Anaheim Cafe opened in Joko Ward, Osaka (大阪市城東区) January last year. Apart from the normal tea and coffee, the cafe also offers space for fans to build their model kits. Customers can either bring their own models to the shop, or buy some at the cafe itself. The shop does provide tools like airbrush, spray booth and so on for the customers to use.
Most of the customers of the cafe are working adults aged 30 to 40 years old. After 7PM, the Japanese salarymen return from their work and pack the cafe to enjoy their plamo-making hobby. There are ten or more people everyday building model kits at the store.
Gathering with buddies is not the main reason for the customers to visit the cafe actually. Most of them are having difficulties doing so at home, where they are being complained by family members that it's dirty, or the fume from the cement is unpleasant. At the cafe however, they can truly enjoy their hobby.
There are now 300 models on display at the cafe in Osaka, some of them courtesy of the customers of course. According to the owner, Kutsuroakira Kawahata (? - 川畑寛晃さん), there are two more branches of the cafe now opens in Tokyo and Yokohama.
The fee is 180 Yen for the first 30 minutes, excluding food and beverage. Anyone interested to visit the cafe?
Image and information from Yomiuri Online, with video clip in this other report.
Also, from the same report, the sales of Gunplas has now totaled to about 393 million pieces (３億９３００万個) as of December 2008 since its original launch. O_O It was 380 million pieces back in around mid 2007.
We all contribute a few percentage of the statistic that for sure. XD
