There’s An Otaku Hair Salon In Akihabara That Caters Specifically To Anime & Manga Fans [Video]

Posted on November 6, 2018

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For otaku. By otaku.

There’s good reason why Tokyo’s Akihabara district is known as a mecca for anime, manga, and video game fans. There you can find all kinds of businesses catering to otaku, including some you might not expect. Perhaps one of the best examples of this is a hair salon called OFF-KAi!!

Opened in October of 2016, OFF-KAi!! offers everything a standard salon does but with an otaku twist. Anime figures, classic video game consoles, screens playing anime, and roughly 2,500 volumes of manga serve as both decorations and entertainment for customers waiting their turn. And, of course, to further add to the ambience anime and video game music can be heard playing in the background.

However, perhaps the most notable thing about OFF-KAi!! is that all of the stylists are otaku too. Owner Kenta Mogi, who himself is both a trained stylist and otaku, explains that when he would go to normal salons, he would always be uncomfortable because he wouldn’t know what to talk about with stylists during his hair cut due to them not sharing his same passion for anime and video games. This eventually turned into his motivation for starting OFF-KAi!! and with the help of a successful crowdfunding campaign he was able to make it so his fellow otaku would have a place where they could get a hair cut without having to worry about not having something to talk about with their stylist.

Owner Kenta Mogi

Overall, business at OFF-KAi!! appears to be booming. A Nippon News Network report claims that even though only about 30% of customers return to hair salons after their first visit at OFF-KAi!! this number is an astounding 80%. Further, there are plans of opening a second salon specifically for female otaku, possibly in Ikebukuro.

Prices at OFF-KAi!! are fairly typical for a hair salon in Japan with a hair cut costing 5,400 JPY and a cut & perm coming in at 10,800 JPY.

To take a look inside OFF-KAi!!, check out the 360 degree video below.

If you’re curious and would like to get an “otaku hair cut” stop by OFF-KAi!! during your next trip to Tokyo. By the way, they also claim to be good at replicating the hairstyles of anime characters. However, if you do go, you may want to get there early or make a reservation, because it seems to be quite popular. Location information can be found below.