Introduction to maid cafes

27.05.2008 by Patrick W. Galbraith

”Dragon” and “King” like many hardcore otaku fans won’t reveal real names or ages when at play in Tokyo’s infamous Akihabara Electric Town. The pair are “freeter,” career part-timers without any guarantees. They are chronically broke and chronically happy. The unlikely connection between these variables is their patronage at “maid cafes,” a genre of entertainment dining featuring staff in stylized costumes role playing fantasy characters inspired by anime, manga and videogames.



"This isn't just a place I eat, it is a place I belong," said Dragon, a self-described regular who has for years been going almost daily to the most commercially successful and largest of these establishments, @home maid café. “I am most welcome here where people know and care about me. They know what I want to eat, when I change my hair, they ask about my life.”

King, broke again after spending around $180 on maid idol concert tickets and $100 for an oversized bath towel featuring the iconic Hitomi-chan, added, "Buying gives a chance to talk to the maids. They remember me and are happy to see me."

Maid cafes are typically small businesses started in borrowed spaces, simple, square rooms compensating with abundant color, decorations and music. To accommodate the thousands of daily guests, maximum time is 90 minutes and there is usually a 500-yen seating charge.

Diehards such as Dragon and King can easily wait queued in alleys or stairwells for two hours at peak times, as they gladly have done for the second time this busy Sunday afternoon to hear the sweet siren call of “Welcome home, master!” (okaerinasaimase, goshujinsama).

This is nothing, to hear them tell it. They say thousands upon thousands storm the cafes for a chance at the limited events and parties thrown inside, a communal frenzy called a “matsuri,” or festival.

These eccentric maid regulars are not alone: Japan now boasts some 217 such establishments, Tokyo alone around 90 dotting the urban landscape from posh Roppongi Hills to hip club district Shibuya. Between 2004 and 2005, the “maid boom” fueled a 1625 percent growth in Akihabara maid services running the gamut from dining and massage to barbers and karaoke. In April 2007, the Maid Cooperative was formed to manage the burgeoning industry, the same month the mayor of Shibuya made a public announcement that the city needed to become “cool like Akiba” by “importing maids.”

This is an amazing leap for a form of entertaniment dining targeting otaku fans of dating sims in the 1990s, culminating in the foundation of Cure Maid Cafe in Akihabara, Japan's first maid cafe.

No substantial economic analysis of the maid boom exists, but it is known that many cafes make $45,000 a month in their closet-like operations; Cassius, the company behind Candy Fruits maid outfitters, reports monthly earnings of $200,000 a month between physical and online sales; @home’s publicly traded parent company Link-up boasts $1 million in capital.

The growing success of maid cafés is one highly recognizable part of the expanding otaku market, comprised of 1.72 million consumers and worth and $3.5 billion annually, according to a Nomura Research Institute 2005 report.

Industry analyst Kitabayashi Ken has estimated that as many as 5 percent of all Japanese are now involved in “otaku behaviors.”



The wild, mass popularity of maids seems to believe social commentator Inukai Tomoko's theory that such cafes appeal to sexually repressed male otaku in their 20s or 30s.

In fact, over 35 percent of the customers are women and most cafes have extended their greeting to "Welcome home, master, mistress." Sweet Trip in Akihabara caters only to the large female population frequenting the otaku Mecca. In the fujoshi capital of Ikebukuro, danso cafes where girls dress as the beautiful boys from yaoi manga, butler cafes and cosplay cafes are all gaining traction.

The fantasized maid forms manifesting in Akihabara are a far cry from the uniformed Europeans said to have inspired them. They are cutesy, childish and coquettish rather than silent, servile and sexy. There is no physicality to the space, and even making a maid uncomfortable is cause for indefinite expulsion from many cafes.

Despite descriptions of maids as “geisha for the virtual age,” what is fetisized in the cafes is not flesh, but the fantasy of intimacy indexed the moment the girls call out “Welcome home!”

“The maids are playing out home,” said Ryuji, a local authority on the subject who has visited Akihabara’s 40 some maid establishments hundreds of times each.

This is accessed in various ways, from the atmosphere of respectful care found in the original “iyashi” cafes to the more playful interactivity of “entertainment” cafes.

For Dragon and Neko, that means a standard meal of omelet rice (1,200 yen), melon soda (500 yen) and parfait (1,000 yen). The maids answer when they ring the bell, inquire about what manga they are reading and write messages on their food with ketchup.

The significantly inflated prices are said to reflect the saccharine sweet, kinetic service of the maids, which can be expanded to talking and playing board games (500 yen for three minutes) and writing personalized messages on “cheki,” souvenir photo prints (500 yen per shot).

"A cheki is a reminder of the maid, who puts her pure feelings into it in a certain way that is unique," said Tetsu, a fan taking time away from a rousing game of Uno cards with a maid to show off his album of hundreds of custom Polaroids signed, dated and decorated for him by maids at various cafes.

The mainstreaming of maids began in 2005 when Fuji TV’s hit Densha Otoko, a beauty and the beast tale with an otaku lead, featured a maid café as a consistent “warm” scene, reintroducing mainstream Japanese audiences to a positive side of otaku culture. The media jumped on the popular interest, and “Akiba tourists” both domestic and foreign began flocking to the area.

After Pinafore appeared on Densha Otoko, coverage of @home increased by 685 percent, culminating in NHK Christmas special broadcast to 180 countries.

“Many customers are tourists looking for an amusement park,” said Eri, staff at Pinafore. “We get all types in here now. Some are even disappointed that they don’t find the otaku fantasy they saw on TV.”

But some newcomers are quick to catch onto the lingo.

“It is moe to the extreme!” chuckled businessman Nakamura Mitsuo, 46, visiting Pinafore from Chiba. “It is a world completely unknown to me, but a fun experience.”

Moe, the most common word used to describe maids, is a linguistic pun combining the meaning of “to burn” and “to blossom” to encompass a simultaneous desire for emotional and physical comfort, or schizophrenic purity and accessibility. The aesthetic is visible in maid cafes in from chakuero, eroticism of uniforms that signify innocent status, to “anti-ability,” or idols performing poorly to authenticate innocence.

“This is the perfect match of fantasy and reality,” said Neko, who happily paid $100 for an amateurish haircut at Moesham maid barbers in Akihabara. He swore it was worth it to see himself in the ubiquitous mirrors with the maids.

Hidaka Yuka, operator of café Moekko Voice, actually hires voice actresses to play maids and practice shyly reading risqué lines in front of customers.

"Moe girls must appear not to be too young, but also not yet women, like a flower in the cusp of blooming,” she said. “Seventeen is the perfect age for a moe girl.”

A random survey of 16 maids at @home cafe shows 100 percent are 17, all were born in some wonderland or candyland and only three were students or employed before becoming maids, the same percentage as those "born as maids."

The only time maids answer beyond fantasy protocols is when asked what their hobbies are, most typically anime, videogames and cosplay culture.

“Talking to maids is like talking to a friend,” said Neko. “But my other friends aren’t maids, so this is more fun.”

In sharp contrast to claims that men pay to "play master" and ring for the objectified maid, Sabashi Kunihiko, who opened the Maid Training Academy, has said that sexualization of maid space would erode the necessary distance and comfort of the fantasy.

“In a Japan where communication is getting ever weaker, the relations and intimacy established between the gentle maid and customer is crucial,” he said.

Experts seem to agree.

“The soothing comfort of the maids is uniquely valued here,” said Anne Allison, noted Duke University anthologist responsible for ethnography of hostess clubs in the 1980s. “This is an affective form of labor that appeals to a wide demographic of post-millennial society.”

In a way the popularity of amid cafes and the otaku market as a whole is a measure of a society in which alienation and dissatisfaction have reached such an extent that fantasy is more appealing.

“It seems to me that maid cafes are a spiritual sanctuary where people can replenish their souls,” said Takahashi Chieko, an elderly housewife from Chiba on one of the increasingly common “maid tours” running through Akihabara. “That would appeal to anyone wouldn’t it?”

Responding to gentrification and global appeal, Yokoso! Japan started running government-sponsored tours from 2006, even promoting maids in their 2007 “Cool Japan” videos.

The maids are for their part living large in the moment.

"It is work but also a friendship and playing games with the other maids and customers," said Mei, staff at Little Sister Café Nagomi where the structural fantasy of intimacy and home is extended into familial bonds. “We all go to place where we can find intimacy, and so do I.”

By Eri’s estimation, "The reason I work here is I love maid cafes. All the maids go to other maid cafes. This is our world and we want to have fun."

On the heels of "maidols," or maid idols turned popular media stars, such as Hitomi-chan and her song and dance group Paletee, a slew of women with a foot in otaku culture and a penchant for cosplay are attempting to go maid.

"I think compared to hoping to be a stewardess of TV announcer, becoming a maid is more attainable," said Terajima Hiroyasu, manager of MIA Cafe, which gets as many as 500 women applying for every job opening.

They certainly aren’t doing it for the money. Average wage? The minimum - 850 yen an hour.

"You don't do it for the money," said Mei. "It isn’t work and it isn’t school. It’s something else, and that is nice. I hope not all the maids try to be glamorous idols and forget about the relationships that make this so special.”

The Maid Cooperative is aiming to ensure that, implementing a standardized “Maid Kentei” exam to raise overall standards of the fantasy and qualify caregivers.

"It is the mission of the Maid Cooperative and its two thousand members to maintain the standards of maids," said Daimon Taro, chief editor of Cosmode and architect of the exam. "The trend is really growing, and we must do our part to make sure the direction is correct."

The Maid Kentei tests applicants on the history of maids, cleaning, cooking, washing clothes and maid manners. The last is the most crucial element, as "maid values," the dogma of decorum and distance, is what separates maids from commercial service or sex workers.

As far as Eri is concerned, communication is the sole qualifier for a maid.

“The maids want to see your happiness,” she said. “It doesn’t matter as long as it is communication because that is what everyone wants. When you order food or play a game, it is a chance to talk to the maid and make a connection. ”

A good maid, she said, is someone who can communicate, empathize and go beyond her own concerns.

Or at least that is what she and others are hoping to maintain.

The media is widely reporting that big business, shady entrepreneurs and even gangs are now trying to muscle into Akiba to take over maid businesses and force maids into increasingly exploited relations such as "maid hunting" and enjokosai, or compensated dating. Despite the efforts of self-regulation, in June 2007, the police in Akihabara began an ongoing program titled “Crime Prevention Seminar for Maid Cafes and Related Industries in the Akihabara Area" to combat growing concerns about the direction of the industry.

Hostess club owners are even relocating to Akihabara to tap the amateur talent in the cosplay pool to make what Suzuki Eiji called “affordable adult entertainment,” far more profitable than paying his girls in Roppongi 6,000 yen per hour.

With the current glut in the market and the negative press surrounding a changing Akihabara and the Chuo-dori Massacre of June 8, 2008, new cafes are opening only to close one month later. On the other hand, Thailand, Paris, L.A., Toronto, New York, Seoul and Taipei are just a few of the global spots not boasting maid cafes.

The future is uncertain, but regulars are in no hurry to change fads.

”I love maids!” crowed Adrian, a hardcore fan and regular since the initial 2005 boom. “Coming here changed my life. I never knew it could be so fun to interact with maids and fellow fans. It is a bond that once experienced can’t be broken.”