Messages

Memememe.

Actually, the idea of a Cosplay Speed Dating could be a fun event for all. You cosplay a character, someone else cosplays a character, and you have to try and act In Character doing the date. Could be like a competition, and the audience could vote on who portrayed the characters best and the best couple and stuff. But that's just kind of a digression.

My pictures?

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v395/karisma_black/RenFair/

Be sure to check out the pictures of Erick being put in a bodice. Or even better... the movie we made of it. The reactions of the chick putting it on him are the best part.

So what, you want me to say how great of a job you guys did, and how wonderful it was? Sorry, but it wasn't. You felt insulted by my post? Well, too bad for you then, nothing I said was directly insulting at all, if me telling you guys how you guys made mistakes, what was wrong, and what not... is insulting to you? Then honestly... *TOO BAD*.  This was a volunteer thing... and? I run panels. I ran one of the biggest(if not the biggest panel) this year. A lot of time and effort was put into running it. It went off and was a huge success. I've heard a lot of things that people said sucked about the panel, and did I get pissy about it? Did I say they shouldn't bitch at me, or that they should be constructive? NOPE... WHY? Because they are my audience, and they are the ones that I'm listening to. Fortunately for me... the subject matter of my panel is something I understand. I understand the audience, I understand the subject, I understand what they want... and I plan that accordingly.

You are missing the biggest point of my complaint here. NONE OF YOU REALLY KNOW WHAT A MAID CAFE IS. You give me this bullshit like "Well we did the best we could to be authentic but it's due to *CON* limitations, and *UNION REGULATIONS* that prevented you to be fully authentic? Then let's hear it Karisma... what would you have done if there were 0 limitations? How would maids act? What would they say? How would you regulate things, in what can and cannot be done?

Okay. Take a chill pill here. First of all, I believe the first post in this thread mentions that flames, non-constructive criticism, and personal attacks are not allowed in this thread. My point is that you didn't say anything constructive as far as how to improve the cafe. You suggested that you talked to a majority of the people who were at the cafe (which you later admitted to being less than 20) and they were displeased. It's great you took the time out of your convention to ask people what they thought, but then again.. where's the room for improvement when you're talking about responses? That's the whole point in constructive criticism. It's criticism that allows someone to construct something better than they did before.

I never claimed to be an expert on a maid cafe. I've never been to Japan, nor been to a maid cafe, and I can't claim that I know a hell of a lot about it. I've read up on some things and I know more about it than an average American congoer, but I can't say that I'd be the person to ask how to set things up. I respect that you spent time working on a panel and whatnot, but don't insult the work all of us put in. We went to a training day, meetings, and a good chunk of us worked the entire shifts of the cafe each day, all of which was a good deal of work. Given that you didn't actually attend the cafe, I don't think you have any room to judge it or say what the audience wants, as you are not a representative of them. You may or may not know more about a Japanese Maid Cafe, but, like I said, things can't be exactly the same within a convention setting.

As far as what I would have people do? Don't bother asking me that question. I'm not an expert and there's no way we can make an ACTUAL cafe with fully trained maids at a convention. What we can do is make an adaptation. And we did. There are things you've mentioned before, such as having privledges for repeat customers that we can't actually do at the convention. There are other things, such as actual handling of the food that we can't do for legal reasons. We can't pour you a soda or do certain things because in foodservice we aren't trained or allowed to mess with any of that.

So what I'm trying to get at here is that yes, we aren't like the Maid Cafes in Japan. We've taken the idea, done an adaptation of it for an American convention and put a lot of hard work into it. We'd like feedback as for as what we can do in the future to try and make it a more positive experience for those who actually experienced the cafe. If you don't have anything to say in regards to that, then I suggest you drop the subject.

First off, all of the press that I personally talked to had nothing but positive things to say about the cafe. While yes, the line was long at the very beginning, I think its understandable considering that was the first year we've done things and really had to figure things out from scratch as far as how things were going to work.

Hindsight bias. You are part of the cafe. I was rather unknown person asking for honest opinions of random patrons that walked into the cafe. I was outside on the balcony smoking a lot so quite a few people walked by me during the cafe hours. My exact question was "Hey did you just come out of the fanimaid cafe thing? How was it? Like, what happened exactly?"

And I let them talk about it for however long they did, said thanks and let them leave. Most of your patrons were disappointed and unimpressed.

As far as the whole "more to it" part of the maid cafe, after we got the kinks worked out as far as the actual serving and cleaning up and seating people, we were able to free up more time/maids for socializing more and hanging out with them. I feel bad for people who were unfortunately not able to get the same service as happened towards the end of the con as the beginning, but again, first year and we were figuring things out as fast as we could.

But that's only a minor part of it. Even if it's busy, there are small nuances that make it a maid cafe. Bowing, word choice how you carry yourself. There was no mannerisms or form in what I had witnessed, and not a single person even commented on the mannerisms or actions of the maids at all.

Next year looks to be more promising in ALL aspects. We'll have a bigger room, more maids, as well as we can now start working out kinks of maids socializing and playing games, doing drawings with the patrons, ect. I plan on taking on a bigger part of helping with next year as I feel like I have a good finger on the pulse of how we should change and improve for the future.

Doing drawings? Huh? From what I witnessed and what I knew prior and after... you guys are trying to make it more "Japanese" over more "Authentic". The things like, not taking pictures with them and what not only works when you have long time patrons and an established center of business. It's supposed to be rewards for repeat customers over long periods of time, but that doesn't work when all you have is a weekend, and a few hours per day. There was too much focus on things that DIDN'T matter and no focus on VERY IMPORTANT aspects of what "Makes a Maid Cafe".

On another note, we do accept constructive feedback. However, everything you've said in general about the maid cafe has been nothing but negative. Perhaps if you had not been so argumentative and negative in the past, people wouldn't have been so willing to write you off. If you are genuinely interested in helping improve for next year, key term being HELPING, I'm sure you could take it privately to someone who is willing to take your advice given that it is constructive.

Oh please... welcome to the real world. Negative comments reflect what is being done wrong. There are always pieces and places that need improvement, and without focusing on these parts, things will never get better. You can have millions of people telling you it's wonderful and ignore the flaws you have, but then it won't grow.

Think about it, someone who knows about Maid Cafes, someone who can tell you the differences between the kinds, which are real cafes, which are tourists traps, etc... is telling you "Something is wrong here and you should improve these points" and you're saying he's not being constructive?

I regret taking the time to bother talking to you. Honestly, the entire time you've been on the boards and commenting on this project you have been critical of the entire idea. You've said nothing at all remotely positive, and even on other forums other than Fanime's own boards insulted the Maid Cafe. Yeah, it's great to know what we're doing wrong, but its good to hear what we're doing right as well.

And obviously, in your eyes and in your comments, we aren't doing anything right. In fact, you can't even take the time to be polite and discuss this project without ridiculing someone who took the time to type out a response to you. Phrases like "oh please... welcome to the real world" are not ones that are considered being polite towards the person you're speaking to. While I agree that there can not be a REAL maid cafe exactly like its done in Japan at an anime convention, as far as anime conventions go, for an entirely volunteeer based, no-profit project, I believe we did a good job.

Maids paid money to get their costumes and put a lot of hard work and effort into this project, and honestly, to be attacked for no real reason verbally simply because I was responding to your very negative post is pretty offensive. If you honestly want to help this project, then do so instead of insulting the people, the project, and people on the boards.

I'm not banned anymore \o/(No reason to explain that)

I had a talk with quite a few people about the fanimaid cafe, and almost everything(ALMOST) I heard was negative. I also had a fun run in with Jerry in which he was quite rude to me.

The general things i heard was "I didn't get the point of it? I walked in and I was served food by a girl. And that was about it".
"I always thought there was more to Maid cafes than costumes" and the such.

It was quite funny, because I walked over there to check it out with my friend, and I saw Jun working who I wanted to say hi to and before anything happened Jerry walked up to me and quite rudely said "Is there anything I can help you with?" and I replied back with "Uh, yeah this is the maid cafe right?" and he instantly said "WELL AS YOU CAN SEE THERE IS A LINE OVER THERE". At this point I was considering my options. I could very easily had made a large scene but decided not to, due to the fact that a few of the maids were quite nice to me online and I didn't want to ruin things for them.

So I played it off "Oh sorry, I thought that was the line for the ATM" and then he replies back with... "OH well, is this for take out or dine in?" "Excuse me? Oh, I guess dine in, but it's fine, nevermind". "Yeah. LIKE I SAID there's a line over there, so go get in line".

So I just walked off.

First off, all of the press that I personally talked to had nothing but positive things to say about the cafe. While yes, the line was long at the very beginning, I think its understandable considering that was the first year we've done things and really had to figure things out from scratch as far as how things were going to work.

As far as the whole "more to it" part of the maid cafe, after we got the kinks worked out as far as the actual serving and cleaning up and seating people, we were able to free up more time/maids for socializing more and hanging out with them. I feel bad for people who were unfortunately not able to get the same service as happened towards the end of the con as the beginning, but again, first year and we were figuring things out as fast as we could.

Next year looks to be more promising in ALL aspects. We'll have a bigger room, more maids, as well as we can now start working out kinks of maids socializing and playing games, doing drawings with the patrons, ect. I plan on taking on a bigger part of helping with next year as I feel like I have a good finger on the pulse of how we should change and improve for the future.

On another note, we do accept constructive feedback. However, everything you've said in general about the maid cafe has been nothing but negative. Perhaps if you had not been so argumentative and negative in the past, people wouldn't have been so willing to write you off. If you are genuinely interested in helping improve for next year, key term being HELPING, I'm sure you could take it privately to someone who is willing to take your advice given that it is constructive.

I second Crispin Freeman as a guest.

Our stay was good. However, housekeeping did not clean our room one of the days we were there in the Mariott. That was kind of annoying.

I absolutely need to cosplay next year.

... Any suggestions?

I'd like to see any maid cafe pictures that you all have.

i want to find all of the people that took care of me and partied with me. i was jesus. you know who you are and all of you were so awesome

Hi Jesus!

... Its Goofy Time!

Anyway, I'm Kelsey's sister. That's what everyone refers to me as anyways, since I wasn't so memorable this year.

I'll be joining my lovely sister and being light to her dark.

I'm going as Saber.

I'm 00393.

What am I supposed to do when I have a free Saturday and nothing to do? :((

So my college had a bomb threat today and I have no classes. HUZZAH! It means I have time to sit around and do nothing. It's kind of nice.. especially since I seem to be coming down with that cold everyone's getting. :(

Well, the cold is bad. And bomb threats are bad. But staying home and no classes is good!

EDIT: HOLY CRAP. There really WAS a bomb and they set it off.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/15837041.htm

Class is boring. Wireless internet in class = win!

Why do I have to be so overloaded with homework that I'm stressed all the time?

A Beginners Guide to Faking Your Death on the Internet

Are colored people bad? HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH...

ahem.

So if you're an apprentice.. who are you apprenticed TO?