Is “Anteiku” Represent Japanese Coffee Culture?
When I watched Tokyo Ghoul, I noticed that there’s a cafe which serves manual brew in it. I mean, who would have thought that coffee could be a topic in an anime?
I don’t usually watch anime until the last episode. But, when someone put coffee as a key point (or maybe just an additional point) that contributes to the character’s super power I said to myself, “this has to be something for me”.
Because I am myself, I would have thought coffee was very beneficial, even imagining it as magical for human beings to consume for their own purposes.
So, how do they present coffee topics in this anime? Does it have any connection to japanese coffee culture as this anime is from japan?
Tokyo Ghoul “Anteiku”
Apparently, Ghoul lives in Tokyo and it looks like human beings. It begins to be revealed to the public when a college student dates one of them and then the ghoul attacks to eat him. The student survives as the ghoul then is attacked by the unknown. But the student has to live as a half ghoul because he got a transplanted organ from the ghoul that attacked him.
First thing first, after being a half ghoul, he must adapt to a new sense. Which is the temptation to eat human flesh. After struggling for a while, this half ghoul then meets with their community. This community lives in a cafe or coffee shop which is called “Anteiku”.
One of the old members of this community then teaches him about how to handle the temptation so that they won’t be detected by humans. The old man then served a cup of coffee then said, “Through history, coffee has proven to be the only thing that we ghouls can enjoy alongside humans.”
It means ghouls drinking coffee to suppress their hunger for human flesh.
I mean, it’s real. For us also, coffee has no calories and is used for energizing our body when it’s no eating window time.
Japanese Coffee Culture
I would like to talk about japanese coffee culture not only from a reference. It is also from my own experience. This experience came to me when I heard that Japan has patented one of the most popular beans from Indonesia for more than 40 years. It surprised me.
From a general perspective, Japan is known for their tea culture. They have “ocha” which means green tea and only from japan. It might be produced from any other country but japan is the most popular.
Japan surprisingly also has quite a strong bond with coffee. Japan owns a patent for Toraja coffee beans from Indonesia. Even they celebrate Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee every January 9 since 2018. These coffee beans are from outside Japan.
But unlike tea, coffee came to Japan not so smoothly around the 1700s. At first, locals didn’t enjoy the taste. Coffee imports were even banned from Japan until 1950. It only became popular in the 1960s to 1970s.
Now they have coffee vending machines everywhere as part of their community. Even though there are international coffee chains like starbuck, they have their own chains like Mariva, Doutor and Ueshima Coffee House.
Despite the existence of fast-serve coffee from European style cafes, Japan has their own style cafe which is called Kissaten. The word “kissa” originally referred to drinking tea, but the shops soon also became associated with coffee. This Japanese style is the opposite from European style cafes.
If the European style provides quick and cheap coffee and beverages, kissaten is like a tasting house for coffee which is more nuanced and gourmet.
Back to “Anteiku”
So, does it represent Japanese coffee culture? It might be a part of it. Because this anime was created by the Japanese and it shows how they admire coffee. Anteiku is a European style cafe and the old man serves manual brew to the half ghoul in the second episode.
For someone not familiar with coffee, they won’t know the manual brew style is like an advanced technique for serving and tasting good coffee.
So, I hope this will give you another perspective about coffee culture and how good coffee is. Follow me for more interesting stories.
