I have occasionally wondered whether some day I might become a dirty old man. You know, just accidentally lose my footing on the slippery slope of morality and never stop tumbling. It could happen to anyone. Well, I thought I might be treading dangerously last Sunday afternoon when I made my first trip to a famous Tokyo institution—the maid café—but as it happened, I was on solid ground the whole time. As I discovered, the maid café is nothing but harmless fun and what fun!
As the name suggests, a maid café is basically a café where you are served by maids. Their outfits are modelled on those worn by certain anime characters and look like something a Westerner might wear on Halloween. Maid cafés originated in a district of Tokyo called Akihabara which is a Mecca for anime culture. They were started to cater for anime enthusiasts particularly male anime enthusiasts who are known as otaku (more about otaku later). Dressing up as a maid is part of a past-time called cosplay (it's a portmanteau of costume and role play) which is essentially dressing as your favourite anime character. Harajuku is particularly famous for cosplay even though there are very few cosplay enthusiasts there any more.
As for my maid café experience, I decided to visit a very popular maid café in Akihabara called At Home with a couple of my Japanese friends. We thought it would be best to go to Akihabara since it is the home of maid cafés. Here's a link to At Home's website.
We had to wait in a queue for about 15 minutes to get into At Home as it was so busy. While waiting we were presented with the rules of the establishment which included (1) no photos, (2) no touching the maids and (3) no asking the maids for personal information.
My friends told me these rules are aimed at errant otaku. Now, I should probably explain what otaku are. Otaku is a largely derogatory term used for Japanese males who are obsessed with anime, in particular, seedy anime. They are regarded as nerds bordering on inchoate porn fiends … and yes, they are the primary clientèle of maid cafés! That said, there are many non-otaku who attend maid cafés, such as my two friends and I. (For the record, none of us like anime and one of us was female. So there!)
Upon entering At Home, we were greeted with shrills cries of “welcome home master” by a group of enthusiastic maids. This illustrates one of the defining characteristics of maid cafés: the café is meant to be your home and the maid is meant to be your hired house maid. Your maid then acts like your host for the rest of the visit referring to you as “master” etc. Our maid was Runoa. Here's a link to her profile on the At Home website, complete with video. It provides all the information an otaku-turned-stalker might need such as her favourite food is fluffy marshmallow, her favourite colour is baby pink, her favourite thing is ocean sunsets and her blood group is O. Actually, I am not sure why her blood group is there. That's slightly creepy.
At Home serves up some pretty standard diner food but it is all made fun by the maids, who not only wear hilarious outfits and insist on you singing with them, but seem to love being maids. We asked our maid what she likes about her job. She said talking to all the different customers who are very friendly and, of course, the outfit. I could understand. If I was a 20-something-year-old Japanese girl who looked like a 16-year-old Japanese girl, I could think of worse part-time jobs than dressing up as a maid and having a laugh. In fact, I have done worse part time jobs.
For an extra fee, we all had our photo taken with our maid. Here's me rocking bunny ears.
I also got a membership because … well, you just have to, don't you? Here's my card. I'm a bronze member.
You can also play games with the maids but I am really out of practice at Hungry Hungry Hippos so decided not to.
All in all, a maid café is just a harmless themed diner. No doubt, there are some who go along to indulge their anime fantasies but I don't think that de-legitimises the whole concept. Like many things, it is what you make of it. As for the costumes, they are no different to what you might see at Halloween. To quote Lindsay Lohan in her finest work to date, Mean Girls, “Halloween is the one night a year when a girl can dress like a total slut and no other girl can say anything about it!” God bless America for creating such a fine tradition.
So if you do find yourself in Tokyo, I recommend you make a trip to a maid café. I am confident you will find it intriguing and amusing. As for me, I think my next stop should be a hostess bar. I see slippery ground ahead!
Thank you for reading and take care.
Our Man in Japan.
