Pomaru
Otaku Bar Review
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Rating /5
Review
I found this place on Google Maps, and went to at least look at the outside (which had some pictures of the inside stuck to it!) during a blazingly-hot summer day. Then I, er, sat on it for 2 years. I finally went to actually visit it in 2026!
There are many anime figures here, as many as a much bigger bar, taking up almost every horizontal space! The walls and ceiling are aboslutely covered with anime posters, too. There's some kind of slot machine thing in one corner, I don't know if it works, though.
Considering I went on a Tuesday, it was "lively", with 3 guys in it. It's not a big place! They kept asking me what anime are popular in the UK. I said all the usual big Shonen ones like Dragonball, One Piece, Bleach, Naruto etc. I was also trying to tell them that some of my friends in the UK were into a comedy dub called Yu-Gi-Oh Abridged. Only the conversations went more like...
"My friends like Yu-Gi-Oh Abr-"
"AHHHHHHHH! YUGIOHHHHH! SUGOI!!!!"
So if you're 'on the spectrum', and insist on giving people precise information, you won't have a good time with this lot. They just hear a familiar name and scream at it. Still, overall it was a decent bar... if you're staying out that way for whatever reason. I honestly wouldn't recommend trekking there from central Osaka.
Getting There
Near Kawanishi-Noseguchi station on the Hankyu line, or slightly further from Kawanishi-Ikeda JR station, for which you can use your JR pass, tourists!
Come out of the East Gate of Hankyu Kawanishi-Noseguchi station, you'll be facing "Bell Flora East", keep going straight until you come out of Exit 11. Keep going "more or less straight" in the same direction until you find a gloriously-dilapidated red wooden shack of a bar. Next to that is an alley with more gloriously dilapidated old snacks and bars. Looks like right out of the postwar period, only with 80's neon. Head down that alley.
Details
¥1500 per hour for soft drink nomihodai, ¥2000 per hour for alcohol nomihodai. I stayed only just over one hour, so he charged me ¥3000, not ¥4000. This is very rare for bars in Japan! A welcome consideration.
In Conclusion
If you are staying over that way, for whatever reason, it'll be entertaining, but it's not worth going out of your way for. If you insist on it, don't miss the train back! The last express for Osaka, on weekdays, is about 11:03... but get to the station around 10:30, to make sure of it.
Useful Stuff
Bonus!
Daytime pics from my "adventure" there in 2024
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