It was 2:30 in the morning on a rainy Shibuya night. Not a cab in sight. And if there had been, chances are, one of the hundreds of other people straining their eyes searching for one in vain would have beaten us to it. What to do, what to do? Fortunately, my friend was Japanese, and everybody who has ever been an impoverished student in Japan knows what to do when they miss Last Train.
Let’s find an all-night Comic Book Cafe! my friend suggested. You want to read comic books at this hour? I asked, incredulous. No,no, you can sleep there. And it’s really cheap. Everybody does it.
Half an hour later, we found ourselves in one of the last cubicles available at the manga kissa Bagus. ¥1300 each included all the free soft drinks we could guzzle, all the vanilla or chocolate soft serve ice cream we could wolf down, a vast library of comic books, unlimited net surfing, clean bathrooms, a shower, and a place to stay until dawn.
But all we really wanted to do was catch a few zzzs. The cubicle was wide enough for me to stretch out my legs on one of the two footstools, but not lie down. I propped myself in the corner and closed my eyes. It was dark. Well, dark-ish. But these were cubicles with walls that were only about five feet high, so although people tried to be quiet, scores of train-missers sharing a room wasn’t anywhere near silent. All around me, snoring (in various styles), conversations (in various states of drunkenness), a few all-night gamers leveling up or dying (I could hear when they did either), and occasionally someone stumbling out of their cubicle, fishing around for their shoes, and shuffling to the bathroom.
3:15. 3: 55. 4:20. 4:45. I got up as quietly as I could, and sneaked out the door to catch the first train home.
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The Last Tea Bowl Thief was chosen as an Editor’s Pick for
Best Mystery, Thriller & Suspense on Amazon
“A fascinating mix of history and mystery.” —Booklist
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Jonelle Patrick writes novels set in Japan, produces the monthly e-magazine Japanagram, and blogs at Only In Japan and The Tokyo Guide I Wish I’d Had
Only In Japan 
You know, sometimes I think that Japan is a rather strange place.
It’s strange in ways I couldn’t even imagine before I lived here. It’s a world of inventions born of necessity. For example, Last Train, which has created a whole culture of all-night bars, events, comic book cafes and other places to park yourself until 5:00 when the first trains start running again.
And yet there doesn’t seem to be anything like that in US cities. Of course, US cities with mass transit aren’t the size of Tokyo….
This makes so much sense. I wish we could have something like this over here but my people arent ready for this yet. Maybe in 30 to 50 years. I would love to go to Japan just to experience that. Wow.
It really was an amazing experience, but one of the reasons it works is because everybody is Japanese. It’s crowded here, so there’s such a culture of being considerate to people around you that makes it possible for a hundred people to occupy cubicles in the same room without mayhem breaking out. I can’t actually imagine this working very smoothly in America, that’s for sure.
Thank you so much for sharing this. ^_^
If I could read Kanji I would be there everyday reading all those mangas!