Maid cafés

Maid cafés (メイド喫茶 / メイドカフェ, Meido kissa / Meido kafe^?) are a subcategory of cosplay restaurants found predominantly in Japan. In these cafés, waitresses dressed in maid costumes act as servants, and treat customers as masters (and mistresses) in a private home, rather than as café patrons. The first permanent maid café, Cure Maid Café, was established in Akihabara, Tokyo, Japan, in March 2001, but maid cafés are becoming increasingly popular. As they have done so, the increased competition has made use of some unusual tactics in order to attract customers. They have also expanded overseas to countries like China, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Australia, Hungary, the Czech Republic, France, the Netherlands, Mexico, Canada and the United States.

The maid costume varies from café to café but most are based upon the costume of French maids, often composed of a dress, a petticoat, a pinafore, a matching hair accessory (such as a frill or a bow), and . Often, employees will also cosplay as anime characters. Sometimes, employees wear animal ears with their outfits to add more appeal.

Waitresses in maid cafés are often chosen on the basis of their appearance; most are young, attractive and innocent-looking women. Applicants are sometimes tested to determine whether they can sufficiently portray a given character that they will be cosplaying. In order to maintain the cosplay fantasy, some employees may be contractually obligated to not reveal personal information to patrons, to slip out of character or to allow patrons to see them out of costume.

Some maid cafés also have crossdressing males as maids.

Maid cafés were originally designed primarily to cater to the fantasies of male otaku, fans of anime, manga, and video games. They have been analogized as the otaku's equivalent of hostess bars. The image of the maid is one that has been popularized and fetishized in many manga and anime series, as well as in gal games. Important to the otaku attraction to maid cafés is the Japanese concept of moe, which is a character trope in otaku media which describes young, innocent-looking female characters. People who have moe fetishes (especially a specific subcategory known as maid moe) are therefore attracted to an establishment in which they can interact with real-life manifestations (both physically and in demeanor) of the fictional maid characters that they have fetishized. Cafés may also employ a tsundere theme - another character trope which is a subset of the moe phenomenon and refers to a character who is initially cold or hostile before revealing feelings of warmth or affection.

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