Wolf Bar!ーオオカミバー

Today, I split off from my American friends who will be going to Kyoto. Instead, I'll be meeting Ware at Wolf Bar to potentially meet some new people and see the famous bar that every furry who visits Japan talks about. If you're not aware, Wolf Bar is a furry centered bar that focuses on bringing people in the furry community together in the Asakusa area. The bartender is, as you may have guessed, a wolf who makes really cool cocktails. He will even take special requests and make a character or concept version of a drink you propose.

I will add a short description of furry for anyone who is not familiar. Furry is a subculture dedicated to creating and expressing anthropomorphic characters through various mediums such as art, costumes, dancing, music, etc. Some people have costumes and some do not. However, most people tend to have a character that they create which represents themselves or how they would like themselves to be viewed. I'm a cat (meow) and have a partial costume, or partial fursuit, I brought with me to Japan. I enjoy furry because it's full of people who are willing to express a version of themselves and are usually not afraid to open up and create strong connections with each other. There are lots of genuine and kind people within the fandom all over the world. It has really helped my stay motivated learning Japanese because of the friends it has helped me make as well as getting to be part of a subculture within a whole different societal culture. I'm part of a furry discord server ran by Sekki-sensei who is a furry dedicated to teaching Japanese specializing in teaching furries who wish to learn. It's super cool to have someone dedicated to something like this and without him I'm not sure I would have been able to stay as motivated as I have been. I'll attach a link to the server if anyone is interested in joining 😉

Most of the day was spent traveling to Tokyo on the shinkansen from Hiroshima. I left some luggage on the transfer so instead of writing I ended up talking to the staff about how to find it. Luckily it was found but it was a stressful experience!

Upon arriving to Tokyo, I made it to the hotel and immediately got ready to head out to Wolf Bar. The outside did not have many markings so I ended up walking into what I'm guessing was a building dedicated to Taiko drums. No one asked me any questions about being in the building and I aimlessly walked around for about 2 minutes. I believe this is a representation of why Japan is seen as such a safe and trusting community. If I walked into a building like in America like this I would immediately be questioned on why I was there. There was a receptionist but he didn't even look my way and continued whatever he was working on.

After my aimless wondering, I was finally able to find the bar! I was a bit nervous to try speaking at first because everone else was talking so fast and I could only really understand about 50% of what people were saying. I can usually understand the first part of the sentence but the verb conjugation at the end is where it gets difficult sometimes! And there are still lots of verbs I don't know. Luckily, I had ware as an emergency translator to help the conversation along. I can chat 1-on-1 but in large groups it's really hard to keep track of the tangents and who is talking to who.

For example, there is a way in japanese to indicate "I wonder" （かな）and it's used a lot more commonly in Japanese than english. Without directly speaking to me, someone could ask a question but just say "I wonder what the answer to my question is". This can make it difficult for a learner like myself to understand that the question is directed at me! Once I pick up on sentences a bit more it won't be a problem but it feels bad to not catch small things like this. Ware helped me out and pointed out one of the instances where this happened. Japanese people also don't always make eye contact when speaking so that adds to the difficulty! One day I'll get it down, but I'll have to be able to understand closer to 80-90% of what people are saying to catch on better.

Another cool thing about furry and Japanese culture is that furries in Japan exchange business cards. I got a couple cards from some of the patrons and I think it's super cool to have a physical medium to show your character as well as contact information. In America, you would need to ask for contact details or ask a friend if they know contact details. I like the "business" card culture because I'll be able to look up someone's name and also better remember who I met. Plus it's cool just to have a collection of cute art and cards as momentos of the experiences I had with other people.

The wolf bartender, Ehon, in extremely friendly and kind. To put in this much effort for a gathering place for furries is something I've not heard of anywhere else in the world. It takes a special kind of person to do something like that! I ordered a "Ritz" style drink and showed him my furry business card as a reference. I was astounded by how beautiful the drink was but also how good it tasted. I'm not exaggerating when I say that he is one of the best bartenders I've ever had make me a cocktail.

Afterwards, I went out to eat at an Izakaya with Ware and two other people I had just met named yoshiro and hagu. We drank sake and had various appetizers from the restaurant and talked. It really is a rewarding experience to be able to meet so many new people. I've found it difficult to find people to talk to in everyday activities in Japan but having a place like Wolf Bar and a community within furry to meet people has made the process that many deem near-impossible, a pretty natural experience!

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Sekki's Japanese Learning Community
https://www.patreon.com/FurryJapaneseSekki

Wolf Bar
https://twitter.com/asakusa_wolf?s=21&t=SlG…

Artist for my business card
https://twitter.com/yorozu1217?s=21&t=RvpYj…Read more