Maid Cafes, Butlers and hosts

[PyronIkari]

You know this subject comes up a lot, and I thought about it and figured I'd write something to dispel a lot of assumptions about these things. We'll start with the one most people sorta have a pretty decent grasp on.

Maid cafes. There's literally hundreds of different kinds of maid but for the most part, I break them down into two categories. You have your commercial maid cafe, like @home, and the majority of the cafes like this that boomed when it was no longer *completely* loserish to be an akiba-kei... and your original style maid cafes from akiba.

Well first let's get into why commercial cafes began. Sadly, Densha Otoko changed Japan in a lot of ways, and many of them bad. When Densha Otoko/Train Man aired on TV, otaku culture became rather main stream. People that wouldn't be caught dead in Akiba started going there just to see different sites that were on the show. People tried to get into the culture, but not actually get into it, just enough to say "See I'm trendy" and the likes. After Densha Otoko was @Deep, which didn't do nearly as well, but also pushed the culture even more. But it was around this time that maid cafes started sprouting out all over Japan even in Shinjuku and Shibuya which were teen and trendy central had maid cafes now.

Your commercial cafe was pretty much what was depicted in these shows. Over priced meals, served by maids who acted overly cute, charged you to do everything, and at most said 3 lines to you unless you paid for her to stay there and play a game for you for 5 minutes. (The going rate is 500yen to play a game for 5 minutes with a maid). There's nothing wrong with these, but they honestly feel fake. They feel so commercialized that the maids over play their part, and are actresses playing the "OMG SUPER MOE I HAVE TO ACT MOE MODE!" part and just mimicing what an anime character would act like in such a setting. These cafes are more for novelty, and many older akiba-kei refuse to go to these unless it's for a special event because it feels like a moe cabaret club(get into this later) more than a maid cafe. Basically, it's more about moe service than actual maid service... I've never liked commercial cafes for the same reason.

Traditional cafes are much more slow paced and intimate. It's not a girl acting and pretending to be an anime character, but treating you like a master as a maid. These cafes are generally much smaller, and there's a bigger feeling of intimacy between the maids and the patrons. There's a wider variety in these kinds of cafes from renaissance themed, to today, those that specialize in music that will actually play violins and cellos for you, to just simple chamber maid style.

I'm honestly not saying one is better than the other, but these are the base two. Within these two styles, it branches off insanely to tsundere cafes, to loli and so on. (Just as a reference, the fanimaid cafe is much closer to the traditional style, and while they do act moe moe it's not overkill. Our girls are much more down to earth and can carry conversations instead of just putting on a show for you to watch them act cute).

Butler cafes themselves are quite rare There's a handful in Ikebukuro but outside there, it's actually very uncommon to see them. I wish I had my log of my friends visit when he went with his wife(who frequents them). He's been twice once to a male one, and once to one where all the butlers were female. He found them eerie because the butlers would just softly smile and not say a word just elegantly walk around all proud. My response to that was "Like a really good professional waiter?" and his reply was "Yes only it was like he was trying to seduce my wife without actually saying anything to her". Unlike maid cafes, butler cafes are very sexual. Almost every girl I know that goes to them semi-regularly has admitted this. It's incredibly sexual since the surrounding idea is that women want to turn and be taken advantage of by an incredibly proper and elegant male like a butler. The butlers don't actual make any advances, they don't flirt, they just act proper, and it's on the patron to fantasize with his or her own imagination.

Host clubs and cabaret clubs... are really amazing. You can think of these as escort services, without the sex, and about 10x more expensive. You pay for someone to flirt with you, and act like they're interested in you, so you can buy them drinks and food and spend hundreds to thousands of dollars in a single night to be toyed with. Yes, you're literally paying to be toy'ed with.

Let me play this one out for you. Some require a cover charge, but you go in, and you choose a host (or hostess or let them pick one for you) and you sit at a table. The host sorta comes and you order drinks for him and yourself. He compliments you, and he tells you something really positive. He then urges you to finish your drink and says it's easier to be more comfortable with each other after you've all had a little to drink. You order another drink, as if you don't you'll be asked to leave soon after. He talks to you, and asks you about yourself. He tells you how he thinks that's wonderful that you do something, and that you should be more comfortable with who you are. He compliments something about you again, but then acts a little shy this time. He finishes his drink, and says he's starting to feel a little warm, he places his hand on yours, and says something along the lines about how he's really comfortable talking to you, and would like to know more. He asks for another drink and you order him one, and he smiles and says you should have some more too.

By this time you've ordered about 6 drinks, and have spent about 150$ in drinks alone and it's only been about 20 minutes. Better hosts will get you to buy more expensive champagnes and wines, some of which are upwards to 2000$ a bottle. And chances are there's other patrons at the table with you who are all getting the same act.

Cabaret clubs are much the same, only they're more about partying and having fun than fake intimate romances. Think of it like... going to a strip club only the girls don't get naked, and they drink your booze but party it up with you.

These clubs are incredibly common, and for the life of me I don't understand them. You get no pay off. You literally get your heart played with and leave with nothing more but "I like you, but I think we should get to know each other more." So you want to come back to him in hopes that it will lead to more.

No I don't know why I wrote this or why I'm posting it, just felt like doing so. So there you go, aspects about three parts of Japanese culture, that people like to think they know about.