Manga / Café Kichijōji de

aka: Cafe Kichijoji De

Café Kichijōji de is a Slice of Life manga written by Yuki Miyamoto and illustrated by Kyoko Negishi, which ran in the shoujo magazine Wings from 2000 to 2002. It depicts the daily antics of the five workers as they conduct business at the titular café, and their long-suffering manager. The staff includes:

• Kurihara Taro - Supervisor
• Okubo Maki - Floor staff
• Tokumi Shuta (Toku) - Part-time worker
• Ichinomiya Jun - Part-time worker
• Minagawa Hifumi - Kitchen staff
• Mitaka Yuichi - Manager/Owner

The series itself have no particular plot to speak of, and the chapters are only loosely connected to one another.

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Tropes appearing in Café Kichijōji de:

• Adapted Out: The original drama CD features another waiter of the Cafe named Natsumi Hironobu — an effeminate ex-mercenary — but he never made it into the manga.
• All Witches Have Cats: Although Sukekiyo is the store’s cat and does not belong to any particular individual, it is most attached to the supernaturally-aligned Minagawa.
• Ambiguously Human: Minagawa is described in his official bio as “a questionable human being” who is responsible for most of the Magical Realism elements that show up in the story.
• Berserk Button:
  • Jun really dislikes being called feminine, and would go on a violent rampage whenever someone makes remarks about his pretty face.
  • The only time we see Minagawa angry is when Reina tries to harm Sukekiyo.
  • Being an obsessive Neat Freak, Taro absolutely hates seeing dirty stuffs, especially cockroaches, and would react with violence when anyone (usually Maki) dirties his domain.
  • Drama CD exclusive character Natsumi Hironobu REALLY hates if someone calls him an “okama” because of his effeminate speech.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: In one of the coloured chapters, Minagawa arrives at the store with pink hair. When the other characters question him, he remarks that his hair has been pink for quite some time, but because the manga is usually black-and-white, no-one notices.
• Butt-Monkey: Maki, who is always getting beaten up by Taro for his misconduct, and Toku, whose tendency to break the store’s cutleries keeps him in Perpetual Poverty.
• The Charmer: Maki likes to flirt with pretty customers, though usually with little success.
• Dissonant Serenity: Jun never seems fazed by whatever weirdness they experience.
  • Once, he witnessed Toku being eaten by a giant fish. His remark?
    Jun: I can't believe he's not afraid to swim in such a dirty place.
    Maki: You can still say this kind of stuff while watching him almost get eaten by a giant fish?
  • At another occasion, he saw Minagawa prepare a cake from Bonito. While the others are visibly disturbed by this, Jun calmly took the cake to deliver the order.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": The manager, Mitaka Yuichi, is hardly ever called by his actual name. All his staff refer to him as "the boss".
• Insistent Terminology: Despite his Perpetual Poverty, Toku keeps a pair of pet hamsters, whom his co-workers consistently refer to as his emergency rations.
• The Klutz: Toku is frequently tripping over stuffs and breaking the store’s wares, making his paycheck very slim.
• Last-Name Basis: Minagawa is usually referred by his last name, unlike his co-workers, who are mostly called by their first names.
• Lady Looks Like a Dude: Jun has a group of muscular, macho-looking underlings whom he later reveals are all girls.
• Manchild: Toku was once allowed to take part in an eel-catching contest meant for elementary schoolers because he’s mentally a child.
• Magic Realism: The story focuses on the Slice of Life aspects of the café workers, but Minagawa frequently dabbles with occult or magic, while the other staff occasionally encounters fantastic elements, such as mandrake roots.
• Mean Boss: He’s not exactly a boss, but supervisor Taro is downright harsh on his co-workers – especially Maki and Toku – and frequently beats them for tardiness and/or misconduct.
• Neat Freak: Taro is so obsessed with cleanliness that he’s willing to move out of an apartment he just moved into for a week the moment he spots a cockroach. He even collects cleaning equipment.
• Non-Idle Rich: Jun is implied to have come from a wealthy family, but works as a simple part-timer in the Café.
• Offscreen Teleportation: One of the chapters opens with Taro leaving for work while Minagawa is still lounging about in his pyjamas. Taro reprimands the latter to hurry up and get ready or he'll be late for work, and is later shocked when he finds Minagawa arriving at the cafe earlier than him. The chapter ends with Minagawa staying overtime in the workplace, while everyone else goes home, but he is somehow able to arrive back at the apartment before Maki.
• Omake: The "Chichai" segments are some short (usually a page-long) non-canon stories/gags, drawn in Super-Deformed-style and include even more whimsical and fantastical elements than the main plot.
• Perpetual Poverty: Toku is a starving college student who lives in a rundown apartment and can rarely afford to eat meat. And due to his tendency to break things at work, he never earns enough paycheck to improve his lifestyle.
• Precocious Crush: Reina, the manager's kindergarten-aged daughter, has a crush on Minagawa and intends to marry him.
• Pretty Boy: Maki has long-hair and frequently flaunts his beauty, and has quite a number of female admirers because of it.
• Reality Warper: Minagawa is apparently capable of teleportation, as he regularly reaches his work/home earlier than his peers despite leaving much later than them. At one point he also managed to make a cake from bonito.
  Taro: You... defying things like space and time...
• Slobs Versus Snobs: The laidback and extremely disorganized Maki is frequently at odds with the competent Neat Freak Taro.
• Super-Strength: Jun. He regularly toss boulders at people who push his Berserk Button and is able to smack down a bull.
• Supreme Chef: Despite his... quirkiness, Minagawa does his job as a chef very well. Even Taro, who frequently gets weirded out by his unorthodox cooking method, acknowledges that he's really good at what he does.
• Team Pet: The store's black cat, Sukekiyo, can be considered the café's unofficial Mascot.