As mentioned above, Everyst Manga Lounge has a growing manga library in a comfortable lounge that people can enjoy. It has a few sofas and tables, along with some squishy bean bag chairs, too. The venue can be booked in advance through their website, so you know there’s going to be space available for you to relax and kick back. Everyst Manga Lounge’s goal is to create the largest English language manga library in Tokyo, if not Japan, so even if you go more than once you’re sure to keep seeing new titles. They add new titles every week!

Another goal is to offer Japan-exclusive art books to view, which need to understanding of language to be able to enjoy. And if you don’t see your favourite, be sure to leave it as a suggestion! Plus the goal is to make the library open every day of the week so hopefully, it can fit into anyone’s busy schedule.

Everyst Manga Lounge also offers a place where people can relax and have meetings, workshops, or work on their own art. Made by creators in Tokyo, the people behind Everyst Manga Lounge want to foster the creative spirit especially of expats in with creative goals that live in Tokyo. So even if you aren’t that interested in reading manga, Everyst Manga Lounge is a good place to work on writing, drawing, or whatever creative pursuit you may have. For a lot of people, it offers somewhere brighter and more spacious than a cramped Tokyo apartment. And you just might meet some other creators while you’re there and do some networking, too!

Besides the manga library and hang out space, Everyst Manga Lounge also plans to host events and workshops featuring different presenters. These events will be meant to bring people together, help creators meet one another, and to support and learn about each other’s art in whatever form it may take. The night Honey’s Anime visited Everyst Manga Lounge to check everything out and talk to the people who worked there, it was the first real event held. That time, it was called Manga, Milk, and Cookies. And was aptly names; we talked about manga, checked out the library, and ate freshly baked cookies with milk (soy milk too!).

The presentation that night was by Misu Yamaneko, an Italian woman who studied animation here in Tokyo and now works in the anime industry in Japan. She talked about her inspirations for the art that she creates, including other anime and video games as well as her home in Milan, and shared a lot of her pieces with the attendees. We even got to see her animation film project from university, a short piece called “Junk” which could be enjoyed by a diverse crowd because it didn’t need dialogue to tell it’s emotional story.

In her open question and answer time, Misu gave a lot of her own insight about the anime industry in Japan and what she thought it’s future would be - as well as what she hoped would change. She also discussed the realities and difficulties of being a foreigner in the industry. It was enlightening to hear about the process of becoming an animator and what that actually meant, as well as what life at a Japanese animation studio is actually like. Plus she talked about her own smaller company, Neko Studios, and how to support smaller companies and artists by buying their works and watching or reading their stuff as well.

Future presentations may include things like cosplay, and Everyst Manga Lounge is also looking for suggestions of what people would like to see in a presentation - and for people that would like to GIVE presentations as well! Be sure to check their social media to stay informed and not miss something you would be interested in.

In addition to having an expanding manga library, Everyst Manga Lounge also serves primarily as the hub and office for an app called Everyst. This app is a unique story-telling method that tells stories in real time, truly bringing characters to life and making you feel like they are actual people having real experiences. Each story put out by Everyst updates in short segments over a period of time. For example, in their retelling of Bram Stoker's “Dracula,” you will get an update on the story when Harker first reaches the castle, and won’t get another until a couple of hours later because it takes time for him to move.

The team developed Everyst with the hope of giving bush people access to great stories that fit with their schedules. A lot of people in today’s world are very busy with work, school, and social lives, leaving lovers of stories with little time to sit down and enjoy a book or manga, or watch anime or movies. However, they usually do have two minutes to read a quick message on their phone. And that’s exactly how Everyst works; by using the app as well as making use of Twitter, you can read the story piece by piece without needing to commit very much time to it.

We were lucky enough to get to chat with the creators for a bit about the app and their ideas behind it, as well as their hopes for the future. The office itself is a spacious room with several computers, inspirational quotes by other famous creators on the walls, and cells from some of their current success stories. With around 100 writers and 50 illustrators working together around their world, along with the base office in Shimokitazawa here, it will be interesting to see what the future of Everyst brings! They have retellings of classic stories as well as original ones, all with unique illustrations, so it’s worth checking out.