Hedgehog Cafe & Pet Store HARRY Harajuku — Attraction in Tokyo

ADORABLE experience!!! I walked in to the cafe and whilst booking a slot, I gazed upon the hamsters near the front of the cafe. They had small enclosures in which they rested, and I even watched one of them sprinting on a hamster wheel! There was one hamster that was only one month old, it looked very cute and so soft. We then made our way to the hedgehog area after disinfecting our hands and placing on some gloves, to ensure both our safety and that of the hedgehogs. We initially got a spot in front of two hedgehogs, both of which were (at that time) asleep. We were told it was okay to wake them up as they had been resting for a sufficient amount of time, and the best way to do so was to gently pick them up. This is what we did, and as expected, they began to wake up. They revealed their adorable little eyes and noses, comedically out of proportion to their large bodies. They began to walk around and interact with each other whilst we began to feed them worms, much to their delight. After a while, the hedgehogs began to get tired again and fall asleep, so we moved on to the next enclosure. Here laid two slightly larger hedgehogs with darker bristles, which received the last remnants of our food and more attention from us. One was a little more sociable than the other, so we picked it up. It moved quite a bit, sniffing our gloves, and then we picked up the other hedgehog at the same time. It was adorable watching them interact in the air, looking around at each other. We then made our way to the meerkat in an attempt to pat it, although it seemed to be quite focused on one of the staff members. Each time she left to go to the counter, it would run towards her until its leash allowed no more, and did not seem to want to interact with the customers. Seeing this, we left it alone and went to look at some more hedgehogs. We watched as two smaller, light coloured hedgehogs, walked around their enclosure. These two seemed a bit younger and were moving quite a lot but seemed unhappy with being picked up, so we simply observed them. We then got our free drinks, choosing an iced matcha latte and a hot chocolate. At this point, the meerkat's preferred staff member had given in and decided to put it in her overalls, much to the meerkat's enjoyment. It was adorable to watch as she continued to walk around the shop with a meerkat head sticking out of her overalls as the meerkat was clearly quite happy and relaxed in her presence. Overall, the HARRY hedgehog cafe is a lovely place in which the hedgehogs are prioritised over the human wants. They have a resting area in which you cannot interact with them at all as they lay in their tiny beds and sleep, and the staff advise you not to disturb any animals that are reluctant to interact with the humans. ONE THING that I think needs to be improved about this cafe is: The staff need to monitor the customers a little better. Many of the people were handling the hedgehogs gently, and most of the parents were able to advise their children against rough behaviour, although I did see one child handling the hedgehog in a very uncomfortable way. They were roughly picking it up, and you could see the visible discomfort and annoyance that the hedgehog was experiencing. Therefore, I believe that the staff should more closely monitor their customers to avoid any such behaviour from occurring and optimise the safety and comfort of...

My conclusion is that this place is money driven and pretty cruel in taking care of the animals. It's a tourist trap!

Made a reservation for 4 adults and 2 kids a week in advanced. When I showed up, they couldn't find my reservation, but insisted it was still ok, but they would still have to charge us the reservation price at ¥3000 per person, even the same price for the children! The problem was, there's a sign that clearly states that the walk-in price is significantly cheaper at ¥1500 a person. The place wasn't even full and the people next to us were walking in and only paying half the price at ¥1500 and they wouldn't give us the option to be a walk-in even though they couldn't find our reservation. They were even charging our kids ¥3000 per person! Insane!

Meanwhile, the entire setup of this place is profit driven. Everything is for sale and has a price tag. They are basically exploiting the animals for money. It's all a setup. They have a large swing set on the terrace to make it feel like a more child friendly environment and when the kids walk up to it there's a sign that says "do not sit or swing". On top of the ¥3000 you have to pay additional for food to feed the animals. They have 3 otters, 3 chinchillas, and tons of hedgehogs. 3 otters are placed in a tiny glass enclosure. You can't touch or play with them, but can pay for food to feed them by dropping food in a tiny hole. The chinchillas have one tiny hollow tree to hide in and are constantly frightened and running away from people. My conclusion is that this place is money pretty cruel in taking care of the animals. All they care about is scamming tourists, not to mention the lady receptionist has a real...

Team were nice. Small room, one floor with cages, benches and boxes around, each one with an animal or two. We attended at 11am.

I was very excited about this activity and didn’t think too much of it as I love animals. I pre-booked this event prior to landing in Tokyo so the whole morning was blocked out to make sure I didn’t miss this and the pig cafe.

In hindsight, I wish I didn’t visit either for many reasons, and instead, invested the time to explore the countless other places in Japan.

I now realised why the hedgehogs kept curling up in the corner.. it was because they wanted to sleep as they are nocturnal. I didn’t realise they were nocturnal until I googled it post the experience.

There was also a meerkat in here, chained up which looked so depressed.

Lastly, there were two absolutely gorgeous owls, also chained up. It felt as though my heart jerked a little each time the owls tried to fly away, only to have the chains hold them back.

We had paid for food to feed both the hedgehogs and the owls. The poor owls didn’t want to eat and it took a while for them to have a few nibbles as I realised after the visit that they probably just wanted to sleep.

I think this place would be much better if they opened only in the late afternoons till late night so the animals can sleep during the day at least.

The animals were very cute. They just all looked a bit sad as they are stuck in there and being constantly picked up whilst they try to sleep.

I don’t think I’ll be back to any animal cafes after...