Playful People

Sydney Morning Herald

Monday September 15, 2008

Justin Norrie

there's a different world to be found in Tokyo's akihabara district, writes Justin Norrie.

It had been at least two decades since I attended a children's birthday party, so it was with a profound sense of nostalgia that I tucked into my itty-bitty slice of Creamy Chocolatey Mr Bear Cake and joined the high-pitched chorus of "Happy Birthday".

The unique thing about this birthday party, however, was that everyone in attendance was technically an adult.

My friend Phil was turning 24. A group of us had decided to stop off for a lunchtime break in @home cafe, a maid cafe in Tokyo's Akihabara district, otherwise known as the capital of Japanese otaku (geek) culture.

These two facts were coincidental but when Eiko the maid discovered Phil's secret she insisted that her coquettish co-workers - dressed in skimpy layers of pink frills and bows - mark the occasion for their "master".

"I'll never forget my 24th birthday," Phil remarked, as I weighed up whether to order a serve of "eggy eggy" (omelette with rice) or "Cupid's milky heart hamburger steak".

Eggy eggy seemed the more compelling option, if only because Eiko had offered to draw a special tomato-sauce rabbit on mine.

Akihabara has been a beacon for fetishists, fantasists and socially dysfunctional hobbyists since the early '90s, when electronics stores began shifting their focus away from low-cost goods to computer accessories, anime (Japanese cartoons) and manga (comics).

At the risk of invoking stereotypes, it has to be said that the district is an indisputably strange place, particularly for the uninitiated. In parts it resembles a giant toyshop as it might appear through the lens of a David Lynch film. At street level cosplayers (otaku who dress up as their favourite cartoon characters) mingle with lolitas (young girls dressed in Little Bo Peep outfits), maids who are spruiking cafes in improbably high registers and other assorted cartoonish types.

Most otaku shoppers, however, are unremarkable-looking male collectors in high pants who shuffle from store to store without ever looking sales staff in the eye.

At shops like Kotobukiya they pore over the latest in pop-culture collectables, usually figurines and model kits. Nearby, at Tsukumo Robot Kingdom, they can shop for the best in robotics, including such wonders as EMA, the 38-centimetre-tall girlfriend robot. Eternal Maid Actualization, to use her full name, can provide kisses at the press of a button.

If the vast emporia lining Chuo Dori and its tributary streets are where otaku go to find obscure computer parts, rare anime figurines and hentai (sexually explicit) manga, then maid cafes are where they go to put their feet up and relax with fantasy servants.

The first maid cafe opened in Akihabara in 2000. It has inspired hundreds of imitators around the world. The concept has now mutated into even more bizarre offerings such as nun cafes, imouto cafes (where patrons are waited on by fantasy younger sisters) and mother cafes, where regulars can be spoonfed and even nagged by older-looking women.

The emphasis at maid cafes is on "cute". When Eiko brought out our drinks, she enjoined us to put our fingers together in a heart shape, swing them from side to side while shouting "Moe! Moe!" (a Japanese slang term meaning "passion") then push them out over our drink shouting "Kyuun!"

"'Kyuun' is the sound the love makes as it comes out from your heart into your drink," explained my Japanese friend Tomoko, who had joined us on our quest for cultural enlightenment. "It makes your drink taste better, sweeter." As we left, Eiko handed me a card reading "Licence of Your Majesty", thereby certifying my status as "Level 1 My Master" - a wonderful souvenir of a very special experience. It's unlikely I'll get time to go back and improve my grading soon but that's OK - the card says it's valid "until infinity".

This kind of obsessive child's play by adults has a dark side. Just two months earlier, a 25-year-old loner thought to be interested in otaku culture stabbed seven people to death on the street below our cafe.

Otaku claim they are unfairly stigmatised by the media and harassed by police every time a deranged loner with a large collection of anime and manga commits a gruesome crime.

While that sort of moral panic is certainly a disproportionate response, it's easy to see why many Japanese are nervous about elements of the otaku make-believe world.

At Edelstein, androgynous-looking young men dressed in blazers serve warm milk and other innocent treats to female otaku in the "school canteen" while their pretend classmates play chess, read poetry and practise musical instruments.

"There's now a massive market for female otaku. They were overlooked by the otaku industry for years," says Emiko Sakamaki, the 28-year-old manager of Edelstein Boarding School, who also came up with the concept for a butler cafe for women at Ikebukuro.

In the past decade foreigners have also started pouring money into Japan's otaku industry, which market research firm Media Create estimated to be worth Y187 billion (about $2 billion) last year.

On any day of the week, collectors from all parts of the world can be seen hunting around the backstreets of Akihabara and Ikebukuro, and through the shops along Nakano Broadway, another otaku mecca.

So if your response to the idea of grown men being served birthday cake by baby-voiced maids is to laugh and say "Only in Japan", think again. Eggy eggy is undoubtedly coming soon to a nerd near you.

© 2008 Sydney Morning Herald

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