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Cosplay restaurant
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, are theme restaurants and pubs that originated in Akihabara, Tokyo, Japan around the year 2000. They include and , where the service staff dress as elegant maids, or as butlers. Such restaurants and cafés have quickly become a staple of Japanese otaku culture. Compared with service at normal cafés, the service at cosplay cafés involves the creation of a rather different atmosphere. The staff treat the customers as masters and mistresses in a private home rather than merely as café customers.
The popularity of the Cosplay restaurants and maid cafes has spread to other regions in Japan, such as Osaka's Den Den Town as well as other countries, such as Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Mexico, and Canada.
e exists a plethora of establishments catering to specific tastes and offering different services to customers.
In a standard maid cafe the female employees dress up as french maids and refer to the customers as either or .
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Encyclopedia
, are theme restaurants and pubs that originated in Akihabara, Tokyo, Japan around the year 2000. They include and , where the service staff dress as elegant maids, or as butlers. Such restaurants and cafés have quickly become a staple of Japanese otaku culture. Compared with service at normal cafés, the service at cosplay cafés involves the creation of a rather different atmosphere. The staff treat the customers as masters and mistresses in a private home rather than merely as café customers.
The popularity of the Cosplay restaurants and maid cafes has spread to other regions in Japan, such as Osaka's Den Den Town as well as other countries, such as Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Mexico, and Canada.
Characteristics
There exists a plethora of establishments catering to specific tastes and offering different services to customers.
In a standard maid cafe the female employees dress up as french maids and refer to the customers as either or . Upon entering one of such stores, the customer is greeted with the customary , offered a wipe towel and shown a food/drink menu. Popular dishes include cakes (sometimes baked by the maids themselves), ice-cream, omurice , spaghetti, as well as drinks such as coca-cola, tea, milk or alcoholic beverages such as beer or, in some cases, even champagne.
Other options include taking polaroids (either of the maid alone, together with another maid or with the customer and which are then decorated using coloured markers or stickers), playing card or video games or even slightly more unusual ones, such as being slapped by one or more of the girls.
In other stores, the outifts and even the setting itself change. In school-themed cafes, for example, the term employed to refer to the customers is senpai instead of master or mistress. Inside, regular tables are replaced by school desks and even the menu is served in trays reminiscent of the ones used in Japanese schools.
Other themes include, , or cafes/izakaya.
Recently, with the maid cafe scene booming, additional related services have become popular. These include , a foot or hand massage, photography sessions (the customer typically rents time in a studio during which he can tell a maid which costume to wear and how to pose) or even "dates" with maids.
Butler cafe
While most cosplay restaurants and maid cafes cater mostly to men, there is also a type for women called the . The butlers in these cafes are well-dressed male employees and may wear either a typical waiter's uniform or even a tuxedo or tails. One butler cafe has its waiters cosplay as teenage schoolboys, in an effort to appeal to the fujoshi who enjoy Boy's Love.
There are also cross-dressing butler cafes, where female staff dress up as butlers, instead of actual men.
Variants
With the popularity of maid cafes, a number of other businesses have followed. Within Akihabara alone one can find several legitimate massage parlors, a maid eyeglass store, and at least one cosplay/maid izakaya.
Maid Cafes in Canada and America
One maid cafe which opened in the west was the "i maid cafe" located in Scarborough, Ontario, Canada, and was featured in CBC's newsmagazine, The Hour. The cafe was closed in November 2007 because management failed to pay back rent.
In December 2007, Royal-T opened in Culver City, California, United States, and has been featured in several magazines, such as Elle and the LA Times. It is a combination of maid cafe, store, and art gallery.
In September, 2008, a Japanese franchise Crepe House Uni, opened in Davis, California. Their workers wear maid uniforms, but they are not exactly a maid cafe.
In popular culture
- In the anime Lucky Star, the character Konata Izumi gets a job at a cosplay cafe. The cafe is themed after the Haruhi Suzumiya franchise, which Konata is a huge fan of. Konata plays the role of Haruhi while working, and uses Haruhi's exact voice (reason being because Konata and Haruhi have the same voice actor in both the Japanese and English versions). She even performs the Hare Hare Yukai, the ending theme dance from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.
- In the anime Pokémon: Diamond & Pearl Battle Dimension, the main characters visit a cafe that have waitresses that dress in a similar fashion to standard cosplay cafes.
- In chapter nine of the webcomic Megatokyo, there is a scene which takes place in a maid cafe, with one character attending a meeting there while another disguises herself as a maid to watch.
- In the Dojin Work, Najimi Osana gets a temporary job working in a maid cafe, named Cafe With Cat - a real-life cafe located on the second floor of one of the two Comic Toranoana buildings in Akihabara. The depiction is accurate.
- In Kannagi there is an episode in which Nagi works in a maid cafe.
See also
External links
- Akibanana's Maid Cafe Reviews
- Information on Cosplay in Japan.
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