Of Cartoon Bondage

Tokyo is a city of many strange things, and perhaps the strangest of the lot is the antics of the young people in the electronics district, Akihabara. Here as soon as one exits the station one is greeted by a bevy of girls dressed in crazy overdone Victorian maid outfits, handing out fliers advertising shops and cafes. There are also various people wandering about dressed as their favourite anime stars. This is a little strange in broad daylight in a busy street, but one has to sample the situation to feel fully part of the Tokyo experience. So it is dear reader that I found myself frogmarched by the Delightful Miss E into one of the strangest places in Tokyo - the Cute M Maid Cafe , in which young ladies dressed like Victorian maids serve you drinks and food in a very dainty and rather overtly subservient way.

Should one happen to click on the little button that says "Maid" on the above website, one will find the full complement of cosplay sweeties laid out before one's wondering eyes. For the purpose of your edification I can assure you that our primary Maid for the afternoon was the young Miss named Hime, on the left in the middle. She was very sweet. Also perhaps Kanade assisted us a little but I am not sure. The uniforms you see them wearing in the pictures are exactly the uniforms they work in - click on young Ayuna for a full-body shot of the fashion at this particular cafe.

Because Japanese language has particular forms for different levels of politeness, it is possible to know exactly how subservient your waiter/waitress is, and in this case they were very subservient. Even the simple act of refilling our water glass required an apology for interrupting, a very careful pouring of the water, two more apologies, and then the Maid had to step back from the table one step and bow to almost a 45 degree angle (in modern Japan one only receives this bow occasionally) - to everyone at the table separately, on some occasions. The service was profoundly embarrassing but the young ladies carried it off with such a genuinely sweet manner that it was difficult to believe they were doing it just because they had been paid to.

Interesting also was the presence of a number of women in the cafe (besides the Delightful Miss E), some without men to accompany them. Downstairs was another cafe, cafe Passion, where the girls behave not like maids but like imoto - little sisters. This cafe had such a long queue that we didn't bother waiting. These cosplay cafes are dotted all over Akihabara, as are the girls in uniform whose job is to guide people to them - we asked one girl in a pink maid outfit who not only told us where to go but advised us on which ones were best to go with a woman. A fascinating tour through a strange nerdy underworld indeed!