The Maid Cafe returned to Katsucon (a local anime convention) over the weekend. Ever wonder what would make grown women dress up in cat ears and ruffles, and wait tables while taking breaks to play games like Operation? Read on.
The Katsucon Maid cafe is modeled after similar places in Japan. The Katsucon website explains:
Maid Cafés are a special kind of theme restaurant that first appeared in the Akihabara area of Tokyo and became popular around the turn of the century. Unlike your typical Western restaurant, Maid Cafés are staffed by highly attentive workers of a novelty Cafés that provided extra care to individuals that they serve. As the name suggests, Maid Café workers typically dress in maid outfits or other forms of cosplay. Below, you can meet the Maids that will be working at this years Katsucon Maid Café!
I’ve been attending conventions since 2004, and my normal Con crew is at lot more established than I am (they’ve been going for close to fifteen years, so they remember Otakon 2 and Katuscon 3). So we generally don’t blink at discussions of strange activities on the convention floor, especially when there are people toting six foot cardboard swords, or in the process of acting out their favorite death scenes. After the minor flap surrounding last year’s maid cafe (see this Washington Post article and my take on the whole situation), I decided to come prepared this year.
I dropped into the new and improved maid cafe with Flip camera in tow and sat down with some of the women who participated. Due to time constraints I couldn’t catch everyone I wanted – there were a couple men dressed as butlers this year, as well as men who were dressed as maids – but I got a decent feel for why these women would pony up their hard-earned cash on costumes to volunteer.
(All the maids provided me with their real names, but widely preferred to be referred to as their stage names, with the exception of Lauren and Tyg.)
Magome, 23, discusses why she got involved with the Maid Cafe in the first place.
Magome Intro To The Maid Cafe from Latoya Peterson on Vimeo.
Magome – and many of the other participants I interviewed – referred to Dan Zak’s piece in the Washington Post without prompting. Many of the maids felt disrespected and misrepresented by Zak’s portrayal. For Magome, that meant dealing with the sting of being described as “at least two feet too tall to pretend to be a petite Japanese maid.” For some of the other maids, that meant deailing with more scrutiny from those not familiar with the depth of fandom.
Soushi, age 20, took the time to explain why people being up in arms over the Maid Cafe were ultimately missing the point:
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