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Maid in Japan

den4

先輩
15 Nov 2002
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Clever marketing, but it doesn't surprise me in Japan...
taken from Mainichi news tabloid....

Costume-clad cuties get geeks
coughing up for coffee

By Ryann Connell
Staff Writer

June 25, 2004



"Maid in Japan" is giving an entirely new flavor to one of Tokyo's top tourist haunts, according to Shukan Post (6/25).

Akihabara, for decades the home of the world's cutting edge technologies and a magnet for visitors to this country, has over the past few years also transformed into a Mecca for the country's geeks and freaks collectively referred to as otaku.

And with this change has come a series of unrelated cafes staffed by waitresses who wear maid outfits, a favorite of the socially challenged nerds keeping Akihabara afloat.

Cafes devoted to "costume play," or cosplay as the Japanese call it, first appeared in Akihabara in 1998 as the opening of one store saw its employees clad in garb featured in the Tokyo Character Show, a convention for adults who like to play dress-ups.

"The same company that opened that place set up a whole series of other cafes, running them for deliberately limited periods of time. They'd attract attention, but be forgotten again when the cafes stopped doing business," WC, an Akihabara-focused webmaster, tells Shukan Post. "Waitresses in maid costumes really came into their own in March 2001, with the opening of Cure Maid Cafe, which decked out all its waitresses in maid's gear."

Masato Matsuzaki, who runs Cure Maid Cafe, is proud of his joint's achievements in the few years it has been running.

"Most of our customers are cosplay fans. You'd be surprised how many ordinary OLs we get in here of a lunchtime, though," he says. "We currently have seven women working here as waitresses. We give them cute names, too, like 'Pudding' and 'Chocolat.'"

Cure Maid Cafe's maid outfits are nothing like the saucy French maid kits popular among frisky couples. Instead, they're long, thick dresses more like something out of the Victorian era and border on a Gothic look.

On Saturdays, the maid cum waitresses show off more of their talents by putting on live performances on the flute or harp. Matsuzaki explains the otaku thing for maids.

"Maids have an almost therapeutic affect on customers, but they also give the impression of strict obedience," the businessman catering to a largely geek clientele tells Shukan Post.

Matsuzaki's rival Cafe & Kitchen Cos-Cha takes a slightly different approach to luring in the fashionably unfashionable. It refers to its maid-outfit-clad waitresses as "angels." And there's none of the restraint showed in the clothes like there is at Cure Maid Cafe, instead dressing up the employees in skimpy little suits designed to reveal as much as possible.

"We've got about 20 girls working for us, most of them in their early 20s. There are always about three or four angels working the floor. We also make sure if there's a popular game or anime around, that we hire some new girls who'll play characters from that," Masahide Kamei, operator of the coffee shop, tells Shukan Post. "Three times a month we put on a costume changing event. Our school swimsuit costume day has been our most successful event so far."

For the cosplayer who enjoys a brew, there's Little BSD, a pub with a difference.

"Every one of our girls wears a different costume. They change every day. Nearly all the girls love cosplay. I suppose we've got about 15 girls working here now. We put direct communication with the girls as our highest priority here, so customers can't take photos with them unless they have first asked their permission," Takao Kamaura, Little BSD's boss, says.
 
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