Behind the Scenes of Heart-Throbbing Collaboration Café Menus Featuring Manga Anime and Idols

Famous Hotels and Major Restaurant Chains Now Offering Killer Content

Collaboration cafés allow fans to enjoy their favorite manga and anime through food. At popular locations, it’s common to wait several hours, and some require online reservations in advance. Social media is flooded with posts from fans sharing their experiences.

To uncover the behind-the-scenes of these collaboration café menus, we spoke with a menu creator who specializes in this field.

“Not long ago, collaboration cafés were seen as places for a select few to enjoy. However, recently, chain stores and famous hotels across the country have started hosting these events.

Now, we see not just anime fans but also general customers enjoying themselves. Some even visit multiple collaboration cafés in one day or drop by because they’re nearby.”

This was shared by Chihо Gunji from CollaboLic Table, a company that specializes in creating collaboration café menus.

From a young age, Chihо Gunji loved manga and anime, which led her to leave her job at a food-related company and switch to a collaboration café business.

Driven by her desire to transform the previously negative perceptions of collaboration café menus—often seen as “bad, terrible, or expensive”—into a new aspect of Japanese food culture, she founded her own company in 2022. Over the course of her seven years in the industry, including her time at the collaboration café company, she has developed over 2,000 collaborative menu items.

Today, Gunji is recognized as a leading figure in the industry, not only developing menus for collaboration cafés but also producing character cafés and proposing special menu items for fans. Despite her busy schedule, she remains a true manga enthusiast, visiting collaboration cafés three to four times a month.

“In popular manga and anime collaboration cafés, it’s now standard to require online reservations in advance to avoid chaos. 

When fans post images on social media after their visits, it creates a positive feedback loop that attracts new customers. It’s not an exaggeration to say we are truly in the ‘collaboration café era’ right now.”

But when did collaboration cafés actually begin, and how have they evolved into their current form?

The History of Collaboration Cafés

According to Gunji, the origins of collaboration cafés trace back to 1998.

“It seems that the first one was a café called ‘Pia Carrot Restaurant,’ which recreated a visual novel game and was featured at the Tokyo Character Show in 1998.

In the early 2000s, the ‘Cure Maid Café’ opened as Japan’s first permanent maid café in Akihabara, sparking a significant boom in maid cafés.

The prototype of the collaboration cafés we see today was established with the ‘NARUTO’ collaboration café held at Namja Town in 2009, which created a major buzz with its large-scale collaboration featuring anime and manga works.

Following that, in 2012, the opening of Animate Café and Gundam Café marked the beginning of many collaboration cafés, including Collaboration Café Honpo, Princess Café, and SQUARE ENIX CAFE, which all opened in rapid succession.

Around the same time, family restaurants also began to gain popularity with collaboration menus featuring anime works.”

The collaboration cafe industry, which had been growing rapidly, faced many closures and downsizing during the COVID-19 pandemic from 2020 to 2022. However, it has been gradually making a comeback since fall 2023.

“Many may not realize this, but collaboration cafes have a surprisingly long history and have been evolving technologically over time.

A clear example is the essential ‘printed latte’ found in collaboration cafes.

Initially, character illustrations were drawn on lattes using molds and cocoa powder, but with the advent of food printers and edible prints, high-quality printed lattes can now be created quickly.

In the early days, the typical menu items were omelets and curry, but nowadays, afternoon tea sets and buffet-style menus have become more common.

Moreover, collaboration cafes have recently expanded into various sectors, including conveyor belt sushi restaurants, bars, game centers, and super sento (public baths). I believe this genre holds a lot of potential.”

Secrets to Creating Popular Menu Items for Fans

So, how are the crucial collaboration cafe menus created?

At CollaboLic Table, it typically takes about 2 to 3 months to develop the menu.

To Avoid Discrepancies Between Photos and Reality

Once a request is received, the menu concept and illustration proposals (3-4 food items, 2-3 desserts, and 5-10 drinks) are created within about 1 to 2 weeks. After that, the designs go through client reviews, prototype testing, and revisions. Once approved, final recipes and plating guides are completed, and sometimes training for collaboration cafe staff is conducted.

“There are many details we focus on when developing the menu.

For example, if a character’s color is ‘blue,’ the ingredients we can use are limited, often leading to options like blue soda. In such cases, we try to differentiate by using unique toppings to ensure that our menu doesn’t overlap with other collaboration cafes as much as possible.”

Additionally, it’s important to consider the staff who will actually prepare and serve the food at the collaboration cafe.

“It’s essential to keep the recipes and plating guides as simple as possible.

Menus that require intricate preparation and plating can lead to confusion in the kitchen and delays in service. If the recipes and presentation are too complicated, it may result in variations in quality among staff, causing disappointment for customers who find that the food doesn’t match the photos they saw in the menu or promotional materials.

Therefore, we focus on creating recipes and plating instructions that anyone can follow to achieve consistent quality.”

Ginji emphasizes the importance of turning memorable scenes into menu items.

“Every work has its iconic scenes and famous lines. When you create a menu item based on a memorable scene, it resonates deeply with fans.

Now that chain restaurants are also getting involved, having menu items that capture the hearts of fans is becoming an increasingly important factor for collaboration cafes.”

As COVID-19 settles down and inbound demand begins to return, collaboration cafes have the potential to become a representative “killer content” for foreign travelers.

“I go to collaboration cafes almost every week, and I’ve started to notice more and more overseas tourists enjoying them just like we do.

I want to continue spreading the love for collaboration cafes among Japanese fans, while also ensuring that manga and anime fans visiting from abroad find our cafes delicious and enjoyable. I hope to support this mission from behind the scenes in menu development.”