Sanrio Character Gudetama Restaurant

I'm trying to catch up on entries I began writing when I acctually visited all these places, very unfortunate that I was lazy and did not write them then -.-' Because of the corona crisis I am stuck at home with less to do and therefore I decided I should start writing again. There are so many things I never wrote about which I have experienced in Japan! So while I wait to return I will revisit all of the places in writing :)

If reading my earlier entries from Osaka it's pretty clear I did not like it that much. I don't want to blame the city itself but more my circumstances. I never did get any friends at the uni and I was living far away from the actual city. But most I think I just missed my life in Tokyo where I have friends and could even spend wonderful evenings all alone. I was determined though to not have my exchange semester spent alone in my dorm up the Mountains and I did try to make the best out of it. One of the things on my must-visit-list was the Gudetama restaurant in Umeda!

All the Sanrio character cafés are all very similar and reading the reviews online it seems to be a hit or miss. I personally enjoy them, it's a unique experience for us living in dull countries with "normal" cafés :P However, the menu can be good and sometimes not so much. For example the Cinnamoroll café in Shinjuku had a disapointing menu in my opinion, whereas the pompompurin café in Harajuku had an awesome pudding!

The Gudetama café ended up somewhere in the middle for me, entertaining as always (it also feels better to sit alone in these kinds of cafés hehe) but the menu was just ok.

I ordered the curry and a coke float. As I do not eat pork I undressed Gudetama. (Normally I try to avoid ordering pork as I dislike throwing away food, but if I remember correctly they only had pork in the main dishes and this was my dinner)

On screens around the restaurant Gudetama episodes were playing on repeat and all around were Gudetama plushies so you won't feel alone :) By the cashier different smaller goods are sold, from pens to lipbalm. I think this cost me around 2000-2500 yen, worth the price because of the unique experience.

I'm still wondering why there's no permenant Little Twin Stars café... (unless one opened in the past year)

Urusei Yatsura Cafe

Unfortunately I haven't updated this blog in a long while, despite having done so much during my time in Osaka. I will upload my adventures later, even though it will be about 6 months since it acctually happened.

I couldn't stay away from Japan, so 2 months after me coming back I went to Japan again. This was just to get away from my thesis and personal issues really. On one of my last days in Osaka, I was walking around Shinsaibashi (my main purpose was to go to Amerika mura to visit Puresound and Closet Child, hohoho) and by pure coinsidence I walked by a pop up café themed Urusei Yatsura! I began watching Urusei Yatsura 2 years ago while studying in Tokyo and found it quite amusing (I've also liked Ranma½ and Inuyasha since my early teens so I was eager to see some more from the same manga creator).

I'm not so sure how popular Urusei Yatsura is outside of Japan, especially in the West. I know some movies were released in Sweden but I don't know anyone who watched those. In Japan however it's very popular, one of those most people know of no matter the age. Since it's old though, most guests were in their 30s as far as I could see.

The café was on the 2nd floor of the building, so at the bottom floor was a showwindow for all the merch and on the walls surrounding the stairway were different pictures from Urusei Yatsura. In the actual café the walls were covered in drawings from the manga, as well as posters looking like paintings. The soundtrack was playing and on one of the walls and tv screens the anime was playing.

The menu was interesting and I would probably have prefered the foods, but since I had a huge lunch that day and wasn't really up for eating, I just managed to squeeze down a french toast for the sake of it. When ordering a drink and a food you were given an original sticker when before leaving, and for every drink you got a random coaster.

Out of all the themed café and restaurants I've been to, the food here was not as good as what I'm used to. I can't say what quality the other meals had, but the french toast was rather dry and did not taste much. However, it was so cute that I don't really mind.

The french toast came hidden, with just an image of Jariten burning your food...

...and obviously it was made to look all burnt! This dish came with a sorry-card from Jariten, hehehe.

As for my drink, I ordered a minth/lime soda. Very tasty.

This is also a bit late, I realised that today (May 28th) was the closing day. It seems to have been a similar café in Ikebukuro, Tokyo. Their webpage for those interested:

http://the-guest.com/urusei_yatsura_osaka/