The other day we brought up the nazo toki (puzzle solving) trend that appears to be building even further with the appearance of Nazo Tomo Cafe in Daikanyama, Shibuya-ku's Theatre Cybird. Though I've played "Professor Layton" and used to get a kick out of logic exercises as a kid, I can't say I am "good" at puzzle solving, so it took some guts for me to walk into the quirky pop-up cafe.

I thought I would warm up with a "cup dessert," a perilously sweet parfait-like affair with heart-shaped cake, generous amounts of whipped cream, marshmallows, cornflakes, etc., but my true warm-up was the puzzle that came with it.

The event is put on in collaboration with a romance sim mobile game for girls by Cybird (under the same company group that runs the theatre space) called "Ikemen Oukyū Mayonaka no Shinderera" (something like "Hottie Royal Palace: Midnight Cinderella" in English). In the cafe puzzle, you're a princess 30 minutes before a ball and you've received a letter announcing a crime will occur. However, the message is in code, so you need to get hints from the game's handsome young men to discover what the criminal is after.