Mon, 1 Sep '08 - @ HOME Maid Café

Further evidence of how the city stacks up in layers. From the street it’s almost impossible to tell what’s going on up there. How does anyone ever find these places, W.O.M. invitations, painstaking research? The secretive nature is part of the charm.

@Home Maid Café is the original Akihabara Otaku hangout. From the street an anonymous alcove leads through to a drab elevator with a few floor by floor information graphics and a couple of aging brightly coloured posters.

A large group exits the lift and we go up to the 4th floor, doors open to a huge queue of mostly wide-eyed young men. This level looks to be themed like a kids TV show. Up to the 6th. Another huge queue and this time a more Gothy Harlot theme. We exit the lift and walk down the fire exit to the 5th. Young men are queuing up and down the stairs. The theme on the 5th is traditional Japanese, Geisha-lite. The queue here is comparatively short. As we wait a spotty businessman arrives with a bunch of flowers for one of the girls. Most of the punters are single men or two lads together. I’m not 100% convinced by the authenticity of this crowd. Most of the Japanese guys seem to be mainly here for the touristy thrill rather than some long-term habit.

We are shown to our seat. As we enter the place goes quiet as our hostess shouts in a loud voice the Japanese for ‘Welcome back Sirs, we are happy to receive you once more’. Our guide can bared hold in her laughter. The meuse is extensive and includes more than just food. You can play games with the girls. It’s all done in a very happy innocent way. Our food and drink arrives and we are asked to repeat some gobeldy-gook magic phrases be fore we start. Our waitress talks in a fake child like voice.

I am surprised by the waitresses’ appearance, because they look kind of ropey to me. Mostly they have bad skin and terrible teeth. I thought they were supposed to be super-cute? I drink my beer quickly. This is a Manga made real. Perhaps they are carrying ninja gear under their kimonos? Obviously that would be extra. We receive crappy little girl+pokemeon love notes with our food. At the end of our lunch we are given faux-AmEx membership cards that read ‘Licence of your majesty, an international official licence card. Level 1: Bronze, My Master’ Our cards are personalised with out names written in Japanese by our Maid. We are shown how there is a membership scheme that takes your card type up through Gold and Black and ultimately to a silhouetted secret uber level.

Our guide explains that Maid cafes have developed their own slang, and have a genuine impassioned following. The Maid cafe sub culture grew up in Akihabara as a result of cashed-up lonely geeks looking for some no strings company, it has been a genuine underground community but is supposedly never explicitly sexual. Originally maid cafes were frowned upon by Japanese society but the trend is gradually becoming mainstream. Many of the girls who work here do so as a way of saving money for some other enterprise such as going to college.

By the time we leave the emphasis on childhood affectations is becoming disconcerting. Yet another speech to the whole establishment as we walk to the door. I’m glad to get out. The casting of young women as childlike innocents who’ll play for pay feels like a prelude to the worst kind of male fantasy. The crowd waiting to enter as we exit the lift is bigger than before. These young men literally seethe with anticipation….

Thought
Combination of innocence and underground edge could be useful.