Twentythree

Complete with tiny matching pyjamas for your little friend.

The world of fandom is vast and varied in Japan – on one hand you have fans who might show a casual interest in an actor, idol, VTuber, or anime character, and then on the other, you have diehard fans who engage in what’s known as “oshi-katsu”. Equivalent to the English slang term “stanning” – katsu means “activities” while oshi refers to the character or person you’re “stanning” – this level of fandom is reserved for those who go to great lengths to support the object of their affections at any given opportunity, investing time, effort and money into the activity, and treating it like a passionate pasttime.

One of the ways to show your love in the oshi-katsu world is by buying merch dedicated to your favourite idol or character, often in the form of a plushie, known as “nuigurumi” (“nui” for short) in Japanese. Nuigurumi are great for snuggling up to at night, and you can even take them out on trips with you, both near and far. It’s a passion that Japanese business hotel chain Toyoko Inn clearly understands, as it’s been officially catering to guests and their plushies since autumn 2025, when it started the “Oshi-Katsu Support Plan”.

A lot of fans would have stayed at Toyoko Inn for oshi events and concerts, so it’s a clever idea to create an accommodation plan geared towards them. There are actually two types of Oshi-Katsu Support Plans offered by Toyoko Inn – one is the “Relax & Recharge – Oshi Edition”, which comes with a free pack of foot care sheets, bath salts, and a heated eye mask to help you “unwind after a day of oshi-katsu”, while the other is the “Oshi-Katsu Sleepover Plan – Stay with Your Favorite Plushie!”, which gives you and your nui separate beds in the same room for the night.

▼ The stay is ideal for acrylic standees too, as this poster at the front desk reads: “We’ve started renting beds for plushies and acrylic stands.”

Our own reporter Maro, who has a few nuis of her own, was excited to try the Sleepover Plan, and when she learned that her plushie’s stay would cost a meagre 300 yen (US$1.88) on top of her room fee, she felt so heartened by the customer service that she packed several of her favourite plushies to join her on the sleepover.

Booking a stay for her and her plushie was a unique experience in itself, but when she got to the front desk, she was even more delighted when staff handed her a mesh bag at check-in, containing bedding and nightwear for her plush character.

While the stay is generally designed for one plushie, you could take several and let them share or rotate during your stay. The set contains a duvet, a pillow, a bed frame and nightwear in two sizes, though, so if you take more than two plushies, they won’t all be able to wear matching outfits.

As for where to put the bedding in your room, it fits perfectly into the curved space where you might normally put your smartphone and other small items when you go to sleep.

▼ The idea to repurpose this design feature into a toy bed is a work of genius.

Excited to give her nui the hotel experience, Maro took out the nightwear for her plushie. The nightwear gowns come in two sizes, small and large, and they have Velcro on the back, so they can be made to work with nuis, or standees, of various sizes.

Maro’s main nui has a rather large head, so the nightwear was bursting at the seams a little. The outfit would be more suitable for a regular human-shaped nui, but it still worked on her character plush, so it really does suit a wide variety of shapes and sizes.

Another cute feature is how the tiny nightwear matches the larger one designed to be used by human guests. Cue photos of you and your nui in matching nightwear during your hotel stay.

Though the nightwear required a bit of fiddling, due to the odd shape of her plushie, the bed slid into the space with ease. Within seconds, Maro had made the bed, and when she stood back to admire her work, she was impressed by how good it looked in the light.

▼ A tiny nook for your nui!

▼ Two nuis can fit in the bed if you rearrange their sleeping positions.

The space looked so good it was like it had been designed specifically for a nui bed, and the fun of the special accommodation plan doesn’t end there – if you post a photo or video of yourself using the plan on social media, you can also receive a “small gift”. Maro couldn’t find any information online about what the gift might entail, so she went ahead and snapped a photo of her nui looking as cosy as a bug in a rug.

[twitter https://twitter.com/hironamaro/status/2080639034653880681 align=”center”]

After sharing the photo on Twitter and showing it to staff at the front desk, Maro received…

▼… a toothbrush case set!

While the set doesn’t include a toothbrush – just the case and toothpaste – it’s an exclusive item that comes with a cute illustration on the front, making it as stylish as it is practical. She didn’t expect to get something so substantial in return for her social media post, so she was overjoyed by her free small gift.

▼ Her other plushie looked pretty happy about it too.

Looking into it further, Maro discovered that the toothbrush set is actually made from recycled plastic, sourced from used plastic toothbrushes and combs that are collected from Toyoko Inn hotels nationwide.

▼ Pop your used combs and toothbrushes in this receptacle in the bathroom, and you’ll be giving them a new life.

If you’re yet to discover the world of oshi-katsu, this type of customer service might seem a little mind-boggling, but for fans who go all out for their beloved characters and idols, it’s a dream service that makes for a very memorable stay. Even if you’re not into oshi-katsu, it’s a fun plan for guests with children who have plush toys that are like family members, and you’d be hard-pressed to find anything like it at any other hotel chain.

While no end date has been announced for the plan itself, the free-gift social media campaign runs until 31 August. So if you’ve ever dreamed of treating your plushie to a hotel experience that would make other plushies envious, now’s the time to book a getaway at the inn.

Related: Oshi-Katsu Support Plan, Participating hotels for sleepover stays, Participating hotels for Relax & Recharge stays
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Police say she also spent time at an Internet cafe.

Carmelita Lakdesha Paul, a 12-year-old British secondary school student who went missing while travelling in Japan with her family, has been found safe after spending time at an Internet cafe while visiting anime-related locations around Yokohama.

Carmelita had been staying with her family at a private rental property in Minami-Kamata, a neighbourhood in Tokyo’s Ota Ward, after arriving in Japan for sightseeing with her parents and older brother on 21 July. She was reported missing by her mother shortly before 9:30 a.m. on 13 August, after the family awoke at around 8:30 a.m. and realised she was gone.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department issued a public request for information the following day, and officers continued searching for Carmelita, including checking security camera footage. Through surveillance footage, they were able to trace her whereabouts to Yokohama Station in Tokyo’s neighbouring Kanagawa Prefecture on the morning of her disappearance but they were unable to locate her beyond that. Carmelita was said to only have a few thousand yen (less than US$100) on her when she left, and she did not take her passport with her.

▼ The train journey between Keikyu-Kamata, the nearest station to the vacation rental, and Yokohama takes around 12 minutes.

Though she was scheduled to return to her home country with her family on 14 August, at around 8 p.m. on 15 August, roughly 59 hours after she left the family’s accommodation, Carmelita walked into a police box in Yokohama by herself. She was unharmed and reportedly told officers that she had begun to miss her parents and didn’t know the way back to where they were staying.

Police say Carmelita had gone out to visit anime “pilgrimage sites” (the term used to describe real-world locations associated with an anime or manga) and had also stayed at an Internet cafe.

Although police haven’t released details of how long she stayed at the Internet cafe, this part of the story raises questions about how a 12-year-old was able to stay there. Minors aren’t generally barred from entering Internet cafes during the day in Kanagawa, but there are restrictions, particularly late at night, with or without a guardian, and individual establishments may impose additional age restrictions. It therefore remains unclear how she was able to stay there.

While police haven’t revealed any other details, except to say they do not believe any crime occurred, additional details about Carmelita’s movements were provided by Tsunehiko Maeda, a former prosecutor, in an online comment.

Maeda said Carmelita had told her parents the previous day that she wanted to visit Yokohama to see locations associated with Bungo Stray Dogs, an anime that she likes. He also said that investigators found evidence that she had travelled from Keikyu Kamata Station to Yokohama Station using a transport IC card, suggesting she had set out for Yokohama deliberately, rather than becoming lost after leaving her accommodation.

Bungo Stray Dogs, the anime that reportedly inspired Carmelita’s trip to Yokohama, is set largely in Yokohama and follows the members of the Armed Detective Agency, a group of detectives with supernatural abilities. It won’t be lost on fans of the anime that after spending two nights away from her family while visiting locations associated with the series, Carmelita found herself seeking help from the real-life police there.

With police saying there was no criminal involvement in the disappearance, Carmelita has now been safely reunited with her family.

Sources: Yomiuri, Asahi Shimbun,  FNN via Yahoo! News Japan
Featured image: Pakutaso 
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There’s a manga-related reason Inunakin is so buff.

A lot of towns in Japan have official mascot characters, so it’s no surprise that the city of Izumosano in Osaka Prefecture has one too. Also not a shock is that Izumosano’s mascot is an anthropomorphized animal, in this case a dog named Inunakin.

What is startling, though, is that Inunakin is ripped.

Our introduction to this muscular mascot came as we were passing through Izumisano’s Riku Town Station, which is just one train stop away from Kansai International Airport. Spotting signage for Inunakin House, touted as the “official museum” for the character, we followed the arrows until we arrived at the entrance.

Admission to Inunakin House is free, so we sauntered right on in…

…where an extremely detailed life-size statue of Inunakin was waiting!

Inunakin wasn’t alone, though, and the pals he was posing with shine some light on how he got his physique.

Flanking Inunakin were full-scale statues of Kinnikuman, star of the Kinnikuman/Muscle pro-wrestling anime/manga franchise, and fellow Kinnikuman character Ramenman.

Inunakin was actually designed by Taskashi Shimada and Yoshinori Nakai, the manga artist duo collectively known as Yudetamago, who also created Kinnikuman. With the wrestling saga having been beloved in Japan for decades, naturally Yudetamago was going to use similar aesthetics when designing Izumisano’s mascot, leading to Inunakin’s Kinnikuman-caliber musculature.

▼ Inunakin’s abs are apparently so rock-hard that he doesn’t need any protective covering for his abdomen.

In addition to the statues, Inunakin House also has a selection of character merch on offer…

…a free reading section with shelves stocked with Kinnikuman manga…

…and even a retro-style tatami reed floor room with a heated kotatsu table to relax in (not something we need right now, but nice to have later in the year when the weather gets colder).

So while it might not be a build-your-itinerary-around-it attraction on the order of Ghibli Park or Universal Studios Japan, Inunakin House is a cool and quirky spot to visit if you’ve got some extra time in your schedule while coming from or going to Kansai International Airport.

Location information
Inunakin House / イヌナキンハウス
Address: Osaka-fu, Izumisano-shi, Rinku Orai Kita 1
大阪府泉佐野市りんくう往来北1
Open 11 a.m.-5 p.m.
Closed Mondays and Tuesdays (or, if Monday or Tuesday is a national holiday, closed the following day)
Website

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There’s good reason why this burger chain is ranked in the top 100 Best Hamburgers in Japan.

In this era of rising prices, the words “cheap” and “delicious” don’t go together quite as often as they used to, but there’s one place in Tokyo where they still go hand-in-hand: JB’s Tokyo.

Boasting stores across the Kanto region, mainly in Tokyo, this locally-born chain is famous for its delicious “craft-style” burgers. The head store is located in front of Tokyo’s Yoyogi Station, and is so acclaimed that it was selected twice for Tabelog’s 100 Best Hamburgers list, in 2024 and 2026.

JB’s is often talked about on social media, where people rave about the great taste and cost of the burgers. Looking at the menu, there’s a surprisingly wide array of options, ranging from simple burgers to full-on varieties like “JB’s Mountain”.

The menu item most often mentioned on social media, though, is The 100% Burger. As the name suggests, this is a hamburger with a 100-percent beef patty, and at 500 yen (US$3.14), it’s one of the cheapest finds on the menu.

Keen to see what all the fuss was about, we ordered the 100% Burger as a combo set with a side of fries for an additional 460 yen. For our drink, we chose the 10o% Homemade Milk Shake, which cost 170 yen with the set, and we also couldn’t resist ordering The 100% Cheeseburger for 580 yen. The restaurant is mainly geared towards takeout, but there’s some rather cramped seating up on the third floor, and that’s where we headed with our meal.

▼ One thing that really impressed us was how you can choose between “Square” (toasted bread) or “Round” (burger bun), so we chose one of each.

▼ It was a hot day so we decided to quench our thirst first with a sip of the shake.

It was cool, milky and delicious, with a gentle sweetness that was a nice partner for the fries, which were thick-cut with the skins left on. If you’re like us and prefer your fries rustic and chunky, you’ll absolutely adore these.

▼ And now for the main event: The 100% Burger.

At this burger joint, the buns, patties and sauces are all made in-house. Many restaurants tend to use buns supplied by a separate bakery, but here, the bread is baked fresh every day, putting them a cut above the competition.

With so much effort going into its creation, it wouldn’t be unusual for a burger like this to cost around 1,000 yen, so we couldn’t quite believe that it was on the menu at half the price.

▼ The contents are simple: bread, sauce, patty and cucumber slices, with a good dash of black pepper on top.

This simplicity is exactly what makes the burger so good. The patty is cooked to order and has a strong, meaty flavour, with a savouriness that spreads through the palate with every bite. There’s even a slathering of Aurora sauce, also made in-house, that sits underneath the patty, adding an extra element of deliciousness to every mouthful.

▼ Now for The 100% Cheeseburger.

The cheeseburger was just as meaty, with the cheese enveloping the patty for an extra layer of richness. With no lettuce or tomato to get in the way, you can truly appreciate the delicious flavour of the simple ingredients.

After eating at JB’s Tokyo, it’s now on our own list of top burger joints in the city. The restaurant has clearly put measures in place to keep its prices low, including the use of paper plates, all in its pursuit of keeping things cheap and delicious – two things we’re always on the lookout for.

It’s almost as if JB’s Tokyo is breathing new life into the fast food world, keeping the focus on simplicity, taste and good ingredients while keeping the costs down as well. So next time you find yourself with a hankering for a good burger, you might want to bypass the big chains and make your way to JB’s, for a taste of one of Japan’s greatest overlooked gems.

Restaurant Information

Bakery & Burger JB’S Tokyo Yoyogi Main Store / BAKERY ＆ BURGER JB’S TOKYO 代々木本店
Address: Tokyo-to, Shibuya-ku, Yoyogi 1-33-3
東京都渋谷区代々木1-33-3
Open: 11 a.m.–10 p.m. (last order 9:30 p.m.)
Closed: New Year holidays
Website

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We join the “koke katsu” trend to find out if these little ecosystems are as easy to make as they say.

Japan is famous for its gacha machines, which dispense all sorts of products at random, through the clever use of capsules. After purchasing everything from tiny edible cakes to Casio Watch rings at these machines, we thought we’d seen everything we could possibly see…until the other day, when we stumbled upon a surprise find at Shibuya Hikarie in Tokyo.

After stopping by the building for lunch, we were initially drawn to a store on the fifth floor, which grabbed our attention with its rows and rows of what looked like aquariums from a distance.

Stepping closer, we found that the name of the store was “Terrariums Shibuya”, and that was exactly what it was selling. Terrariums enjoyed a bit of a boom in Japan when people were spending more time at home during the COVID-19 pandemic, giving rise to the term “koke katsu” (“moss hobby”) amongst enthusiasts.

With terrariums being essentially miniature ecosystems that need to be cared for, we’d always felt a bit too intimidated to take up the hobby, but here in this store we came across something that was perfect for newbies like us.

▼ A “Capsule Terrarium” gacha machine!

Now this seemed like something we might be able to manage. Small, cute and cheap – each turn of the machine cost 500 yen (US$3.33) – the “Feel the Garden” capsule terrariums contain everything you need to make a mossy terrarium, including the moss, an essential element.

▼ A cultivation kit for growing moss…all inside a gacha capsule.

After receiving our tiny gacha terrarium, we couldn’t resist spinning the handle on the machine beneath , which sold “Terrarium Figurine Gacha” for 300 yen.

Excited to find out what lay inside the capsules, we took them home and decided to start by opening the “Capsule Terrarium”. Inside, we found the following items: Moss, Waterproof Sticker, Terrarium Soil, Decorative stones, Decorative Sand (the sand and stone types are random to each capsule)
, Tweezers, Dropper, Spoon, Pick
, Fixing ring
, Instructions.

We were honestly surprised by just how much had been packed into the little container. Of course, the capsule itself is an essential part of the setup, so we immediately got to work, following the included instructions and video link to set it up.

▼ The first step involved placing the waterproof sticker over the hole in the capsule, and then adding the terrarium soil.

After arranging the decorative stones in the sand and pushing them in slightly, we used the dropper to add water until the entire surface of the soil became dark brown.

Next, it was time to sprinkle in the decorative sand. According to the instructions, you’re supposed to sprinkle it in areas where you won’t be planting moss, and if you’re not sure where to put it, it’s recommended that you arrange it along the edges of the capsule.

▼ We added ours in bit by bit with the spoon.

Now it was time to plant the star of the show: the moss! It was dry when we took it out of the bag, but the instructions reassured us that this was totally fine – it was still alive, just in a dormant state.

▼ Once it absorbs water it resumes growing, so the dormant state is what makes it possible for a living thing like this to be sold in a gacha machine.

After tearing the dried moss into pieces about 5 millimetres (0.2 inches) in size, we then planted them using the tweezers. Once you’ve secured the moss into the soil, the trick to planting it successfully is to hold the moss down with the pick and smoothly pull out the tweezers.

It was difficult at first, but we gradually got the hang of it and eventually succeeded in creating a mossy meadow around the stones. We gave the moss some water, then popped in the figurine we received from our other gacha…

▼ … and then our Capsule Terrarium was complete!

It took about 20 minutes to make, at a leisurely pace, and was incredibly easy to set up. While it was simple to make, it’s also said to be simple to care for too – just give it some water through one of the holes in the top of the capsule about once a fortnight.

With such little care required, we’re confident that anyone could look after a terrarium like this, and after gazing in awe at our creation for around three days, we’re happy to report that it still looks as beautiful as the day we made it. Though there hasn’t been any major growth, that’s to be expected, because depending on the species, moss is said to only grow a few millimetres to around 1 centimetre (0.4 inches) per year.

▼ Part of the appeal of owning a terrarium is being able to slowly watch how it evolves over time.

All this for just 500 yen was a fantastic deal, because usually when you get into terrariums, you have to buy quite a bit upfront to get started. With everything included in the capsule, this was such a great kit that we’re now tempted to pick up a few more on our next trip to Shibuya.

▼ And we might just buy some other little figurines to join our rubber duck while we’re there.

The specialty store has done a great job with the capsule machine, and when we talked to staff about it, they told us that some people get into terarrium gardening after purchasing the capsules, making it a gateway into the world of terrariums.

▼ And there are sooo many beauties to choose from.

So if you’ve always loved the look of terrariums but felt like they might seem difficult to set up and maintain, the gacha terrarium might just help you out. It’s a fun and easy way to enter the world of terrariums on a tiny scale, and it can be purchased online or at Feel the Garden stores around Japan.

Store information

Terrariums Shibuya / Terrariums 渋谷
Address: Tokyo-to, Shibuya-ku, Shibuya 2-21-1, Shibuya Hikarie ShinQs by Tokyu Department Store 5F
東京都渋谷区渋谷2丁目21-1 渋谷ヒカリエShinQs by TOKYU DEPARTMENT STORE 5階
Open: 11:00 a.m.–9:00 p.m. (Mon-Sat); 11:00 a.m.–8:00 p.m. (Sun and public holidays)
Closed according to store’s building schedule
Website

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