10 Wacky Themed Cafés In Japan You Really Have To Visit Slideshow

Japan is the world capital of themed cafés and restaurants, offering everything from a Gundam café where guests can eat and drink while expressing their giant robot fandom to a variety of cat cafés where visitors can sip drinks and get their feline fix. We've rounded up 10 of Japan's wackiest themed cafés for your enjoyment; add them to your bucket list if you're into bunnies, Gundams, or reptiles.

Maid cafés are popular in Japan, where young women wear maid costumes and serve carefully plated dishes, sometimes arranged in the shapes of animal faces. Meals usually come with some sort of pop dance and performance. @home café has four floors and is considered the most popular maid café in the Akhibara region of Tokyo.

Butler cafés are a phenomenon in Japan, where young men dress up in formal clothing and usher guests (usually ladies) to their seats. Items on this one's menu include prosciutto and fresh basil pizza and a salad with salmon and blue papaya.

Many apartment buildings in Japan don't allow pets, so savvy business owners have opened cat cafés, which are places where you can come, get something to drink, and pet some sweet, soft cats. A visit to this café costs 1,100 yen (a little over $9) for the first hour on a weekday. Honestly, who could pass this up? This particular kind of café has grown so much in popularity that there's now one in New York City and another slated to open in Los Angeles.

An English translation of this café's name is "owl shop," and visitors can make appointments to pet owls and enjoy snacks and drinks. Guests sign up for one-hour sessions, and they can even choose to wear owls on their heads. The café usually keeps between 20 and 30 birds of prey at a time perched at the ready.

Gundams are "mobile suits," giant robots, which are a staple of the anime genre. They've been featured in many television shows since the late 1970s, and the fandom keeps growing through build-your-own model kits. This café is designed futuristically in a Gundam-style, and lunch, dinner, and take-out options are available.

Moomin are white, hippo-like characters created in the 1940s by Finnish artist and writer Tove Jansson whose works became popular in Japan. They are the subjects of numerous books and comics, and at this café, you can enjoy snacks and tea amongst giant stuffed versions of them. The café also serves rye and sour rye bread, which are very popular in Finland.

Sakuragaoka Café is all about cute goats and antique furniture — a winning combination in our opinion. Menu items include chorizo with fried egg, ginger pork, and coconut milk shrimp curry.

The Vampire Café is located in the luxury Tokyo shopping district of Ginza. The décor includes a giant coffin, deep red curtains separating dining parties, mirrors with "blood" on them, and menus shaped like coffins. Although this eatery is named the Vampire Café, it's technically a restaurant, as it's only open for dinner.

This café specializes in rabbits that visitors can play with in a variety of different rooms. Guests can also buy treats for bunnies, and the menu details each rabbit's personality, so that visitors can decide which they want to play with. For more information, check out this video.

If you're less fluffy-bunny-inclined, head over to Yokohama Subtropical Teahouse, where reptiles are the featured animals to eat and drink alongside. The venue also serves cookies in the shapes of reptiles.