Sailor Moon Cafe 2019 and How To Book Anime Cafes in Japan

The Sailor Moon Cafe is a reoccurring limited-time-only event.

The Shining Moon Tokyo Restaurant has now closed down.

Updated: April 2022

THE VERDICT

Setting & Atmosphere
Food
Service
Value For Money

2.6

OVERALL SUMMARY

Skip the kawaii desserts and go for the real champions of justice – the main dishes

You’ve read my first impressions of anime cafe attractions like the Pokemon Cafe and the Chibiusa Cafe from the Sailor Moon Exhibition before. This time with Talyssa in town, we got to enjoy the delights of anime dining together!

Naturally, we both have the same fraternal appreciation for our childhood queen, Sailor Moon. Luckily for us, Japan had two new cafe attractions centred around our favourite anime series; the 2019 ‘Girls Night Out’ Sailor Moon Cafe pop-up and the permanent restaurant ‘SHINING MOON TOKYO.’ With our busy schedules, we were only able to go to the Sailor Moon Cafe pop-up cafe but was it the right choice? For love, justice and food here are our thoughts on the experience.

Setting & Atmosphere

n my humble opinion, recreating an anime themed experience should be all about the details and besides food, that should be reflected in the decor as well.

Being a recurring ‘limited time only’ event, the interior for the Girls Night Out Sailor Moon Cafe does well in putting ‘Sailor Moon themed bells and whistles’ on whatever surface they can.

Inside, the cafe was decorated with newly created artworks for the event (minus Sailor Pluto and Saturn on the main poster WTF) and a fun, bold colour scheme just like the 90’s show. The official gift shop, the iconic anime soundtrack and projected Sailor Moon videos all served as a good distraction while you waited for your food.

My only pet peeve was that the already small cafe felt so cramped! It’s almost like

everyone was packed in on top of each other like a tin of sardines.

The table space for two people was almost impossible to fit drinks, two mains and adding desert to the mix meant having to balance a plate on your lap. It slowly dawned upon us that this experience was best suited to a light snack spot, rather than a full meal. Dinner was a constant ‘knocking-of-elbows’ with the person next to you and with the time limit looming, you are pressured to eat, enjoy and experience the café before the next group comes in. A chilled experience? Think again!

Despite its flaws, it was a fun casual dine out but if you were to live out your true weeaboo fantasies, the SHINING MOON TOKYO restaurant would be the better choice. We provided some extra photos for comparison below:

Inside the Cafe

Cafe’s Gift Shop (unfortunately many things were already sold out)

Cafe’s Table Top Designs

PHOTOS FROM THE SHINING MOON TOKYO RESTAURANT

Photo Spot

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A post shared by 美少女戦士セーラームーンSHINING MOON TOKYO (@sailormoon_smt) on Feb 7, 2020 at 9:04pm PST

Costume Displays

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A post shared by LENLEN (@hobby_len4649) on Aug 15, 2019 at 5:30am PDT

Stage Area and Seating (Scroll Next)

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A post shared by N.E Project (@n.e_project) on Dec 20, 2019 at 9:06am PST

Live Show

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A post shared by 🌸ﾟ｡･ 𝔻𝕒𝕤𝕄𝕚𝕒𝕦 ･｡ﾟ🌸 (@dasmiau) on Nov 25, 2019 at 9:40am PST

Food

hough not as bad as the Pokemon Cafe, the food at the Girls Night Out Sailor Moon Cafe was a bit more sophisticated, but was still a mixed bag of good and bad.

Let’s begin with the drinks menu. I loved that they had a drink for every single Sailor Scout with their own colours and flavours (yes, sweet justice for Sailor Pluto and Saturn). I thought it was a cute touch to put their casual outfit artwork on the straws and as a bonus, you also received a free random coaster. The “Makoto” mint and lemon combo sounded refreshing but the mint syrup tasted borderline like toothpaste. Talyssa’s “Rei” cassis and pomegranate was nice and both drinks were garnished with frozen fruit. While, the drink combinations were interesting, given the cold autumn weather it would have been better if the fruits were fresh.

For food, they had a lunch and dinner menu with dinner time being the most appealing for mains. Talyssa chose the Moonlight Risotto which came with 4 different sauces inspired by the original Sailor Scouts; Mercury (blueberry cheese), Mars (napolitana sauce), Jupiter (pesto) and Venus (capsicum relish). While the

flavours of this dish were quite good, it was a far cry from a risotto, with the texture of the rice being dry and hard. To this day, we are still left wondering why risotto would be served with a blueberry cheese sauce. Ah, the mysteries of Japanese-Western fusion.

In most situations, it usually goes without saying that the more expensive main options are generally much tastier.

My Chicken Steak Plate tasted great especially with the cheese sauce on top. It also came with a surprise glass of sparkling apple cider with rose petals inside and although I relish in the delight that it must have been a present from my man, Tuxedo Mask, it looked like I had grossly over-ordered and I didn’t realise my meal came with its own drink! Fml.

I digress, now we must talk about the desert because it was a massive let down. Although the Cosmic Heart Berry Sandwich looked good in the photo it also tasted super fake – like that artificial cherry flavouring which is a big “no” for me.

“Makoto” (mint and lemon soda) and “Rei” (cassis and pomegranate soda) (¥890 w/o tax each)

Moonlight Risotto (¥1,490 w/o tax) with the 4 different sauces inspired by the original Sailor Scouts;

Mercury (blueberry cheese), Mars (napolitana sauce), Jupiter (pesto) and Venus (capsicum relish)

Chicken Steak Plate with salad and soup set (¥1,990 w/o tax)

Cosmic Heart Berry Sandwich (¥1,690 w/o tax)

Service

or the first timers out there, anime cafe attractions almost always have a session time limit (this event was 1 hour and 20 minutes) and as a result are a bit systematic with a few steps to follow.

It is recommended to come at least 10 minutes before your reserved session starts. A staff member will greet you at the door, ask for your reservation name and may also ask for your ID.
After they check you in, you will get a menu and order sheet. You need to order upfront, before entering the restaurant. At temporary events like this one, this is the only opportunity you have to order – so make sure you order everything you want. For more permanent anime cafe’s, like the Pokemon Cafe, this does not apply. Also, we got to collect our first free item – an original art ticket envelope, yay!
Once they guide you to your seat, on the table you will find a paper facing down which reveals your second free gift – your original art table mat.

The gift shop procedure was interesting. For this event, the staff at the entrance gave us a small numbered card and during mealtime, they called each number in order through the PA system so people can start shopping.
After you finish your meal, you can enjoy the space until your session time is up and you pay the bill at the table.

One thing I think I under-appreciated about the Pokemon Cafe was the ability to choose when your food arrives. As pop-up cafes are extremely busy, all the food comes at once which as mentioned before, is not great when your table is exceedingly small.

All-in-all, I really enjoyed all the freebies you can collect while dining at this event. It was like a personal challenge to collect everything. The wait staff were overall very bubbly and friendly.

Ticket Envelope Freebie

Random Pick Coaster

Table Mat Freebie

Numbered Ticket Card for the Gift Shop

VALUE FOR MONEY

onsidering the price of the gift shop items, the food, the entry fee and the “limited time only” aspect of the event, there’s a few things we need to factor in to determine our rating for the cafe’s overall value for money.

Unexpectedly, I was gobsmacked by the price of some of the items for sale. While the smaller trinkets at the gift shop like the acrylic key chains and postcards were reasonable in price (650 yen and 300 yen respectively), there were others that were grossly overpriced. For example, the Luna Glass Cup was a steep 1,600 yen and the Clear Bag was a whopping 1,800 yen. Holy crap! They might be collectable items but I can’t fathom anyone would pay top dollar to own something that basic.

Considering the quality of the food was comparable to meals served at local family restaurants like Denny’s or Gusto, the prices were a tad higher than we would expect to pay. With the consistent hits and misses with dishes and drinks, I definitely felt

cheated paying over 1,700yen for a subpar dessert (I’ll have that weird blueberry risotto combo instead, please).

After crunching the numbers including the price of the entry fee (650 yen), the average base price for one drink, one main and one dessert would be roughly 4,000 yen per person.

So, did we think it was money well spent?

Despite all these criticisms, our overall sentiment is that although it is indeed expensive and overpriced, what we’re paying for was the nostalgia and the experience to relive something that we love – and in that sense we found it enjoyable and “worth it” for the fun. Though if we were to recommend our readers one or the other, we think you should save your money for the SHINING MOON TOKYO instead for a better experience.

Acryclic Coaster and Key Chain Displays

Luna Cup and Clear Bag

Acrylic Character Stands

How to Book

urious to explore the world of anime dining for yourself?

To find news about these special events or cafes especially if it’s anime related, it’s best to follow Japanese trend sites like SoraNews24 to catch wind of any new attractions popping up around Tokyo and Japan throughout the year.

For foreigners that don’t read Japanese, the reservation process can be a bit confusing, but generally follows a similar pattern:

First, find the “reservations” or “予約” page on the event website. You will need to pick the location you would like to book if your event has multiple locations.

Next, choose the date and time of your booking. The [O] sign means that there are many seats available, [△] means that only some seats are left and [ー] or [X] means there are no seats left. At this stage you will be asked to enter how many tickets you want to purchase. (Note, some places might have a limit on how many tickets you can purchase per booking).

After picking your booking date, time and number of people, you will be taken to the payment page. You can pay using a credit card or at the convenience store. If you have to pay at the convenience store follow these steps:

Go to any Loppi machine at a LAWSON or MINISTOP convenience store (usually located near the ATM machines).
Touch the “各種番号をお持ちの方” button.

Enter the “6-digit reservation number” you receive in your confirmation email, then press the “次へ” button.
Enter your telephone number used for reservation. Then, enter your reservation number (予約番号) which you also receive in your confirmation email.
Your reservation details will appear on the screen. Once you check that everything is correct, press the “了解” button.
An application ticket will be printed and you will need to take this to the register staff for payment within 30 minutes.
Once you pay (cash only), the staff will give you the final print out ticket and also a receipt.