Scenes from an Alien Maid Cafe
Sep. 12th, 2010 12:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sanetIn this week’s installment of “Notes from Japan:” the time I guided two friends from my summer program around Akihabara, and the encounter with alien maids that ensued.
The names of those involved have been blanked out, Victorian-style, for their privacy and my amusement.
I led L--- and M--- (both women, neither fannish) with confidence into one of the better, tamer ground-floor anime shops just outside the station exit. Then we started down the main drag, past the women in maid costumes who line the streets of Akiba handing out flyers for their cafes. … We collected a few café flyers, one from a nun-maid (!) and another from a frilly maid, and at L---’s insistence, we decided to try one of the cafés out.
The one we opted for was called “Pinky,” a supremely uber-girly café. It was pitched to us by a girl in her late teens wearing a fluffy skirt and sparkly pink net butterfly wings, with a colourful collection of toys dangling from her purse. Once we accepted her offer, she walked us down a side street to the café -or rather, I walked beside her as L--- and M--- trailed behind taking covert photos. The café was in a tall, narrow building next to an open-fronted drinks room (basically three walls with some vending machines and benches inside) where a few youngish, scruffyish men were hanging out, watching the maids come and go. The café itself was on the third floor, the upper stories being where the real otaku action starts in Akiba.
Leaving the elevator, we were greeted at the door by a loud “Irasshaimase!” (“Welcome!”) and directed to read an English sign addressed to “Master, My Lady,” explaining the café concept, cost and rules. I immediately broke the rules by taking a picture of the sign, so I can say for sure that the concept was space alien maids. Yes, that's right, aliens. “We came from a little planet, a million light years away from the Earth. … We, MAIDS from planet ‘RIBBON,’ would like to be your energy source!” It went on to forbid any photos, touching, asking contact info and “things what maids do not like.”
Having learned the ground rules, we were led into a single small room seating at most 15-20, either at bar-style seating or at high, round tables, their tall-legged chairs nearly back to back. There was also one lower, square table in the right back corner. In the left back corner was a little foot-high triangular stage topped with a disco ball, which we thought might be for karaoke. The walls were white with pink crepe streamers scalloped at ceiling height. It had an almost amateur high-school-dance sort of feel, though the disco balls and professional sparkly lighting kicked it up a notch.
The clientele of the maid café was a mixed bunch. At the high, round table nearest to us, the only other occupied high table, sat a couple. I thought at a passing glance that it was a man and a woman on a date, since they were leaning close and talking softly in affectionate tones. When I looked again later, I noticed that the “man” was in fact a woman with short hair and square, masculine dress –not 80’s-plaid-sweater butch, but decidedly so. “So lesbians visit maid cafés too,” I thought. Obviously!
Besides them, the rest of the patrons were men. Along the bar at the left side wall were three young men in their 20’s or early 30’s. The man nearest the door was unremarkable, “futsuu.” The man in the middle sat hunched over with his head bowed and never obviously looked up. The man on the very end, closest to the stage, sat straight and looked about avidly. Later, a guy in khaki military gear came in and sat at the front bar by the kitchen, whether a real soldier (Self-Defense Force officer, whatever) or just a military otaku, I can’t say. He sat next to an older salaryman type in a dark suit. There was also someone at the low table behind me. I couldn’t really see him, though I did notice that at that table, the maid had to bend to serve him. I felt the power dynamics of the seating, which never placed maids and patrons on the same level, but always introduced some spatial disparity. All part of the game!
After we were seated, a woman with a big pink bow around the collar of her lacy shirt and something on her head that could be interpreted as antennae came over. She began our service –addressing us as “Ojou-sama”- with a kind of little ritual chant we were supposed to say along with her while holding our hands in the shape of a heart. The final lines we were meant to say together had the phrase “Rabu Rabu Pinky Go!”, but between the language and the confusion over exactly what was going on, we couldn’t manage to say it all together properly, and just ended up laughing. The maid had us try a few times, as if it were important. Finally, she took our order –coffees, an ice cream float for me, cheesecake- and went back behind the bar.
Then something unexpected (for us) happened. The lights dimmed, and one of the maids stepped up on the stage. She gave a short speech along “please support me” lines, and then began to sing and do a little dance to a cheery pop song. Her voice was alright, but her dancing was awkward: she stepped slightly off-beat from side to side, only bending a little at the knees, as she moved her arms and hands in stiff repeating patterns, turning her hand palm-in-palm-out along an arc. The man nearest the stage was very enthusiastic about the performance. We were encouraged to clap, but he knew all the tempo changes, and did a double-beat “CLAP—CLAPCLAP—CLAP—CLAPCLAP” to the faster parts. When there was no beat, in a down-tempo section, he waved his arms in sweeping embracing gestures, like an exaggerated orchestra conductor. He clearly knew the song by heart. “Ah ha,” I thought, “A true idol otaku.” I wonder, though: was he truer or only more expressive than the man who sat hunched beside him and clapped while never turning directly to the stage? Two different style of engagement, that’s for sure! For my part, I clapped along and occasionally turned back to catch the eyes of M--- and L---, in a “What do you think?” gesture.
The awkward girl was followed on stage by another by a girl who danced with more verve and belted out her lyrics. She included more hopping and hip-shaking in her performance, but was still not at all seductive, not in an MTV music-video kind of way. She was energetic, not sexy. That energy, I suddenly realized, is itself part of a character (kyara), what Azuma calls a “moe element.” She struck me as a tsundere type like Suzumiya Haruhi, boisterous but cute. It occurred to me that the first girl, too, might be acting a role, the role of the shy, stumbling girl, eliciting moe sympathy and protectiveness. M--- remarked after we left that she felt bad for the awkward girl, but when I told them I thought it was part of her persona, her act, both she and L--- agreed that it seemed likely in retrospect.
The lights came up after these two acts, and more conventional service resumed. Well, conventional to a point. Our food came with another ritual: the maid asked our names, and then wrote them as we spelled them in syrup on our cake plates. Only L--- and I had ordered cake, but for some reason she wrote our names together on one plate with a heart, and M---’s on the other. L--- and I laughed and shared “our” piece -“Because apparently we’re a couple now,” L--- snorted- and we all had some of M---’s.
I took this time to observe the customers and try to name them –the Soldier, the Salaryman- so that I’d remember them later. As I watched “Salaryman” prepare to leave, I saw that he was tugging at one end of the ribbon tied to a heart-shaped metal menu holder while a maid pulled at the other end, both behaving teasingly, coquettishly. I thought that he was just playing with her, but L--- asked me what the thing with the ribbon was, so I wondered if it wasn’t another ritual. Sure enough, as we went to leave, I held up the menu holder, and the maid and I pulled the ribbon loose together. It was a gesture of unbinding the contracted service and ending our time together, I thought. As soon as that was done, lingering was out of the question. We left promptly.
M--- had been to a maid café before with another group, where she was served by an actual French maid “played” by a woman from France, so out on the street I asked her if it was the same there. Not at all, she said; there were no performances at the other café. She didn’t mention any of the little rituals either. At Pinky, I found the whole thing to be like stepping into a very small, private alternate world, where regulars know the phrases and customs and performance times and hold them dear, while the rest of us just stumble gracelessly through them. I can see how you could do a whole study of maid cafes, or even just one café, learning from its people and practices through repeated visits. That’s not my study –it’s not my taste to be served– but it would be fascinating all the same.
The names of those involved have been blanked out, Victorian-style, for their privacy and my amusement.
I led L--- and M--- (both women, neither fannish) with confidence into one of the better, tamer ground-floor anime shops just outside the station exit. Then we started down the main drag, past the women in maid costumes who line the streets of Akiba handing out flyers for their cafes. … We collected a few café flyers, one from a nun-maid (!) and another from a frilly maid, and at L---’s insistence, we decided to try one of the cafés out.
The one we opted for was called “Pinky,” a supremely uber-girly café. It was pitched to us by a girl in her late teens wearing a fluffy skirt and sparkly pink net butterfly wings, with a colourful collection of toys dangling from her purse. Once we accepted her offer, she walked us down a side street to the café -or rather, I walked beside her as L--- and M--- trailed behind taking covert photos. The café was in a tall, narrow building next to an open-fronted drinks room (basically three walls with some vending machines and benches inside) where a few youngish, scruffyish men were hanging out, watching the maids come and go. The café itself was on the third floor, the upper stories being where the real otaku action starts in Akiba.
Leaving the elevator, we were greeted at the door by a loud “Irasshaimase!” (“Welcome!”) and directed to read an English sign addressed to “Master, My Lady,” explaining the café concept, cost and rules. I immediately broke the rules by taking a picture of the sign, so I can say for sure that the concept was space alien maids. Yes, that's right, aliens. “We came from a little planet, a million light years away from the Earth. … We, MAIDS from planet ‘RIBBON,’ would like to be your energy source!” It went on to forbid any photos, touching, asking contact info and “things what maids do not like.”
Having learned the ground rules, we were led into a single small room seating at most 15-20, either at bar-style seating or at high, round tables, their tall-legged chairs nearly back to back. There was also one lower, square table in the right back corner. In the left back corner was a little foot-high triangular stage topped with a disco ball, which we thought might be for karaoke. The walls were white with pink crepe streamers scalloped at ceiling height. It had an almost amateur high-school-dance sort of feel, though the disco balls and professional sparkly lighting kicked it up a notch.
The clientele of the maid café was a mixed bunch. At the high, round table nearest to us, the only other occupied high table, sat a couple. I thought at a passing glance that it was a man and a woman on a date, since they were leaning close and talking softly in affectionate tones. When I looked again later, I noticed that the “man” was in fact a woman with short hair and square, masculine dress –not 80’s-plaid-sweater butch, but decidedly so. “So lesbians visit maid cafés too,” I thought. Obviously!
Besides them, the rest of the patrons were men. Along the bar at the left side wall were three young men in their 20’s or early 30’s. The man nearest the door was unremarkable, “futsuu.” The man in the middle sat hunched over with his head bowed and never obviously looked up. The man on the very end, closest to the stage, sat straight and looked about avidly. Later, a guy in khaki military gear came in and sat at the front bar by the kitchen, whether a real soldier (Self-Defense Force officer, whatever) or just a military otaku, I can’t say. He sat next to an older salaryman type in a dark suit. There was also someone at the low table behind me. I couldn’t really see him, though I did notice that at that table, the maid had to bend to serve him. I felt the power dynamics of the seating, which never placed maids and patrons on the same level, but always introduced some spatial disparity. All part of the game!
After we were seated, a woman with a big pink bow around the collar of her lacy shirt and something on her head that could be interpreted as antennae came over. She began our service –addressing us as “Ojou-sama”- with a kind of little ritual chant we were supposed to say along with her while holding our hands in the shape of a heart. The final lines we were meant to say together had the phrase “Rabu Rabu Pinky Go!”, but between the language and the confusion over exactly what was going on, we couldn’t manage to say it all together properly, and just ended up laughing. The maid had us try a few times, as if it were important. Finally, she took our order –coffees, an ice cream float for me, cheesecake- and went back behind the bar.
Then something unexpected (for us) happened. The lights dimmed, and one of the maids stepped up on the stage. She gave a short speech along “please support me” lines, and then began to sing and do a little dance to a cheery pop song. Her voice was alright, but her dancing was awkward: she stepped slightly off-beat from side to side, only bending a little at the knees, as she moved her arms and hands in stiff repeating patterns, turning her hand palm-in-palm-out along an arc. The man nearest the stage was very enthusiastic about the performance. We were encouraged to clap, but he knew all the tempo changes, and did a double-beat “CLAP—CLAPCLAP—CLAP—CLAPCLAP” to the faster parts. When there was no beat, in a down-tempo section, he waved his arms in sweeping embracing gestures, like an exaggerated orchestra conductor. He clearly knew the song by heart. “Ah ha,” I thought, “A true idol otaku.” I wonder, though: was he truer or only more expressive than the man who sat hunched beside him and clapped while never turning directly to the stage? Two different style of engagement, that’s for sure! For my part, I clapped along and occasionally turned back to catch the eyes of M--- and L---, in a “What do you think?” gesture.
The awkward girl was followed on stage by another by a girl who danced with more verve and belted out her lyrics. She included more hopping and hip-shaking in her performance, but was still not at all seductive, not in an MTV music-video kind of way. She was energetic, not sexy. That energy, I suddenly realized, is itself part of a character (kyara), what Azuma calls a “moe element.” She struck me as a tsundere type like Suzumiya Haruhi, boisterous but cute. It occurred to me that the first girl, too, might be acting a role, the role of the shy, stumbling girl, eliciting moe sympathy and protectiveness. M--- remarked after we left that she felt bad for the awkward girl, but when I told them I thought it was part of her persona, her act, both she and L--- agreed that it seemed likely in retrospect.
The lights came up after these two acts, and more conventional service resumed. Well, conventional to a point. Our food came with another ritual: the maid asked our names, and then wrote them as we spelled them in syrup on our cake plates. Only L--- and I had ordered cake, but for some reason she wrote our names together on one plate with a heart, and M---’s on the other. L--- and I laughed and shared “our” piece -“Because apparently we’re a couple now,” L--- snorted- and we all had some of M---’s.
I took this time to observe the customers and try to name them –the Soldier, the Salaryman- so that I’d remember them later. As I watched “Salaryman” prepare to leave, I saw that he was tugging at one end of the ribbon tied to a heart-shaped metal menu holder while a maid pulled at the other end, both behaving teasingly, coquettishly. I thought that he was just playing with her, but L--- asked me what the thing with the ribbon was, so I wondered if it wasn’t another ritual. Sure enough, as we went to leave, I held up the menu holder, and the maid and I pulled the ribbon loose together. It was a gesture of unbinding the contracted service and ending our time together, I thought. As soon as that was done, lingering was out of the question. We left promptly.
M--- had been to a maid café before with another group, where she was served by an actual French maid “played” by a woman from France, so out on the street I asked her if it was the same there. Not at all, she said; there were no performances at the other café. She didn’t mention any of the little rituals either. At Pinky, I found the whole thing to be like stepping into a very small, private alternate world, where regulars know the phrases and customs and performance times and hold them dear, while the rest of us just stumble gracelessly through them. I can see how you could do a whole study of maid cafes, or even just one café, learning from its people and practices through repeated visits. That’s not my study –it’s not my taste to be served– but it would be fascinating all the same.
