This Tokyo café serves an antidote to writer’s block

Tokyo’s famous themed cafes often include animals: cats, pigs, hedgehogs. The atmosphere is one of pleasure and play. Much unlike the new addition which is about work.

At a busy intersection in the city’s Koenji neighborhood is Tokyo’s latest emerging coffee shop, called Manuscript Café, and it’s for people who not only have a writing project but also, above all, a deadline.

The mood is serious. A handful of customers sit at workstations glued to their computers, guarded by Takuya Kawai, owner and chief executive officer.

At a rate of about $ 2.50 an hour, it offers fast Wi-Fi, air-cooled computer mounts and Kawai itself. “I try not to float,” she told correspondent Liz Palmer. “Not to put too much pressure on them, but I check their progress every 30 minutes.”

Hiro Sekiguchi has come to write a lecture tomorrow. In his log form he asks that they be reviewed (or you could say they gently harassed him) every half hour until it is over.

Writers are procrastinators. In front of a blank page (or, more likely, a blank screen today), you’ll find a million ways to avoid getting your hands on work. Well, not here.

Kawai makes sure of this with Mr. Takahara, who runs to finish a manga cartoon.

“Your goal was 24 pages; how are you?” he asked.

“Don’t worry,” Takahara replied. “I’m on the right track.”

With the constant roar of traffic in an insignificant suburb, this place is not what you might call charming, except for the memories of the movies and an old tech wall in the bathroom.

But what really matters here is to do it.

Part of the secret, says Hiro Sekiguchi, is the lack of distraction. “I’m comfortable working here,” he said. Not to mention focused.

Greater Tokyo is the most populous metropolitan area in the world, so a quiet place away from the hustle and bustle of concentrating and creating is beautiful.

At 8 to 4 p.m., Mr. Oguchi has finished his project.

“Congratulations!” said Palmer. “How many hours did it take?”

“One and a half,” he replied.

“Why did you write better and concentrate better here?”

“I had a tight deadline,” Oguchi replied. “And of course I was paying for it!”

For more information:

• Manuscript Cafe, Tokyo (Google Translation)

Edited by Randy Schmidt.

In:
• Japan