More
than 10 years have passed since the first maid cafe was born in
Akihabara... Maid cafe enthusiasts around me says that a maid cafe
is no longer a craze but has reached a realm of culture.... If you
see various maid cafes from cultural standpoint, you see unique or
sometime unexpected lineage between them. Yes, maid cafes are not
randomly generated entities, but rather evolving into new forms as
new cafes open. I believe Maileaf, which is a young maid cafe that
has been open only for an year or so, can be entitled as a legitimate
successor of maid cafes.
Maileaf
is located in Osu, close to Nagoya which is a capital of Aichi
prefecture. Yes, it is not in Akihabara, or even in Tokyo.
Akihabara is where the fist maid cafe was born. Ikebukuro is also
famous for maid and butler cafes. Some of you might know
Nippon-bashi in Osaka, which is another famous otaku district in
west. Why Osu? Well, Osu is actually another relatively large otaku
district in Japan. Located in between Tokyo and Osaka, it is
building up its unique otaku culture. It is recently gaining
popularity by international cosplay summit which takes place in
summer. Also, Osu has played an important role in a history of maid
cafes. According to what I heard from other maid cafe enthusiasts,
“Okaerinasaimase Goshujin-sama”, or “Welcome back, my master.”
which is the most popular and widely used greeting in maid cafes, was
first used in M's Melody, the oldest maid cafe in Osu.
So,
why do I call Maileaf as a legitimate successor of maid cafes? Well,
this cafe has ALL. It is basically a classical style maid cafe,
green but long skirt maid outfit with calm interiors. Wide variety
of tea selections and excellent sweets. Excellent for classical maid
lovers who enjoy calm environment. Well, then those of you who
smokes and enjoys alcohol shall not go here? No. There is a smoking
area upstairs where there is a bar counter and there is a maid
working inside the counter. Yes, this cafe has both characteristics
of classical maid cafes and moe-style maid cafes. You can enjoy tea
and sweets like in classical maid cafes, but also enjoy alcohol and
have chat and take pictures with maids like moe-style maid cafes.
Usually, it is difficult to combine both characteristics into one
cafe, but this cafe has succeeded to combine them under excellent
balance.
How
was it possible? As far as I know, one of the “keepers” (4 head
maids are called “house keepers”) who was also a founding member
of this cafe, was a HARDCORE MAID CAFE ENTHUSIAST. Worked as a maid
herself, she has gone to not only Osu maid cafes, but also to the
maid cafes in Nipponbashi and Akihabara. With her counterparts, she
wanted to combine good parts of different maid cafes into this new
maid cafe. So far, I should say they have COMPLETELY SUCCEEDED.
Maileaf is now the most evolved maid cafe that has combined blood of
various maid cafes in three otaku districts in Japan.
If
you are over in Japan and passing by Nagoya, I highly recommend you
to stop by Osu and visit Maileaf and other maid cafes. It is a
definitely new frontier for maid cafes....you might encounter another
new evolution of maid cafe culture.
Maileaf
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