The average manga reader approaches books the same way as the protagonist in The Twilight Zone episode Time Enough at Last does: lamenting that life’s distractions get in the way of what is truly important, which is reading manga uninterrupted for all time. We can’t help with the “all time” part, but it turns out there is a hotel in Japan where you can spend your days and nights surrounded by manga without falling asleep at the library.
A trio of Manga Art Hotels is available to book right now in various parts of Tokyo. There is a capsule hotel where readers can shut out anything not manga-related for the night, an open-plan room where you and several friends can lounge together while reading, and a room called the “Manga Brain” that includes a private sauna. All with more than 500 manga titles within, specially curated by professional book lovers.
This might seem like a rather intense experience for some people, but, honestly, we can’t imagine anything more relaxing than being able to reach out in any direction and grab a new manga title. It could be a beloved classic or something totally new; the joy is in the discovery. The fun is in reading something you might never consider in normal circumstances. The capsule hotel version has rooms starting at just 5225 Yen ($32) a night, which is a bargain even without the wealth of manga you can enjoy while you’re there.
Like the Pokémon-themed hotel rooms you can stay in, these types of getaways probably aren’t for everyone, but for the people they are for? They’re a whole new level of indulgence. Some of us don’t need fancy spas or other luxuries when we travel. We just need an infinite amount of manga to read through the night.
