Artnia

 
In 2011 on my first visit to Tokyo I got lost in Shinjuku one day, and while cursing over my bad sense of direction I found a Square Enix store! It had a kind of weird location, by the highway between Shinjuku and Harajuku, but I made many visits and spent a lot of money in that store... (among many random stuff, I bought a Sephiroth perfume).

Not only was this store really cool because it had a lot of Final Fantasy items, but it had an innersection which was kind of dark and had a lot of reflective glass. In this section they sold more expensive items, like perfumes and jewelry, and most importantly, they had a realsize Sephiroth lying under glass in the floor! They also had Gackt's outfit from the Redemption PV standing in that section.

When I went back to Japan in 2012 I went back to the Square Enix store of course, this time during the evening and I was just planning what I should buy and then get back another day. When I got back another day the store was closed. Close, closed. I was so angry that I didn't buy what I wanted that evening!

A couple of months ago a friend of mine told me there was a Final Fantasy café in Shinjuku somewhere and that we should go there. After a little google:ing I realised it was the Square Enix store which just changed location, and last saturday we went there to check it out!

I was very excited for this restaurant/bar they opened since they had some Final Fantasy themed stuff on that menu.
The store is located a bit away from the Shinjuku station, but I don't mind walking. Just walk down to the area with Forever21 and MaruiOne etc. The building looks very special, almost like a tiny spacecraft, white and somewhat eggshaped. They had cute decorations outside with Chocobos and Cactuars!

Just like the old store, it had two sections, the first with the café area and regular shopping, then they had a similar "dark" room with jewelry. Unfortunatley Sephiroth was nowhere to be found, instead they had a very impressive rainfall and materia in the middle of the room!

As for the restaurant, since it's so small you have to write your name on a list and wait for a table (unless you're lucky and there's acctually a table available). They have food, like meat and pasta, but the themed food is sweets! There's parfait with a tiny chocolate sword or Yuffie's shuriken! Cocktails called potion or named after aeons, like the awesome looking, blue "Shiva".
I decided to try a cappucino and pancakes! When ordering they acctually ask if you want Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest themed food, so here's what my order looked like!

One of my friends acctually got a tiny chocobo on her pancakes aswell! I wont lie and say it was the best coffee and pancakes I've ever had, but it was fine and most importantly, I went there because I love Final Fantasy and just seeing a chocobo in my coffee made it worth the price!

Of course I made some shopping, this is what I got with me;

Cactuar glas and a clearfile

I really liked the old store, especially because that Sephiroth statue was one of the most awesomest things I've ever seen, but on the other hand I think it was a great idea to have a café/restaurant, I love how there's so many themed cafés in Tokyo! It's totally worth to visit, and to stand in line for almost 1 hour to get a table!

Link: http://www.jp.square-enix.com/artnia/en/

Next up will be livereports from BUCK-TICK's FISHTanker's ONLY live tomorrow and their Tour2014 metaform nights final gig on sunday! (yes...I'm going 2 days in a row...)