Tokyo pt 4: Maids of Akiba! 秋葉のメードちゃん達！

actually, our true purpose in going to akihabara wasn't go look at video game related t-shirts... we were hunting bigger game!

如何して秋葉原へ行った？ 漫画かアニメ物為に？いいえ！メード喫茶店に行く為にでした！僕の秋葉原の喫茶店の話を見て！

Long time etchy blog readers will already know that I developed some interesting habits while living in Japan...  aside from Para Para dancing, my 2nd strangest could arguably be patronizing Maid Cafes. For those who don't know, these are cafes in Japan where the waitresses all wear french maid costumes (or sometimes other costumery) and use super polite Japanese to speak to customers.  The customer base is generally anime/manga fans who are poorly socialized but covet this type of feminine image based on anime culture...

Hostess bars are a well known aspect of Japanese culture (they're where business men spend lots and lots of money to talk to pretty girls who are dressed up nicely and pretend to be interested in what they're talking about...) in reality the maid cafe is just the nerd version of these hostess bars...  (not quite the same - less sleazy, but more creepy)...

I last visited here last November during my last visit to Tokyo with Stephen...

There's one exit of Akihabara station where most of the maid cafes have representatives passing out flyers, etc -

(the market has gotten quite competitive as you can see).

I have a few personal favorites from my previous visits, but I'm always up for trying some place new, so I tried to figure out which one to visit.  One of the maids I talked to actually worked for a web guide on maid cafes.  She recommended the '@-home' cafe,  which is the most successful (apparently) of the maid cafes businesses...

Here's the flier she gave us:

Ooh, kawaii! :-P

@Home Cafe has more than one location - and the main three occupy the top three floors of one building... so we headed over...

I caught Patrick trying to peek in the window of this one we passed on the way... tsk tsk!

”入りたい！”と言いました。

We took the elevator to the top floor to find it absolutely full... with a line out the door and down the stair way!

The 2nd highest floor was the same!

So we went down the stairs but luckily found the lower floor's cafe, called 'Hana' had open seats.  This one was quite different though,  rather than the traditional 'euro-inspired maid costumes', this one had girls in Japanese yukata (not exactly traditional ones... but modern interpretations.

As you can probably guess, I actually like this more! ;-)

Here's the billboard they had in the station:

It says "Welcome Home Master/Princess" ... typical super-polite Japanese greeting they give when you come in the door.

You're not supposed to take photos inside, so I lifted a few images from their website to give you an idea:

basically just showcases the facilities... they have a raised tatami area where they'll occasionally do activities, games, etc. 

Even though you're not supposed to take pictures, i did sneak one of my order:

green tea ice cream -- since this one goes for a 'traditional' theme, they didn't have my favorite -- the coke float. :-(

Since I only get to Akihabara once or twice a year, I figured I'd make the most of it, and I splurged... I paid the $5 for the polaroid with the staff member of my choice.  We talked to several of them, the cutest one (to me) was Koma-chan (狛),  who's profile can be viewed here. 

After seeing some of the other otaku customers choosing really weird and creepy poses for their pictures,  I figured I'd play it safe and just let her decide how to pose the picture, she chose a sword/umbrella combo:

Ha,  maybe not cool, but at least cooler than the last one!

Since it was our first time, we were awarded with member cards... most cafes have them... they're usually just stamp cards... but since its a successful franchise, @home definitely has the nicest ones I've seen:

Yes, they make it look like an American Express (except much much nerdier).

you'll notice that its a Level 1 card... apparently there are like 5 different levels... just like American Express, the color of the card changes the higher up the pyramid you go...  in this case its based on number of return visits... you need to go like 1000 times to get the black card (thats once a day, EVERY day for almost three years...)

And next thing you know, we're back on the train...

Another fun trip to Akihabara... next time hopefully we'll have more time!