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.
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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.
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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.”
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“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.
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“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.
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“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
We’ve found some of the best Chinese food in town – being served out of a snooker hall
Danny Jones
Yes, you heard us right: we’ve stumbled across one of our favourite new places for Chinese food just on the outskirts of Manchester city centre – it just so happens to be served out of a best-in-class snooker hall.
And that really is just the tip of the iceberg here.
Some of you may have heard about and/or seen it already, but we’ll admit we were a little late to the party when it comes to Club 200, a.k.a. the pool, snooker, darts, mahjong club and more, which has so many different things rolled into that it’s really more a Russian doll than a Chinese restaurant or sports venue.
The hook speaks for itself: a place where people spend just as much time practising with chopsticks as they do their cues, as it really isn’t a gimmick, as some pessimistic folk would have you think – the food is banging and so are the vibes in general.
Not only is this quite literally the best snooker club in Manchester – complete with everything from classic American billiards and Chinese 8-ball to king-size snooker tables that the Ronnie O’Sullivan has played and won on, to a special AI system you won’t find anywhere else – it is SO much more than that.
Whilst the backroom was packed with everyone from casuals to those looking to get their pro certification via the official Q Tour, and lads in the front were practising their arrows, as co-owner Simon admitted they get almost just as many darts regulars these days, a storm was cooking up in the kitchen.
It would be unfair to say this place doubles as a bar and restaurant, because we really couldn’t get over how well put together this menu was.
‘Café 200’s food offerings involve classics like fried rice and chow mein dishes, to the kind of sides you could expect from your local Chinese chippy, but it’s even more authentic exports that really impress.
For instance, the beef ho fun seemed to be a big hit with everyone; we loved the salty seafood udon as well (a great chew on those noodles), and we know plenty of people still searching for proper Hong Kong-style French toast – they might just find it here.
Speaking of the special administrative region, which has a twisting and turning but nevertheless rich culinary culture all of its own, that last dish had us hopping with joy.
You’re looking at baked Portuguese rice: a Macau speciality rooted in the region’s colonial history.
We’ve never quite had anything like it before, even in all of our years eating this kind of cuisine around the 10 boroughs, but we haven’t stopped thinking about it since.
And then there’s everything else they do, from karaoke and bingo nights to catering for birthdays and other functions, or even just serving as a cool, somewhat tucked-away spot to watch the footy and other live sport come the weekend.
You can tell this place has built up a real community over the last 18 months or so, and while the food speaks for itself, it’s the sheer abundance and variety going on that makes it especially charming to so many.
Speaking of jack-of-all-trade venues, we stumbled across a similar multi-talented one over in Salford not so long ago, too…
‘Manc the Biff’: the Co-op Live crowd made the Clyro boys welcome on debut
Danny Jones
It feels like we’ve been waiting a long time to welcome Biffy Clyro back to Manchester, and they really didn’t disappoint on their Co-op Live debut.
Here’s our review of what was a proper rock show.
After a strong lineup of support acts with The Armed and Soft Play (formerly Slaves) injecting plenty of early energy into the crowds, already knew two things: the Scots wouldn’t disappoint, and a Manc crowd NEVER lets you down.
We knew everyone was on top form from the moment the Kilmarnock icons stepped out on stage under a swathe of blankets to the opener from their latest album, Futique.
Once the curtain was eventually lifted during ‘A Little Love’, which has quickly become one of the most popular singles for some time, you could see the sea of fans below start bouncing.
Rolling into the likes of ‘Hunting Season’ and Only Revolutions classic, ‘The Captain’, those bounces quite quickly turned into a healthy-sized pit, and those up in the stands with us finally got on their feet.
That was maybe our only complaint: we love seeing a seated section pretending they’re in standing from their start, but we get it and each to their own, of course.
In fact, the same goes for the rest of the session players joining them on the road this year.
One thing we weren’t expecting was quite how cool the production levels were going to be. We’ve never been Biffy fans for their creativity when it comes to toying with stage design or lighting rigs, but they threw in some fun effects regardless.
Highlights from the night included ‘Tiny Indoor Fireworks’, ‘Bubbles’, and ‘Black Chandelier’, though we were sad not to hear ‘Victory Over The Sun’, and it was especially gutting that one of our favourite tracks from the new record, ‘True Believer’, didn’t end up on the setlist.
Again, you can’t have anything – we’re just glad we got to be there and see a truly great British rock band proving that they are well and truly an arena-level band.
Lastly, even after all the years and an X-Factor cover trying its hardest to take the credit away from them, ‘Many of Horror’ is still an unbelievable rock ballad, and d’ya know who is an unbelievable rock band? “Biffy. F***ing. Clyroooooo.”
Georgina Pellant -
29th October 2021 
