel as it is right now.

*The character designs for the chibi acrylic stands and can badges!*

Let me know in the comments if you are planning to visit the cafe! As this is held in the Animate Cafes (and not Animate Cafe Shop), we can expect a full menu with food (mains), drinks and desserts!

My 2018 Anime and Manga Escapades

*Jump 50th Anniversary Exhibition Part III. I had a fantastic time!*

2018 was the year that I really fully indulged in my anime/manga ~~fangirling~~ interests. I went for so many anime events and cafes in Japan, most of them solo. A lot of these activities, including the Hunter x Hunter Animate Cafes, were new to me and there was really not a lot of information for overseas fans like myself to go on. (So you can imagine the amount of research and planning I had to do!) Half the time I ended up having to just go with it and learn by trial and error.

The lack of information online for overseas fans like myself was also partly the reason why I decided to start this blog to share some of my experiences. Hopefully, this might serve as a little inspiration for you to embark on your own anime/manga fan-escapades and give you some useful insights on what goes on in these anime events.

Some of my anime/manga escapades that year included:
Click on the link to read more about it!

Jump 50^th Anniversary Exhibition Part II and Part III
Jump 50^th Anniversary Special Pop-Up Cafe
JoJo Bizarre Adventure Exhibition 2018
Card Captor Sakura x Animate Cafe
Ace Attorney X Capcom Cafe
At tack on Titan x Animate Cafe
My Hero Academia X Animate Cafe Shop
Kero Chan Cafe (Card Captor Sakura)
JoJo Doujinshi Event
Yowamushi Pedal x Collahonpo Cafe
Detective Conan Anion Station

Geeky Good Guides

I’ve also done up a few guides on purchasing anime goods/figurines and the list will continue to expand. Do check them out as they might be useful for your own fan- collection journeys!

Check out my other Anime Fan Escapades!

Hunter x Hunter Animate Cafe_Geeky Travels and Fandoms

As always, if you have any questions or feedback, feel free to let me know in the comments. ^ ^ Or you can always subscribe to my mailing list to receive first dibs on updates and new posts. Just enter your email below and click on the verification email in your inbox!

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