The Japanese Anime cafe with real maids hidden inside Afflecks
Inside you'll find rare anime dolls, imported Japanese snacks, milkshakes named after famous characters and stacks of comics which you can read for free
Hidden inside Afflecks is a magical Japanese anime-inspired maid cafe where you can watch films by Studio Ghibli and buy drinks inspired by famous anime characters.
First opened in 2019, the cafe is the only one in the UK of it has kind and has had various different iterations over the years – first starting life off as a shop downstairs before moving onto the second floor.
Based inside its current unit for two years now, in the past few months, its owners have expanded the space to add on a proper Japanese-style sakura cafe behind the shop – complete with upside-down umbrellas hanging from the ceiling and its very own sakura tree.
Neon lights and anime murals cover the walls, there’s a stage covered in plants, ring lights that customers are welcome to use for filming, and, in one corner, a bookshelf filled with anime books that the maids have found in charity shops.
Customers, the maids tell us, are welcome to pick any of these up for a read whilst visiting. The cafe also offers a service to customers to come in and resell their old anime comics to the cafe for a much better price than they might get elsewhere.
On our visit, we meet two of the cafe’s seven resident maids – Ria and Gia. Both are dressed in cosplay Japanese maid outfits, Maid Gia also has furry black and brown cat ears on her head, whilst Maid Ria is sporting black and red dragon wings.
They are keen to stress that, whilst the cafe does draw its inspiration from Japan’s maid cafe culture, unlike in Japan in no way are they wanting to be fetishised.
Over there, customers commonly call the maid’s “Princess” and vice versa are called “master”. Here at Affleck’s, the focus is more on having fun – not on sexualising the intimacy between customer and maid.
“In their cafes, […] master and princess is like kind of like fetishist names […] we don’t want any aspect of fetishising anything, we don’t want any Asian fishing or anything like that because it’s just disgusting.”
“We just want to have fun and dress like maids and sell Japanese merch without hurting anyone,” adds Gia sweetly.
Both maids’ enthusiasm for Japanese anime and manga culture is infectious – and as they start to explain more about the fantastical worlds that are created within it, where people are born with pink hair and devil horns, where someone might be half-cat, or have superpowers that see them shoot stars out of their hands – it’s easy to see how you could become immersed.
It’s pure fantasy at its very best. They tell us about Death Note, where you write someone’s name in a magical notebook and it kills them, and about another character who has the power of being trans – where they can inject themselves and change gender.
It’s all brilliantly weird, “the weirdest stuff you can think of” says Gia.
As well as selling food and drink inspired by their favourite anime characters, which includes a list of milkshake specials loaded with the likes of chocolate, raspberry, fruit pearls, tapioca and cream, the cafe also sells authentic figures that are collector’s items in their own right.
“All of our stuff is straight from Japan which we feel like gives more of an immersive experience, so if you could never travel to Japan you’ve literally got it right here,” says maid Ria.
The shelves are packed with boxes of different figures from the comic worlds, as well as Japanese snacks from the likes of Hello Panda. There’s also a fridge filled with different flavoured drinks that pay tribute to some iconic characters, including a blue-haired Sonic.
For now, the food offering is limited to snacks that you can buy to eat in the neighbouring cafe – but the maids tell us they’ve got plans to introduce hot food as soon as possible and hope to start selling bowls of ramen and cookie dough, adding an immersive element into the service.
Ria tells us, “In Japan, they serve little omelettes and then the maids come over and like draw in your omelettes like smiley faces, that’s the kind of stuff we really want to do in the future.”
“We’re getting this kitted out as a proper kitchen, we’re going to do cookie dough as well yes omg we have a red velvet flavour, a death by chocolate flavour, birthday cake flavour – I’m really excited for that – bubblegum. It’s like a cookie dough ice cream and that will be the first kind of food that we serve instead of just like a snack you buy off the shelf.
“We’re just looking to put it somewhere.”
“In this cafe it’s just always like gradually growing. A lot of places open and it’s like BAM! But yeah we’re always growing and that’s what’s nice, taking new ideas and that’s what’s fun about it,” adds Gia.
The maids also tell us about their plans to have a proper maid cafe in the future out on the street, where they can stand outside and welcome customers in “with like the windows all pink and frilly, like a little castle.”
Designed for like-minded people with a shared interest in anime, the cafe has been set up to be suitable for all ages where fans can socialise and initiate new friendships,
All of its maids are anime fanatics and experts too, and with their help owner Rio has created a safe space for anime fans where guests can watch anime, play video games, and transport themselves to cosplaying heaven.
Over the Halloween weekend, the cafe will be hosting a special event to tie in with the annual Manchester Anime and Gaming Con.
Feature
Lupo Caffe Italiano – a taste of sunny Rome on a Prestwich industrial estate
Daisy Jackson
The sun is beating down on you, there’s a couple of luminous orange Aperol Spritzes on the checked tablecloth, Italian pop music is trickling out over the speakers and you’ve got two heaping bowls of pasta on the way.
The setting could easily be a cobbled street in front of the Colosseum in Rome. But it’s not. It’s an industrial estate in Prestwich.
Lupo must be one of Greater Manchester’s most hidden gems in a very literal sense.
To get here, you have to drive or walk a strange looping circuit around industrial warehouses peddling everything from splashbacks to burglar alarms to grow tents.
One of these warehouses, located in the very furthest yard, looks a little different to the others, festooned with bunches of garlic and dried herbs strung up from the ceiling.
There are shelves full of pasta, sauces and even crisps, a fridge packed with delicious Italian wines and beers, and retro football shirt-inspired merch hanging from the walls.
Its awkward location does nothing to hold back its loyal customers, who repeatedly return for the authentic taste of Rome on offer here.
Lupo is operated by Nico Pasquali, who first ran it as a tiny Italian cafe on Chapel Street in Salford (before all the high-rises appeared), then shifted it over to the odd shiny-commercial-office-land that is Exchange Quay, then took it almost entirely remote to trudge through the pandemic.
Lupo’s charming interiorsNico has added outside seating to LupoThe pasticceria selection at Lupo
At one point, Caffè Lupo existed mostly on WhatsApp, with customers texting in their orders ready for a doorstep drop on a Friday night.
But now the large-ish commercial unit is its main business, and it’s a special one.
You are greeted, always, with a friendly wave, then given the sort of service where you’re very gently guided to order all the best things on the menu that day, feeling like you’ll personally offend Nico if you order differently and stray from his recommendations. Thankfully it’s pretty easy to trust this man.
It’s extremely hard for me to see amatriciana on a menu and not order it – so I don’t try. One bowl of rigatoni amatriciana for me, and make it cheesy.
This is a textbook example of the deceptively simple pasta dish. Fatty guanciale cooked right down so that all that delicious pork fat melts into the tomatoes, then it’s seasoned with, I presume, several generations of secrets and love from Italian nonnas.
Rigatoni amatriciana, and fennel sausage orecchietteA spread of Lupo’s Italian foodPepernata – Nico’s mum’s recipeThe Pizza Lupo
The sweet, salty, meaty sauce is available on a pizza too, which will be top of my list next time I visit.
Across the table it’s a special (but it’s been on the menu for a while now) of orecchiette with fennel sausage and romanesco broccoli.
Nico tells us a customer once refused to pay for this dish because it wasn’t ‘saucy’ enough. Heathen.
That’s the running theme with Lupo – don’t come here expecting Neapolitan pizzas, or flat whites, or hot honey dips for your pizza crusts. It isn’t the Roman way, and Nico isn’t about to veer away from his proud roots to mould into any passing fads or trends.
If you’re after authenticity and tradition though, this is comfortably the top Italian in Greater Manchester.
If you can come to Lupo and walk away without ordering something sweet from the counter, you’re a stronger person than me.
PasticceriaOwner NicoLupo’s famous millefoglie
They’re famed for their doughnuts (rightly), with bouncy dough filled with flavours including pistachio cream, lemon, and homemade jams.
Also displayed in neat rows are fruit tarts with a glossy glaze, towering cream cakes in neat layers, and puff pastry cannoncini.
But Nico is adamant, absolutely adamant, that we order a slice of his millefoglie. It’s a sell-out, he says. We’re lucky he even has some in stock, he tells us. Who are we to argue?
And if you’ve made it this far, just stop reading right now, get in the damn car and go get yourself a slice before it sells out again.
Layers of lighter-than-air homemade pastry are sandwiched together with delicately sweet cream, hints of almond throughout, and it’s good enough to bring a tear to your eye.
We leave with a doughnut in a box too, so that we at least have a snack if we get completely lost finding our way back out of the industrial estate.
You can stay in an aircraft, old school bus, or even a helicopter at this glamping pod near Manchester
Thomas Melia
There’s a glamping retreat near Manchester offering extraordinary stays in an aircraft, helicopter, old school bus and more.
Over in Blackpool at Manor House Glamping, there is a range of static vehicles that you can have an overnight stay or two in, and according to the pictures on its website, there’s even a resident emu.
You can stay in various modes of transport, such as an aircraft, an iconic yellow school bus, a campervan or a military green truck.
Each has its own perks ranging from a hot tub, outdoor bath, fire pit, sandpit and more. Whatever type of getaway or retreat you’re looking for, you’ll find everything you need right here.
The most eye-catching of the company’s stays is certainly the aircraft, which has kept its original cockpit features, although it’s safe to say the interior has definitely had a makeover.
There’s no such thing as a bad in-flight experience with this guest house, as you can get cocktails delivered to the cockpit after taking a dip in your own personal hot tub – not too shabby, eh?
With the bright and unmissable yellow school bus, there are plenty of decorations that help continue this theme in the form of various American road signs, one of which acts as your headboard for the night.
If you’re after a more toned-down chance to unwind, you can step into a pale-white camper van with cosy cushions and a snug haystack-turned-sofa adorned with some gorgeous blankets.
And if you’re looking at going all out, then your Manor House Glamping accommodation of choice has to be the chopper, which was once used by the Royal Navy.
Worried this option might be a tad nippy? Fear not, because this helicopter is fully kitted out to suit your glamping needs with two fluffy-lined cushions on each seat of this vintage heli.
Anyone who experiences cabin fever, fear not, because all the aircraft and vehicles are static and aren’t planning on making a long-haul journey anytime soon, you’ll still be able to keep your feet firmly on the ground.
Manor House Glamping has a variety of vehicle-themed guest houses, both old and new, for you to stay in overnight and if you’re interested or after any further information.
If you fancy staying within the boundaries of Greater Manchester but still fancy getting the feel for a cockpit, though, there’s a very fun day out over at Barton’s City Airport.
Georgina Pellant -
29th October 2021 
