TOKYO (Reuters) - "Welcome home, Master," says the maid as she bows deeply,
hands clasped in front of a starched pinafore worn over a short pink dress.This maid serves not some aristocrat but a string of pop-culture-mad customers at a "Maid Cafe" in Tokyo's Akihabara district, long known as a Mecca for electronics buffs but now also the centre of the capital's "nerd culture".
"When they address you as 'Master', the feeling you get is like a high," says Koji Abei, a 20-year-old student having coffee with a friend at the Royal Milk Cafe and Aromacare.
"I've never felt that way before."
Eww!
...
In the cafes, girls dressed in frilly frocks inspired by comic-book heroines wait hand and foot on customers, mostly male, who might have once been obsessed with naughty schoolgirls and nurses.
At one cafe, maids get down on their knees to stir the cream and sugar into the customer's coffee.
You've got to be kidding me!
At Royal Milk, diners can follow up a meal with a range of grooming services,
including ear cleanings.
Double Ewww!
...
Patronage is also on the rise among young women, some hoping to snag a geek and turn him into Prince Charming in a real-life imitation of last year's hit movie "Train Boy", a love story set in Akihabara that also became a popular TV series.
That's even more disturbing! Are they really so desperate? They want to play Pikachu for the rest of their lives?
"These cafes offer a chance for men oppressed in their daily life to escape into
a fantasy world," said social commentator Tomoko Inukai, adding that the
phenomenon hardly helped to promote gender equality in a largely male-dominated
society.
They are oppressed? How? They haven't solved the final level of some video game or another and this somehow oppresses them? Poor boys! Forgive me if I don't feel their pain.
...
Besides serving diners from a menu of inexpensive cafe fare, Hinaka also offers fully clothed massages, and for 9,000 yen ($75) customers can chat with her in a private room cluttered with comic books, character figurines and animation DVDs.
It sounds like pRon for Geeks! And, can I just say, Eeeww?
Just reading that article made me feel dirty. Kinky Japanese Freaky Geek Boys!
(The article does continue if you are interested.)
