Going Insane in The Owl Cafe

An old Japanese nigga with an army full of owls in a studio apartment is an intimidating, intriguing, perplexing, and concerning sight to behold.

My friends and I were looking to kill a couple of hours in Tokyo. We had just finished exploring a notorious sex shop that sold used menstrual blood panties in the basement. Didn’t buy any, couldn’t find them in my size. One of us saw an Instagram reel advertising a capybara cafe, which seemed like a pleasant, wholesome foil to the previous soul-corrupting horrors encountered in Pervs R Us.

Turns out every white woman and her mother visiting Japan had already thought of this, because every white woman and her mother gets all of their travel suggestions from Zuckerberg’s mind-raping psychosexual digital daycare that we call Instagram, so the capybaras were even more booked and busy with the hoes than Dan Bilzerian. Dear white women, please go back to eurowhoring in Ibiza. Their dogshit economy really needs it. Asia should be reserved for the fellas1

Pfft, whatever, let’s just try another animal cafe. An owl cafe is only a few blocks away, that could be a real... hoot…

In my imaginative and delusional mind, I pictured it like a butterfly garden with majestic owls soaring through the air, occasionally taking pit stops at customers’ tables to sneak sips of their lattes and beg for scraps of pastries.

My autistic fantasy was shattered upon arrival at the apartment building hidden in a dingy alley. This does not look like a building that houses commercial real estate. Maybe it’s all some elaborate ruse and a prankster marked his longtime nemesis’s home address as “Owl Cafe” to receive constant harassment by American tourists.

Alright, apartment number 205, let’s see if there are some owls up in this bitch. I shoved my uneaten half of 7-Eleven fried chicken in my fanny pack, since there are no garbage cans in this somehow spotless country.

Upon entering this brightly lit studio apartment, we see: a short, old, bald Japanese guy with some but not all of his teeth, a small mini fridge with a few beverages, and 14 owls chained to wooden beams. No windows. “Owl cafe” felt like somewhat false advertising, this felt much more like Owl Guantanamo Bay.

The old man grins and waves in a sleepy, potentially opioid-induced manner, and three out of four of us walk in. Josh, my favorite Midwestern groyper volcel with firm Catholic values2, takes one look around and starts losing the color in his face rapidly. Looking pale and clammy, he keeps nervously chuckling to himself, “Yeaaaaah, nope, nah. Dude, what the fuck. I’m good, this is too weird. I’m gonna go smoke outside.” He’s surveying the group to see if anyone else is as disturbed.

I almost joined him. If you have never seen over a dozen shackled owls snap their heads in your direction in perfect unison, it’s certainly unnerving. I felt the same nerves from standing up in front of the class to give a presentation in school, except all of my classmates are owls who have a stoic and diabolical gaze. Usually you see animals fidgeting or making little noises, some slight breathing at least, but these owls were completely still and silent besides their heads pivoting slightly in our direction, following our every step. It had the uncanny valley effect, blurring the lines between living creature and Chuck E. Cheese animatronic.

I’m just too intrigued to leave. It’s really hard for me to say no to unique experiences. I pay this guy $3 for a beer, since it is a cafe after all and I need something to take the edge off, and then start surveying the owls. Giant, black pupils void of any emotional tells stare back at me, their heads slowly craning with each step, questioning you and all of your life decisions that led you to this point.

Before I could overthink the ethics of this establishment too much and leave for a sanity smoke with Josh, the old man decided to begin the interactive portion of the experience, where he would unchain owls and place them on our forearms and shoulders. Without asking for consent, of course.

The claws didn’t hurt that much. Sometimes. Even when the owl is digging into your shoulder, you don’t really care. You’re more appreciative that it hasn’t gone completely rogue, pecking out your eyeballs or biting off a hunk of your ear. They are wise creatures. Eventually Mitch, David, and I all have an owl on each shoulder. Yeah, that’s right bitches, the boys got the collective power of six owls. We could conquer this city.

The possibly senile bird savant starts unchaining additional owls and placing them on top of our heads. The nervous laughter is increasing exponentially; we’re very outnumbered. The group tries to protest a bit, ”No thank you, that is enough owls! No more owls!” but with owls already on our shoulders, we can’t move away from this old drunk. This is his domain; we have become his prisoners, his large human owls that have to follow his rules.

This is not just a business for him, it’s a passion project, he’s giggling uncontrollably and just saying random shit in Japanese the entire time as we get more visibly uncomfortable and owled up. Does he love sharing his passion for owls, or does he just get off on seeing fear in a white man’s eyes?

I pull out my translator, it’s Q&A time, you decrepit old warden. I need some answers about this freak show. It feels like the barren walls are closing in on me as the amount of unchained owls multiplies. I’m going insane in the owl cafe and I need to make small talk to maintain my grip on reality.

“How did you get the owls?”

“I bought them.”

Okay, cool. I’m glad you didn’t steal them, I guess. An owl shits on my friend David, who starts crashing out and begging to be de-owled immediately. The old man takes that owl back to the banister and mutters some sort of reprimand to the leaking creature.

“Are the owls all friends? Do they get along?”

“Little owls hate big owls.”

An owl on my right shoulder starts flapping and winging me in the side of the head. Feathers temporarily blind me as fear bubbles up. Can you catch bird flu from these things? Is it going to rip off one of my appendages? Did I get vaccines for owl rabies? My mom didn’t believe in vaccines, so I might be missing a few.

“Are the owls happy?”

“They are very happy here. They don’t want to leave.”

I’m typing up my follow-up about how he knows this, but then I put my phone away and give him a polite smile and thumbs up. Who do I think I am? The less I know about these owls’ lore and lifestyle, the better. If he says good things, I’ll never truly believe him, and if he says bad things, I don’t have the means to entangle myself in the Japanese court system to fight for Owl Freedom Reform. I could help them vigilante style, but that runs the risk of me ending up in Japanese prison for decades. I don’t wanna be in a cell for years taking udon noodle up the ass.

I think I want to leave the owl cafe as soon as possible. Some of the owls are starting to freak the fuck out and try to fly to no avail. I don’t know if this is normal or not. One little owl and one big owl are lunging at each other, both barely held back as they make vicious shrieks at each other. Well, he wasn’t lying about one thing. That’s some furious flapping. The giddy smiles on everyone’s faces are gone as the old man begins to reprimand the owls in Japanese.

The owl on my left shoulder, either inspired by the chaos or just hungry to the point of early stage cannibalism, starts lunging for the fried chicken in the fanny pack across my chest. I’m feeling quite scared and retarded for bringing that in. Left shoulder owl is really going for it, pecking at the pack strapped across my chest and accidentally nicking my nip. Doesn’t feel great but I’m just letting it happen since I don’t want to escalate things by fighting this owl. Right shoulder owl is now intrigued and starts trying to reach his head into my pack too. Owl perched on my skull is just digging in his claws deeper and hooting, probably encouraging the revolt.

David’s other owl just shit on him, poor guy has been dumped on twice now. Mitch’s owls are hollering while bashing him in the face with their wings, this shit is getting too chaotic for my liking.

I call out to Ol’ Toothless and request some assistance as he’s soothing some other owls across the room. He just turns in my direction and yells some Japanese shit that somehow completely placates my rebellious owls? He’s an expert in his field.

Eventually, the Warden takes all of the birds off of us as we look at each other with strained grins. We chug the rest of the beers, thank him for that Unique Experience, and slam the door behind us. I’m never going to forget that place, for better or for worse.

PETA, if you actually give a fuck about animals, I think you should completely defund the social media budget and use that money for a Permanent Solution for that old owl purveyor. Instead of being called Gay on the internet you could do something and set those birds free3. Or sue him, probably best to try that first. Regardless there has gotta be a better place for those owls than that “cafe.” I can’t prove it but I think he lives there, I thought I saw a mattress in the corner behind his desk. He probably jacks off in front of those birds, which can’t be legal.

“How was it?” Josh asks.

I thought about it for a moment. I felt a lot of things in that owl cafe. It was kinda fun, until it became disturbing, but now that I’m gone it feels like a dream. I both loved and hated it, and I wasn’t shocked to see the divide of binary reviews online giving it one or five stars: