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Maid cafés: The affect of fictionalcharacters in Akihabara, JapanPatrick W. Galbraitha

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Asian Anthropology, 2013

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1683478X.2013.854882

Maid cafes: The affect of fictional characters in Akihabara, Japan

Patrick W. Galbraith*

Cultural Anthropology, 205 Friedl Building, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA

Maid cafes are establishments where waitresses wear costumes and talk to customers.Inspired by dating simulation games, maid cafes first appeared in the late 1990s inAkihabara, Japan, an area where dating simulation games were sold and playersgathered.Maid cafes extended relations with fictional characters frommedia to physicalreality, allowing players to interact with fictional characters in human form, while at thesame time interacting with humans who perform characters. Having proliferated in the2000s, maid cafes depend on dedicated customers, or “regulars.” Because physical andpersonal contact is strictly prohibited, maids only interact with customers “in character,”but regulars nevertheless form long-term, affectionate relationships with them. Maidsare paid to perform affective labor in the cafe, and regulars pay to be there, but affectiverelations cannot be reduced to money relations. Based on five years of ethnographicfieldwork, this article shows how relationships are both enabled by the maid cafe and inexcess of it. Interactions with the maid are not oriented toward the goal of “getting thegirl,” and relations are not private or exclusive. Instead, the maid character – bothfictional and real, alwaysmore than the individual – allows for affective relations that gobeyond the common sense of human relations.

Keywords: Maid cafes; Japan; affect; characters; relationships

“It’s a nice bit of sexual utopia not to be yourself, and to love more in the beloved than onlyher . . . ” – Theodor W. Adorno1

Introduction

This paper explores affective relations in maid cafes in Akihabara, Japan. In these cafes,waitresses costumed as maids serve food, pose for pictures and play tabletop games withcustomers. When not filling orders, the waitresses, called “maids” (meido), wander aroundthe cafe and engage customers in conversation. Despite a huge amount of media exposureand a subsequent tourism boom in the mid-2000s, most maid cafes rely on devotedpatrons, or so-called “regulars” ( joren). This article focuses on the relationships thatdevelop between regulars and maids in maid cafes, which are commoditized spaces.Regulars purchase time in a cafe, along with food, drink, and services, and these purchasesallow for interactions with the maids. For their part, maids are paid to attract customers,ensure a fun and memorable experience, and keep regulars coming back. What occurs inmaid cafes seems to be part of the larger phenomenon that Henry Jenkins calls “affectiveeconomics,” where desires, connections, and commitments are measured andcommoditized (Jenkins 2006, 61–62). In Japan, Akiko Takeyama points out that the

*Email: patrick.galbraith@duke.edu

q 2013 The Department of Anthropology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

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affect economy is nestled in the entertainment industry, which capitalizes on attachmentsto satisfy multiple players in mutual yet asymmetrical ways (Takeyama 2010, 238). Whileone could critique a system of unequal power relations and exploitation, this paper followsthe lead of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, who see potential in affective labor, or“labor that produces or manipulates affects” (Hardt and Negri 2004, 108). Contrary toJenkins’ market-side analysis, Negri argues that affect cannot be measured, and that itremains always unruly (Negri 1999, 88). Affective labor, and more broadly the affecteconomy, is productive of affective relations, a dense and interconnected meshwork thatcannot fully be translated or reduced to wage or commodity relations. This paper seeks tounderstand the affective relations between regulars and maids in maid cafes, which aresites of alternative sociality in contemporary Japan.

It is important to note from the outset that affective relations such as those found in maidcafes are not entirely new or unique to Japan. A comparative historical perspective is offeredby John D’Emilio, who argues that the shift to a culture of mass production and consumptionin the United States undermined the family as a self-sufficient unit of production, at whichtime it took on new significance as an “affective unit” (D’Emilio 2007, 252). However,D’Emilio continues, capitalism created the conditions for the decline of this affective unitwith the growth of factories, rise of wage labor, and migration to urban industrial centers.D’Emilio points out that new identities and orientations of desire emerged “based on theability to remain outside the heterosexual family” (D’Emilio 2007, 253). Important here isnot only that people were alone in the city, but also that they had money to spend and wereopen to new encounters, for example in commercial districts. Alongside this trend emerged astrident ideological defense of the family, which identified scapegoats for social instability.D’Emilio notes that scapegoats included homosexuals and feminists in the United States inthe 1970s (D’Emilio 2007, 255–256), while in Japan at the same time social instability wasblamed on individualistic youth and indulgent consumers (Kinsella 1998, 291–292). Awareof the potential for an ideological order to sanction abuse and abandonment of outsiders,D’Emilio advocates for affective units that go beyond the private concerns of family. Theerosion of family as a support system in capitalist societies since D’Emilio’s writing onlymakes his argument more relevant. While atomization and alienation are commonconditions under neoliberalism, in Japan, family ideology remains remarkably strong(Allison 2009), which has led to much criticism of isolated and unstable youth as immaturefailures. For D’Emilio, the solution, necessary for survival, is “affectional community,” ornetworks of support that do not depend on bonds of blood or the state (D’Emilio 2007, 257).Inspired by D’Emilio’s discussion of commercial districts and establishments fostering suchcommunities in the United States, this paper argues that maid cafes are one example of hownetworks of support have emerged since the bursting of the economic bubble and decline offamily and work groups in Japan since the 1990s.

While D’Emilio focuses on gay identity and maid cafe regulars are primarily menattracted to the waitresses, in both cases new identities and orientations of desire emergedoutside of the heterosexual family. Maid cafe regulars overlap with otaku, or fans ofmanga, anime, and games, who in Japan in the 1990s were considered to be sexuallyimmature, socially irresponsible, and potentially dangerous (Kinsella 1998, 308–311).Applying a labeling approach, Kam Thiam Huat convincingly shows that “otaku” arethose who are thought to take consumption and play beyond the limits of “social commonsense” (shakai-teki na joshiki) (Kam 2013a, 152; Kam 2013b). In Japan, common sensedemands that people fulfill socially productive roles and responsibilities. For Kam,“‘Otaku’ is . . . a label for those who fail . . . by engaging in play that detaches them fromtheir roles and responsibilities” (Kam 2013a: 160). This is compounded by the common

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sense of masculinity, which has it that men should consume and play in ways that aregender appropriate and do not interfere with (reproductive) relationships with women(Kam 2013a, 160–161; Kam 2013b, 58–59). If, as Kam suggests, otaku are considered tobe “failed men,” then this description also applies to maid cafe regulars, whose frequentvisits to maid cafes and affective relations with maids are seen as an escape from the rolesand responsibilities of adult society. While some forms of entertainment are designed tomake a man “feel like a man” (Allison 1994, 8), maid cafes do not offer sexual servicesand prohibit physical and verbal harassment of staff.2 Even regulars never “get” the girl,which contributes to an image of them as passive or failed men. Resonating with Kam’swork on Japan, Judith Halberstam argues that the common sense notion of success incapitalist society includes the achievement of “reproductive maturity” (Halberstam 2011,2). Essentially heteronormative, such common sense forces intimacy into the couple andfamily, the most socially recognized and valorized relationships. Maid cafe regularschallenge common sense notions of success by deferring and denying sexual arousal,which allows affectively charged relations with maids to continue indefinitely. These“unconsummated erotics” are part of what Elizabeth Freeman calls “queer life” (Freeman2002, xv). Relations with maids are not private or exclusive, which allows for theformation of affectional community around them in maid cafes.

The affective charge experienced in interactions with maids is called moe, a keywordamong otaku. One maid explains the concept of moe as follows: “It’s like, the inside ofyour heart is pink. . . . When your heart is a bright, warm color, maybe that feeling is moe”(Galbraith 2009a, 136). Though used incessantly in maid cafes, the word moe has its rootsin online discussions among otaku in the 1990s, where it was slang for an affectiveresponse to fictional characters (Galbraith 2009b). Japan is by no means unique inrealizing the affect of virtual contact (Hardt 1999, 96; Pettman 2009), but the prevalenceand quality of manga, anime, and games has meant that more people enter into affectiverelations with purely fictional entities (Steinberg 2009; Condry 2013, Chapter 7). Asaffective relations with fictional characters became more visible, moe was described as a“phenomenon” in Japan, and the phenomenon overlaps with the emergence of maid cafesin Akihabara in the late 1990s and early 2000s.3 Not only are maid cafes inspired by datingsimulation games (Galbraith 2011), but also waitresses working in maid cafes develop theirown “characters,” which they perform when interacting with customers. Maid cafe regularsoften adopt handle names and perform alternative versions of themselves while interactingwith maids and one another, which contributes to an atmosphere of role-play. Details ofwho the maid and regular are outside of the cafe are withheld – one is not allowed to ask fora maid’s real name or any other personal information beyond her hobbies – and yetrelations are affectionate and remarkably durable. That is, a real relationship develops witha fictional character, who is also real. Taking relationships with fictional characters tooseriously is an aspect of otaku culture that is considered to be antisocial, but it is moreaccurate to say that maid cafe regulars are social in different ways. Even if common sensehas it that maid cafe regulars are failed men, Halberstam reminds us that in failure weimagine “other goals for life, for love, for art, and for being” (Halberstam 2011, 88). Thispaper focuses on those other ways of living and loving, but further argues that they are notnecessarily goal oriented.

The maid cafe, described as “moe space” (moeru kukan) (Galbraith 2009a, 136; Aida2006) allows for interaction with fictional characters, whose affect disrupts common senseand allows for imagining and relating otherwise. For Honda Toru, the maid cafe is a spacefor fantasies to enter reality: “Let’s call it a world positioned on the border of the two-dimensional and three-dimensional. . . . A vague 2.5-dimensional space like a maid cafe is

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Figure 1. This flier, announcing an event at St Grace’s Court in Akihabara, shows the maid as botha costumed waitress and a character. Note that the character is running along a line from “three-dimensional” (sanjigen) toward “two-dimensional” (nijigen). Photograph by the author.

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a place where the two-dimensional concepts and delusions lingering in my soul can easilybe brought into the three-dimensional world” (Honda 2005, 19) (Figure 1).

This intriguing concept of “2.5-dimensional space” (nitengo jigen kukan), or a spacebetween the “two-dimensional” world of manga, anime, and games and the “three-dimensional” world as we know it, is crucial to understanding the maid cafe. Honda seesrelations between and with fictional characters as “thought experiments” (shiso jikken)(Honda 2005, 145), which spill out into the maid cafe (i.e., experimental relations with themaid where human relations are imagined otherwise). For Honda, the maid as fictionalcharacter simulates love in familiar forms, but ultimately challenges the common sense oflove: “For a long time, everyone expected that the common sense belief that ‘love ! three-dimensional world’ would continue, but it has begun to be destroyed by theappearance of the moe phenomenon” (Honda cited in Condry 2013, 194). Positionedbetween the two- and three-dimensional worlds, the maid cafe is a space where“delusions” (moso) inspired by manga, anime, and games can impact relations betweenregulars and maids. If, as Ian Condry suggests, sharing affective responses andattachments to fictional characters contributes to the “emergence of alternative socialworlds” (Condry 2013, 203), then the maid cafe is where those worlds most dramaticallyintersect with and impact the world of everyday human relations.

For this paper, I draw on fieldwork conducted in five maid cafes in Akihabara between2004 and 2009.4 Akihabara is an area of Tokyo associated with stores selling electronics,computers, and, since the 1990s, manga, anime, games, and related merchandise. The firstmaid cafes appeared inAkihabara in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and themajority are stilllocated there. My main site was @home cafe, which I frequented from 2004, shortly after itopened, until 2009, by which time it had five locations and had served over one millioncustomers.5 Though I also interviewedmaids and cafe owners, the bulk ofmy timewas spenthanging out with 50 regulars, who visited a maid cafe at least once a week. Though therewere male and female regulars, I focused on the former for the simple reason that they wereby far themajority.My focus on Japanese,male, regular customersmeans that I do not spendtime on female, casual, or international customers. This bias both constrains and enables myanalysis ofmaid cafes. I thus refer to regulars asmen (he, his, master), while at the same timearguing that interactions in the maid cafe trouble the form of masculinity that has becomehegemonic in postwar Japan. Regulars come from a variety of backgrounds, ranging in agefrom late teens to early forties. They tend to be students and working men with enougheconomic security to come to cafes regularly and spendmoney. Some live alone, others withfamily, but the majority of regulars do not have to support dependents.6 Most are notmarried, though some have girlfriends. Given their social positioning, maid cafe regularsmight be seen as what Lawrence Eng calls “reluctant insiders” (Eng 2012, 99–100), who areboth included in and alienated from the mainstream (majoritarian, masculine) and activelyseek alternatives to it. Like the otaku in the United States that Eng discusses, the maid caferegulars that I encountered in Akihabara were all fans of manga, anime, and games. It isimportant to note that not all maid cafes display this same bias in clientele. Further, not allcustomers are as aware of the origin ofmaid cafes or are as attracted to fictional characters asthe regulars that I spent time with in Akihabara between 2004 and 2009. Having noted thenecessary limitations of fieldwork, I now turn to describing my fieldsite.

What is a maid cafe?

Maid cafes are a representative form of “concept cafes” (konseputo kissa), in whichdecorations and services transform normal cafes into something special. For the sake of

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simplicity, and following local conventions, I generally refer to all concept cafes inAkihabara as maid cafes. Early maid cafes attempted to capture the grandeur of aVictorian mansion, but later shifted to colorful decor and costumes, saccharine music andcute, talkative maids. Often called “entertainment style” or “moe style,” maid cafes like@home are by far the most popular in Akihabara. While male managers and kitchen staffare on the premises, in most cases only costumed waitresses, called maids, appear on thefloor of a cafe. To ensure rapid turnover, a customer’s stay is limited to 60 or 90minutes;there is a seating charge of about 500 yen (100 yen equals approximately one US dollar).When the time is up, regular customers may leave, immediately line up to wait outside thecafe and re-enter once it is their turn (again paying the seating charge).

Before a customer enters the cafe, a maid appears at the door and asks him, “Is thisyour first time coming home?” (gokitaku hajimete desu ka). The question, as awkward inthe original Japanese as it is in translation, captures the ambiguity of interaction in arational, commercial space designed to simulate and foster affective relations. If it isindeed one’s first time, the maid explains the cafe rules, of which there are many: nophotography with a personal camera; no touching; do not ask the maids personal questionsor make sexual advances; each customer must order at least one drink; and so on. @homecafe has these rules printed in three languages on a laminated card that the maid asks theuninitiated to read. After this, the maid ushers in the customer, rings a bell and announcesthe “return” of the “master” (goshujin-sama) and/or “young miss” (ojo-sama).7 All themaids on the cafe floor turn, bow and say in unison, “Welcome home, master”(okaerinasaimase, goshujin-sama), and/or, “Welcome home, young miss” (okaerinasai-mase, ojo-sama). After the master and/or young miss is seated, the maid presents a menuand says, “Thank you for coming home today” (gokitaku arigato gozaimasu).

In a maid cafe, one does not designate a preferred server, and can expect service fromwhichevermaid on the floor is available. Themaid serving any given tablemay change overthe course of the visit, especially during peak business hours. Regulars, however, havefavorite maids and expect to be able to talk to them during visits to the cafe, if not also to beserved by them. This is not an official designation and maids and masters negotiate thisamong themselves. In practice, each maid has a number of regulars who come to the cafe tosee her. Tipping or gift giving to procure service or establish a relationship is not allowed. Inmaid cafes, maids do not sit down next to masters, even when engaging in conversation, butrather stand across from them, often separated by a counter or table. Though bodies may bein close proximity – for example, when the maid leans across the counter so that the regularcan hear her over the cacophony of music and chatter that is characteristic of the space –conversations are short, because the maid cannot neglect her duties as a waitress. The maidmoves around the cafe bussing tables, serving, and chatting with customers and othermaids. Regulars typically come alone specifically to interact with maids, and when nottalking to maids, they patiently wait, watching maids and other customers.

While some maid cafes offer extensive menus, representative meals include omeletrice, Japanese curry, and hamburger steak, and for dessert parfaits, sweet beverages, andcakes. All of these menu items are easy and cheap to make; despite the mediocre quality,prices are notably inflated. The higher prices for food and drink in the cafe reflect the valueof service, which is to say the affective labor of the maids as they interact with customers.Service includes an element of fantasy role-play, which impacts how food is presented andreceived. The narrative of the cafe is that the maids make the dishes offered on the menu,which are said to “have heart” (kokoro wo kometa) or be “filled with love” (aijo tsumatta).(Everyone is fully aware that the part-time kitchen staff, mostly male, make the food, butthere is a willing suspension of disbelief.) When bringing an order to the table, maids kneel

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down to eye level so as not to look down when addressing a master. Formalized and ritualinteractions such as pouring tea or allowing the master to choose the color of his straw areways to keep the maid at the table and get the customer talking to her. The servicefacilitates interaction between the master and maid.

In the case of @home cafe, service is elaborate. When a master orders omelet rice, themaid asks him to think of a word or image for her to write on the food using ketchup(contained in a special bottle with a narrow nozzle to allow for drawing). Oncethe preparation is complete, the maid asks the master to join her in an incantation to makethe food taste better. The most basic incantation is the chant “moe moe kyun,” where kyunis onomatopoeia for a movement of the heart and moe means an affective response (to afictional character). Reinforcing the words of the incantation, both the maid and mastermake heart shapes with their hands, which each holds over his or her left breast and thenmoves toward the food as if a beam of energy is being emitted. If prompted, the maid willexplain that love (from two hearts, the maid and the master) has been injected into thefood. Having completed the ritual, the maid and master both clap in celebration. This ritualis repeated, with small variations, every time the maid delivers an order to themaster.While the service is repetitive and may be boring to those unfamiliar with maidcafes, regulars enjoy this structured, familiar interaction with the maid. There is a rhythmto it, and a pleasure to synchronized bodily movement (and bodily proximity), which canbe observed in the moe moe kyun ritual. Further, the service itself is a touchstone to themaid fantasy, which at @home cafe is inextricably tied to moe and what is called “moemoe service.” The repetition of key phrases and actions invokes the maid character, afiction inspired by the compound movements of manga, anime and game characters.In other words, service in a maid cafe is productive of interaction with the maid as fictionalcharacter, embodied and captured in gestures.

In addition to service based on food and drink orders, interaction can be purchasedwith the entertainment menu, which includes options such as playing a tabletop or cardgame with the maid (500 yen for three minutes) or taking an instant photograph with her(500 yen per shot). Each of these entertainment options allows for interaction in a specificform. For example, when the master purchases a photograph (called a cheki, a materialobject produced by an instant camera), he is asked to go to a special spot at the center ofthe cafe and pose with a maid while another maid operates the camera. Though no bodilycontact is allowed, there is a palpable excitement to being in such close proximity to themaid. This is amplified by the to-be-seen-ness of the interaction between master and maid,which is witnessed by the maid operating the camera, other customers in the cafe at thetime the photograph is taken, the maid who poses with the master and later looks at thephotograph as she personalizes the material object with a written message, the master whoreceives the photograph and gazes at it, and others to whom he shows it. Some regularsmaximize interaction with the maid by ordering multiple photographs over the course of asingle visit. As seen with the photograph, interaction with maids can involve everyone inthe cafe. Approximately once every hour at @home cafe, there is an event called “funtime” (otanoshimikai). (The name also implies anticipation, which is palpable amongregulars who know about the event and look forward to it.) During fun time, maidschallenge everyone in the cafe to a game of rock-paper-scissors. Like the moe moe kyunritual, this game has special gestures and vocalizations that go with it, which everyonelearns and performs together. The competition continues until only one master remains;the winner joins the maids at the center of the room, answers a few questions and receivesa small prize (for example, a paper coaster signed by the maid). What is valued is time tointeract with the maids, to talk to them and have them respond in certain ways.8

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Proscribed and rule-bound interactions with the maid are productive of a relationshipbetween master and maid, which is key to the affect of the cafe. If there is a goal to visitingthe maid cafe, it is not getting the girl or achieving sexual release. Masturbation, and evenvisible erection, would be cause for expulsion from the cafe. There is not an explicit ruleagainst it, however, because such behavior is absolutely unthinkable. In the maid cafe, oneis excited, but needs to control bodily urges, which contributes to a dispersed and open-ended erotic charge (for comparison, see Frank 2002, 121–122, 135–138). Maintainingthe distance between bodies and not attempting to realize the fantasy of intercourse withthe maid allows for continuous stimulation. This masochistic deferral brings to mindBDSM (bondage, domination, sadism, and masochism) as described byMargot Weiss, whosees the rules governing interaction between players as productive of “circuits andexchanges” (Weiss 2011, 62, 79, 82). Along with rules, Weiss points out that the use of“toys” contributes to the development of techniques of pleasure (Weiss 2011, 127). In themaid cafe, costumes and controlled gestures transform waitresses into maids. Further,tabletop games, cameras, and the presentation of food all produce controlled scenes thatindex fantasy relations. Skillful players use objects to set up a circuit, where materialconnects bodies, as well as reality and fantasy, and channels energy between them.AsWeissastutely notes, the circuit depends on commodities, but is nevertheless productive ofintimacy: “Mediated through commodities, such play creates intimate connections betweenpeople; the toy as prosthetic becomes a social prosthesis – a way to produce connection andintimacy” (Weiss 2011, 135). However, unlike BDSM, maid cafe regulars do not make adistinction between “role-playing” and “authentic energy sharing or intimate connection”(Weiss 2011, 66). Rather, masters and maids share energy and forge intimate connectionswhile role-playing, and this is no less authentic or real for the fictional aspects of it.

Purchasing commodities and services allows for the formation of a circuit betweenmasters and maids. Each purchase in the maid cafe provides an opportunity for interaction.The more a regular comes to the cafe and consumes, the more time he spends with themaids, interacts with them and is recognized, which further facilitates interaction.Regulars very seldom mention the cost of visiting a maid cafe, a minimum of 1000 yen(seating charge plus one drink), even if they come multiple times a week or day. Regularscontinued to frequent their favorite cafes over the five years that I conducted fieldwork inAkihabara. Lest their devotion be doubted, many @home cafe regulars I encounteredcarried a “black” membership card, which indicates that they visited the establishment2000 times or more. Repeat visits to maid cafes and getting to know maids and be knownby them contribute to affective relations.

Affective relations with the maid, Part 1: The circle

To better understand affective relations in the maid cafe, it is helpful to contrast it withanother form of entertainment that at first appears similar: the hostess club. At a hostessclub, like at a maid cafe, women are paid to talk with men. More specifically, as related byAnne Allison in her ethnographic account of a Tokyo hostess club based on fieldworkconducted in 1981, women are paid to sit with groups of men, attentively listen, lightcigarettes, pour drinks and facilitate conversation (Allison 1994). By Allison’s estimation,most of the customers in her club were “salary men,” or white-collar workers, who visitedat company expense (Allison 1994, 36). These men’s employers budgeted for suchentertainment not only as a reward for hard work, but also as a way to extend workplacerelations into leisure time. Participation in these outings was semi-mandatory. By sharingtime and activity with one another, men bonded as a group, an affective unit framed by and

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in the service of the company (Allison 1994, 14). Allison notes that the group is definednot merely by corporate belonging, but also by gender performance. In the hostess club,one is a workingman among workingmen gazed upon by a beautiful woman, who affirmsthe value of men’s work. Being flattered and attended to by the hostess pumps up the maleego; men act lecherously, which is said to be in their nature as men (Allison 1994, 19).Despite heavy flirtation and light petting, interactions with the hostess do not end in sexand are not supposed to contribute to a lasting relationship with her (i.e., as friends orlovers). Men do not spend too much time at any one club, which limits the potential forgetting to know any particular hostess (Allison 1994, 16). The visit to the hostess club ismeant to contribute to the strengthening of bonds among a group of workingmen, whocome to the establishment together, experience it together and leave together to find thenext place. A respectable man does not come back to a hostess club alone or see aparticular hostess. Interactions with the hostess do not take men away from roles andresponsibilities at work and home; the hostess is meant to recognize the good man, who isproductive at work and a provider at home. A visit to the hostess club replenishes the manand props up “corporate masculinity.”

If high-end hostess clubs in the 1980swere places for successfulmen, thenmaid cafes inthe 2000s, separated by the tumultuous socioeconomic flux of the 1990s, are places for menwho fail to achieve reproductive maturity. Where the hostess club keeps men away fromhome and connected to work (Allison 1994, 103), the maid cafe seems to keep them awayfromboth. In themaid cafe, there is nowork cohortwithwhich to bond inside the cafe and noone imagined to bewaiting at home outside the cafe. Rather than strengthening bonds forgedoutside the cafe, regulars develop bonds with maids inside the cafe.While visiting a hostessclub alone and regularly might be seen as a sign of failure to perform social roles andresponsibilities, this is the norm at maid cafes. Indeed, one spends an hour in the maid cafe,about the same amount of time on average that one spends in the hostess club, but thenreturns to the cafe again and again to spend more time with maids. In some cases, regularsleave the cafe after the time limit only to immediately line up outside and return to the cafe.In contrast to hostess clubs, regulars do not come to maid cafes to talk to other men, butrather to talk to maids. More fundamentally, in a maid cafe, one is not recognized as a manfulfilling social roles and responsibilities, and is notmade to “feel like aman” (Allison 1994,8).Maid cafe regulars are not the “goodmen” ofAllison’s hostess club, the hegemonic idealof the salaryman.Discussions betweenmaid and regular center on hobbies, and seldomveerinto the territory of work and home life; these real world or social concerns would ruin thefantasy of the exchange. Tellingly, windows in the maid cafe are blocked with curtains tocreate a contained fantasy space, and reflective surfaces such asmirrors are absent. Not onlydoes the maid not prop up corporate masculinity, but she is also not a target for “natural”male advances. Physical and verbal harassment, including touching and even words thatmake maids uncomfortable, are explicitly banned in the maid cafe. The master must masterhis own bodily urges. Further, as a master, he engages in a kind of fantasy role-play asopposed to the self-exposure seen in hostess clubs (Allison 1994, 24). In short, themaid cafeis not productive of durable and respectable social identity. (This is why hostess clubs are“normal” [Kam 2013a, 160] and maid cafes are for “otaku.”)

Despite the apparent applicability of the otaku label with its connotations ofantisociality, maid cafe regulars are social in different ways. To rephrase this, the maid isat the center of emergent alternative social worlds. An example from the field will helpground this discussion. Dragon, age 34, is an audio technician from suburban Tokyo.9

He does fairly well for himself, but tells me that he feels like he has given up on his dreamof becoming a musician. He is single and plays the guitar. Dragon recalls that he started

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coming to @home cafe in 2005. On his first visit, Dragon met Ringo, a maid who wants tobe a singer and is part of @home’s idol group, Kanzen Maid Sengen. Dragon was sooncoming to the cafe whenever he could. Dragon is fiercely loyal, saying of @home cafe,“This isn’t just a place I eat. It’s a place I belong. That is why I always come back here.I don’t go to other cafes. This is where I want to spend my time.” More specifically,Dragon wants to spend his time in the cafe with Ringo, whose work schedule he hasmemorized. In addition to regular cafe visits, Dragon also buys tickets to Kanzen MaidSengen concerts, which take place in small live houses around Tokyo, and boasts that hehas never missed one of Ringo’s shows. During Kanzen Maid Sengen concerts, Ringo’sfans, Dragon included, know the parts of each song where she is featured, at which timethey call out and praise her. This support is vital to Ringo’s success. Dragon tells me thathe wants to help Ringo fulfill her dream to become a singer. He is overjoyed at her growingrecognition – he tells me that one can sing Kanzen Maid Sengen songs at certain karaokeestablishments – which in some ways translates to his status as one of her regulars andsupporters (for a comparison, see Takeyama 2005, 208). Dragon reports feeling rewardedwhen he can use his skills to help set up sound equipment for Kanzen Maid Sengen(he does this for free). In the cafe, Dragon and Ringo speak of shared experiences atconcerts and as musicians (a mutual recognition of dreams), which makes theirrelationship seem special. Dragon tells me that he loves Ringo, but he never confesses toher; he is content to skip the drama and be near her in a continuation of their relationship asmaster and maid. As master and maid, the relationship between Dragon and Ringo is bothcomfortable and exciting; there are limits, but nothing is settled. With this ambiguousdistance between them, there is enough room to move and be moved, for an exchange ofenergy and affection that invigorates life.

At first glance, Dragon seems like a stereotype of themaid cafe regular: failed dream, nogirlfriend, paying for and fantasizing a compensatory relationship with a maid, cannot (orwill not) make a move, a failed man. However, Dragon is only a failure if we evaluate hisrelationship with Ringo by a common sense measure of success based on reaching a goal(often tied to achieving reproductive maturity). The relationship between Dragon andRingo was open-ended and ongoing. If their relationship starts at some point (i.e., boymeets girl), then any line drawn from that point is not vectored toward a point of termination(i.e., getting the girl); the line is not at all straight, but zigzags unpredictably; and thatmovement, the line itself, is the relationship. Dragon loves Ringo, but his love is notcorralled into the socially recognized and valued forms of the couple or family. Rather,Dragon is part of what he calls a “circle” (sakuru) of regulars that has formed around Ringo.The circle is a loose association of people who support someone or something. Relationsbetween any given member of the circle and what they support are not private or exclusive,because others are also in relations with the person or thing and with one another. Apromiscuous affective charge moves through the circle. Not an imagined community orfeeling of belonging to an abstract and homogeneous collective, the circle is a concrete,joyful encounter of heterogeneous bodies. In refusing to confess to Ringo and change theirrelationship, Dragonmaintained his affective relations with Ringo in the circle. This is not afailed relationship between man and woman, but a different one. AsMichael Warner notes,alternative forms of intimacy, including what he calls a “circle,” often go unnoticed in aworld that only recognizes and values intimacy in the couple or family (Warner 1999, 134).A world fixated on achieving these “normal” relations can only see Dragon as a failure, alabel that glosses over the texture and experience of intensity that gives shape to a life.

Though not all of the relations between Ringo and her regulars were commoditized,especially those surrounding her solo live performances post @home cafe, affective

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relations with maids can and do occur in commoditized space. Regulars pay to occupy aspace near the maid, which they co-occupy with others, but that fact does not makerelations any less authentic, real, or affective. Indeed, just as capitalism generally has thepotential to support the growth of affectional communities (D’Emilio 2007), maid cafessupport forms of connection and attachment that go beyond what one might expect ofcommodity-exchange relations. Maid cafes encourage regulars to spend their special dayswith the maids in the cafe. For example, if a regular comes to @home on his birthday, themaids will at no extra charge sing to him, present a free dessert and invite him to pose for acommemorative photograph with the maids. It is easy to dismiss this as a strategy to buildcustomer loyalty, which it most certainly is, but what is its meaning for someone who hasfew chances to feel special and wants to spend the day with his favorite maid, if not also amore loosely defined circle of @home cafe maids and regulars? Having spent years withregulars as I conducted fieldwork in Akihabara, I personally cannot diminish whatI observed to be very real and significant relationships in maid cafes. Maids, like regulars,celebrate their birthdays in the cafe. On these special days, regulars come together to benear the maid and engage her in conversation. At times, the energy and excitement of theconversation draws others in, with more than one person talking to the maid, and thentalking to other regulars. Friendships develop; the circle expands. Some special daysgenerate so much interest and energy that they become events planned and advertised bythe cafe, which sells tickets that cost around 3500 yen. Acknowledging the apparatus thatcaptures some of the value of affective relations between regulars and maids does not,however, diminish the relations themselves, which go beyond the cafe (i.e., Dragon lovesRingo all the time; she is part of his life).

Consider Ringo’s “graduation” (sotsugyo) from @home cafe in 2006. Graduation is aeuphemism for leaving the cafe, which comes after quitting or being fired. At the time ofmy fieldwork, maids earned about 850 yen an hour (close to the national minimum wage)and did not have contracts, but they tended to stay at their jobs for extended periods due toaffective attachments to the cafe, other maids, and regulars (Galbraith 2011, paragraphs 32and 33). The word “graduation” is affectively charged in Japan, where it indicatesinstitutional and life transition. In the context of the maid cafe, graduation meanstransitioning to another life in the “real” world. The graduation event is often the maid’slast time to be seen as a maid – in costume, in character, in the cafe – which serves tointensify interactions. Tickets are sold, and regulars line up for a seat. In such a way, on thenight of Ringo’s graduation, I find myself lined up next to Dragon. After waiting for overan hour, we join the capacity crowd crammed inside @home cafe. Ringo is there, tearyeyed, talking to all the regulars and graciously thanking them for the good times. She hasone last performance, where she sings a solo. I see Dragon sitting and watching her, armsfolded across his chest, nodding in approval. The maid cafe regulars in the room withRingo that night are connected – to the place, to the moment, to one another. Recalling theexperience in a later conversation, Dragon summarizes what we felt as “a sense of unity”(ittaikan). As an example of how affective relations are enabled by the maid cafe but alsoexceed it, Dragon met Ringo at @home cafe, which framed their interactions, but evenafter Ringo left @home, Dragon continued to follow her blog, visit other cafes where shesporadically works, and attend her solo live performances. These performances are sosmall that in effect only her circle attends. At one particularly intimate live show, held in aspare room in an office building across the street from @home cafe in Akihabara, Ringosings for her regulars, and Dragon, beaming with pride, accompanies her on the guitar.At this time, Dragon is not only with Ringo, but also part of her circle, which persists in itssupport. Ian Condry describes how shared attachments can become “platforms” for social

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activity (Condry 2013, 63, 71, 203), which seems like an apt description of the circle.However, Condry’s example, shared affective relations with fictional characters, raisesquestions about the status of the maids as characters.

Affective relations with the maid, Part 2: The character

You cannot have a maid cafe without maids, or waitresses in costumes performingcharacters. In order to ensure privacy and safety, maids are strictly forbidden from givingpersonal information to customers. Customers cannot ask for such information. Whileworking in the cafe, women take on maid names and develop characters. Maids share someelements of character setting, for example being “eternally 17” (eien no 17-sai) and bornfrom flowers or dreams. (Note that maids celebrate their birthdays every year, but are still 17years old. For regulars who know the maids for years, this age is part of the fictional role-play, which does not make the celebration of maids’ birthdays any less meaningful.) Distinctfrom the broader practice of cosplay (costume play; for a review of the scene in Japan, seeOkabe 2012), maids, produce their own characters, which are inspired bymanga, anime,, andgame characters, but are not meant to be any one specific character from such media. Incosplay, mostly practiced by fans, one costumes as an established entity from a favoriteseries, for example Goku from Dragon Ball Z or Serena from Sailor Moon. In contrast, in amaid cafe, one articulates a performance as a maid, which is an amorphous character inspiredby manga, anime and games, but also reflects one’s own character. That is, the maid is both afictional character and a form of self-expression (Galbraith 2011, paragraphs 32 and 33).

The line between fiction and reality blurs even more when we note that costumedwaitresses and maids are often seen in manga, anime, and games, and that maid cafeshistorically emerged out of experiments to allow for interaction with these characters.While origins are always tricky, perhaps the first appearance of the maid character inJapanese media is Black Cat Mansion (1986), an installment of the Cream Lemon series oferotic animation (Azuma 2009, 42). Having spread in manga and anime, the maid began toappear in erotic computer games such as Forbidden Blood Relatives (1993). As eroticcomputer games transitioned into dating simulation games and reached larger audiences inthe 1990s, computer stores in Akihabara carrying these games became destinations forplayers. The direct inspiration for maid cafes comes from a dating simulation game calledWelcome to Pia Carrot!! 2 (1997). In this game, the player negotiates relationships withcostumed waitresses – not identified as “maids,” though the costumes worn by thecharacters resemble those in maid cafes today – in hopes of finding true love. In August1998, a temporary cafe with costumed waitresses appeared at an event called TokyoCharacter Collection as a promotion for Welcome to Pia Carrot!! 2. Young women werepaid to wear costumes from the game and serve customers. The promotion was so popularthat by July 1999 a store in Akihabara called Gamers was hosting a Pia Carrot Restaurant,which continued sporadically until 2000. The first permanent establishment, Cure MaidCafe, opened in Akihabara in 2001. The founder, a fan of the erotic computer games Birdin the Cage (1996) and Song of the Chick (1999), adopted the Victorian-style maidcostumes and mansion setting from these games to Cure Maid Cafe.10 In many ways, thesexual subtext of the maid fantasy, beginning with Black Cat Mansion and continuing toSong of the Chick, contributes to the “unconsummated erotics” (Freeman 2002, xv) of themaid cafe, just as the goal of dating (and bedding) the costumed waitresses inWelcome toPia Carrot!! 2 is derailed in the actual maid cafe.

Associated as they are with manga, anime, and games, maid cafes might seem toprovide the perfect target for criticisms of otaku losing touch with reality and escaping into

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fantasy (Kinsella 1998; Kam 2013a, 2013b), but such judgments are hasty and not entirelycorrect. Writing in defense of otaku, practicing psychologist Saito Tamaki argues that,contrary to popular stereotypes, prolonged engagement with media makes otaku acutelyaware of and sensitive to the difference between reality and fiction (Saito 2011). Indeed,otaku insist on this difference in their attraction to fiction as such. Otaku are notable fortheir attraction to “fictional contexts” (kyoko no kontekusuto), which are separate anddistinct from reality, but can be related to it (Saito 2011, 16–18) (Figure 2).

In his clinical and personal interactions with otaku, Saito notices not only detailedknowledge of the fictional worlds of manga, anime, and games, but also the actual peopleinvolved in production (directors, character designers, voice actresses), actual places usedfor settings, commentary on actual social issues, and so on. Saito suggests that otaku enjoy“straddling . . . layered contexts” (Saito 2011, 25–27), which are both fictional and real.A fictional character, for example, has its own reality, which intersects and overlaps withours when it takes the material form of a figurine or a human wears its costume andproduces its voice. Interacting with the character in the real world does not mean that oneis confused about the difference between fiction and reality, but rather that one enjoysplaying across the boundary and calling it into question.

The maid cafe makes explicit what Saito calls the otaku “orientation of desire” (Saito2011, 30), in that regulars are attracted to the fictional context of manga, anime, and games,but are also aware of how the cafe operates and the actual people who work there. (Recallthe willing suspension of disbelief when buying into the food service provided by maidsand ignoring the kitchen staff.) Regulars enjoy straddling layered contexts to becomemultiply oriented to the maid as both a fictional character and a real person; they workthrough these layers of fiction and reality when interacting with the maid. Given the originsof maid cafes in dating simulation games, it is not surprising that they appeared inAkihabara, known for stores selling these games, or that the majority of customers in theearly days were gamers, who followed the fantasy from the stores to the cafes. MorikawaKa’ichiro suggests that the appeal of maid cafes for these customers was that the costumedwaitresses were part of the fantasy, which alleviated the fear of being judged as perverts orlosers by real women and outsiders (Morikawa 2008, 266). No doubt being surrounded byother men who also played dating simulation games further alleviated the fear of judgment.However, the success of the maid cafe is not as simple as men uncomfortable with womenfictionalizing them in order to facilitate interaction, which implies that otaku are somehowpathologically socially awkward. Rather, it is more accurate to say that regulars enjoylayering fiction and reality, which allows for a different range of interactions with maids.

What sort of interactions are these? Maid cafes can and do routinize interaction into abasic set of prompts and responses, which resemble a dating simulation game. Predictableinteractions and familiarity with the fictional context and the rules of the cafe allow one toknow how the interaction works and to master the system. For example, one regular toldme that the maid cafe had a “game-like feeling” (gemu mitai na kanji) to it. Using theterminology of gaming, this man said that he would “grind,” doing simple repetitiveactivities in the cafe to “level up” and receive the reward of recognition from maids andother regulars. This recognition of effort and achievement is not always part of workadaylife outside of the cafe, which offers an experience that feels like a game. While thisregular was interacting with a costumed waitress, he did not feel intimidated, because healready knew the maid character and the parameters of interaction with her. To explainthis, he adopted the language of gaming, in effect reading the maid cafe as a datingsimulation game, which provided both the fictional context and the basic underlyingstructure of interaction. While this may sound like Morikawa’s argument, a key difference

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Figure 2. This book, introducing the culture of “maids,” places an image of a fictional characternext to the image of a costumed waitress. The catch copy on the cover promises to impart knowledgeon “representative maid anime” as well as maid cafes. Image courtesy of Nihon Shuppansha.

is that the regular interacts with the costumed waitress as a maid, which is both a fictionalcharacter and a real person, and becomes comfortable interacting with her as such. To beclear, the argument is not that the maid is not a human, a woman, or a real person, or thatall interactions with her are routinized so as to become a game played with a fictionalcharacter. As is clear from the case of Dragon and Ringo, affective relations betweenregular and maid do involve aspects of reality (for example, the shared desire to become a

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musician), and interactions are not predictable or contained within the enclosed fantasyspace of the maid cafe (for example, live performances where Ringo sang for her regulars,even after graduating in 2006). What is crucial here is that the master and maidrelationship establishes limits to interaction, or establishes a role to play, which is not tosay that relations are not affectionate or long term. The point is that the affectionalcommunity of the circle and cafe was possible because Ringo was a maid character, bothfictional and real, but in any case in relation to her regulars.

While the case of Dragon and Ringo emphasizes relations with the maid as a realperson, other relations emphasize the fictional character, and not even that of a singlemaid. An example from the field will help clarify. King, age 32, is a massive Japanese manwho claims to be a professional wrestler. A regular at @home cafe, he attends specialevents and live performances, but is not a regular in the same way as Dragon and others inRingo’s circle. King goes to many different cafes, and often. A jovial individual, King hasno problem spending money – sometimes lots of money – in pursuit of a good time. WhenI ask about his splurging behavior, King replies, “I am not so old or weak. Things willwork out.” In a position where he apparently does not have to worry about money, King isable to pursue his passions, chief among which is a particular character type calledtsundere (icy-hot). Widely recognized in manga, anime, and games, tsundere indicates acharacter that is typically cold, distant, or aloof, but at certain moments reveals her soft,sweet, and caring side. There is often an added expectation of deep affection that cannot bedirectly expressed and remains hidden behind the mean exterior. King tells me that “littlesister” (imoto) and “young miss” (ojo-sama) characters are often tsundere.

In addition to watching anime and playing dating simulation games that feature suchcharacters, King pursues his passion for tsundere in maid cafes in Akihabara. For example,King frequents a cafe called Nagomi, where costumed waitresses take on the role of littlesisters. The brother–sister relationship is suggested by the waitresses speaking in plain orcasual Japanese, which is reserved for members of one’s ingroup (and is not widely used inthe service industry in Japan), as well as the rule that all male customers are called “bigbrother” (onı-chan). For his part, King comes to Nagomi for the “tsundere service,” whichcomes as part of the “arrangement” or “promise” (yakusoku) of brother–sister relations.When King comes to Nagomi, the little sisters immediately ask, “Why are you here? Don’tyou have somewhere else to be?” Deflecting the implied criticism that he is a grown manand ought to be at work, King says he is here to see his little sister, and can think of nobetter place to be. The little sisters mutter, sigh and call him hopeless. Finally allowed overthe threshold, King has to find his own seat as one of the little sisters grabs some baggedsnack food and tosses it at him. King did not order these snacks, though he will be chargedfor them. He does not want the snacks, but nibbles on some seaweed-flavored chips toavoid invoking the wrath of his little sister, who is already put out by his unexpected visitand is not in the mood to cater to his tastes. During the visit to Nagomi, King is relentlesslybullied and belittled, up to the point of being called “gross” (kimoi). (It is hard to imaginesomething further from Allison’s hostess stroking the ego of the corporate workingman.)However, when King gets up to leave, the little sister says, “Are you going already? It’stoo soon! Don’t leave! Stay and talk to me.” The shift from “icy” (tsun) to “hot” (dere)reveals her “true” feelings, namely love for her brother and a desire to be with him. In alater discussion, King explains the scenario to me as follows. Because his visit wasunexpected – the middle of the afternoon on a weekday – his little sister was not prepared.This, in addition to being at home alone with her brother, contributed to embarrassment;though she was pleased that he wanted to be with her, she ended up acting “bratty,” whichshe regrets. Reality check: any visit by a customer to a cafe is to some extent unexpected

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for waitresses, though King came to this establishment enough that his appearance wassomewhat predictable; the waitresses were in fact prepared for customers like King tovisit; King is not related to the waitress; they are not at home together, and in any case arenot alone in the cafe. King interprets the events of his visit in terms of fantasy role-play.Based on this, harsh words are for him a sign of how much his little sister cares for him(i.e., two people have to be close to be so candid). Certainly not everyone who is calledgross by a costumed waitress will respond that the experience is “moe,” but King did,because he interpreted it as tsundere character interaction. Mei, who worked at Nagomi,notes that tsundere service is not on the menu and is something that little sisters only do forregulars who are attuned to the fantasy.

King does not stop at Nagomi and explicit tsundere service, however. He also goes to amaid cafe called Cos-cha, where maids pour cayenne pepper on his food, mix fermentedsoy beans into his drink and slap him on the face when he cannot choke it down. Kingexplains that the maids slap him because he does not appreciate the food and drink thatthey work so hard to make. (While this is mostly a reference to fantasy role-play, the maidsthat treat King this way know him as a regular and do put special effort into torturing him.)Despite King’s romantic explanation for the slap, he in fact ordered it as part of a“punishment game” (batsu gemu) that cost 2500 yen. King is attracted to the game, andwilling to pay for it, because it is evocative of tsundere character interactions. At morestandard maid cafes, King gravitates toward what he calls tsundere-type maids, who arebratty and usually have pigtails. King does not call them pigtails, but rather “twin tails”(tsuin teru), a term originally used to refer to an aspect of character design in manga,anime, and games. King informs me that characters with twin tails are typically tsundere,as well as characters voiced by the actress Kugimiya Rie, including Shana from Shakuganno Shana (2005–2006), Louise from The Familiar of Zero (2006) and Nagi from Hayatethe Combat Butler (2007–2008). It is fascinating that King, in pursuit of tsundere, readshairstyle in a maid cafe in terms of the visual language of character design, which heexplains by referring to an actress who voices characters for popular anime. (This is a greatexample of knowledge of fictional and real contexts and the ability to relate them, whichSaito attributes to otaku.) Maids are not only aware of character types from manga, anime,and games, but in fact rely on them when producing their own characters. Mei, forexample, is an only child and by her own estimation not at all bratty, but when working atNagomi she put her hair up in twin tails and performed tsundere as a little sister. When Iask about her inspirations for her maid character, Mei answers that she is a fan of manga,anime, and games, where she picked up her “basic knowledge.” This knowledge is sharedby regulars such as King, who seek tsundere in the cafe and read it in the look and mien ofmaids such as Mei. In the reading of twin tails, we see King, a maid cafe regular, engagedin a form of cognitive labor that entails making connections to manga, anime, and gamesthat animate the maid character and contribute to the affective force of her movement. Justas with Dragon’s relationship with Ringo going beyond @home cafe, King’s love oftsundere characters begins before he enters the cafe and continues after he leaves. Whilesome of the value of his affective relations is captured by Nagomi or Cos-cha, it iscertainly not contained, as this love is part of his life. Unlike Dragon, King is notaffectively attached to the character of a single maid (Ringo), but rather to a character type(tsundere). To put it another way, his affective relations are with a type of fictionalcharacter called tsundere, which is seen in manga, anime, and games; Mei’s physical bodyis another medium to express the character (Figure 3). The case of King and tsundereprovides an example of what Dominic Pettman calls a “love vector,” where “distributedqualities [are] splashed across a multitude of people, characters, images, and avatars”

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Figure 3. A fanbook introducing Schatz Kiste, a maid cafe in Akihabara. The catch copy reads,“This is not a maid cafe. It’s a work of three-dimensional animation” (koko wa meido kissa dewanai,sanjigen anime sakuhin da). Following from this example, one might say, “Mei is not a maid. She isa three-dimensional tsundere character.” Image courtesy of Tomoshibi no Tomodachi.

(Pettman 2009, 201). The other way around, the maid character is always in excess of theindividual; when King interacts with maids such as Mei, his affective relations are with amultitude of fictional characters (all those that are tsundere, which extends across manga,anime, games, and more).

As a “2.5-dimensional space” (Honda 2005, 19), the maid cafe allows the fantasy ofmanga, anime, and games to enter into everyday reality and impact performances and

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relationships. The maid’s performance is inspired by fictional characters, and regularscannot be masters without maids. This relational role-play, based on overlapping fictionaland real contexts, does not always or necessarily map onto gendered difference.11 Tellingly,one maid explains that she does not look at regulars as “men” when interacting with them inthe maid cafe, but rather always as “masters” (Galbraith 2009a, 134). Ironically, as a masterin the maid cafe, the regular is freed from the expectations of male mastery, which opens updifferent possibilities for living and loving outside the demand for reproductive maturityembodied in the company or family man. Glossing the work of Gilles Deleuze and FelixGuattari, Ronald Bogue calls the maid an antifamilial or anticonjugal type that offers “newpassages of movement, new lines of flight” (Bogue 1989, 114). Applying this insight to arelationship like the one between Dragon and Ringo proves revealing. First, though therelationship took place in a maid cafe called @home, it was antifamilial, which is to say thatit took place outside of the family and was not oriented toward the goal of “long-termdomestic couplehood recognized by the state” (Freeman 2002, xi). Further, the relationshipwas anticonjugal, which is to say that it was not oriented towards the sexual union of thecouple. Instead, the relationship between Dragon and Ringo was characterized by the“unconsummated erotics” (Freeman 2002, xv) that are part of queer life, a relationship that isalso a zigzagging line of flight. Affective relations that were not private or exclusive (forexample, the circle) opened new passages of movement. Finally, Dragon was in arelationship with Ringo as a maid – both a real person and a fictional character. Dragonloved Ringo as a maid, which is to say that he loved both her and something more than her.

While the focus of this paper is maid cafe regulars, a final note about affective labor isin order. The maid character is key to affective relations in the maid cafe, and it is the jobof the costumed waitress to articulate and perform her character. While Amy Flowers,writing about phone sex workers, comments on the fraught relationship between characterand self (Flowers 1998, especially Chapter 5), and Arlie Russell Hochschild raises theissue of alienation of flight attendants from their own emotions (Hochschild 1983, 13, 19),the maid cafe offers a slightly different picture. To begin, maids do not consider what theydo to be sex work, and in any case, unlike Flowers’ informants, do not doubt their owndecency or that of customers. Further, working as a maid is a part-time job that youngwomen choose not because the money is great – maids only earn 850 yen an hour, which isequivalent to working at McDonald’s – but rather because the work intersects with theirinterests. Ringo wanted to be a singer and saw an opportunity with Kanzen Maid Sengen at@home cafe; she achieved great success, and remained a singer to her circle of regularsand supporters even after she left the cafe. Unlike Hochschild’s informants, maids arenot trained and disciplined by corporate employers to control themselves and theirrelations with customers. Rather, the maid articulates her own character and interactswith customers in her own way based on her own understanding of the maid character.Maids do perform standardized affective gestures (the moe moe kyun ritual, forexample), and this is part of a strategy by cafe owners to attract men and keep themcoming back, but in fact no one completely owns the character and can control itsmovements. The maid cafe attempts to capture the value of affective relations, butcalling this exploitation of laborers and customers overestimates the power of cafeowners and underestimates the agency of maids and regulars, who are involved incomplex affective relations with and through characters. It is to my mind unnecessaryand also impossible to disentangle Ringo from her maid character, and we should notdiscount her affective relations with Dragon – himself a bit of a character, right downto his choice of a fantastic, un-Japanese sounding name – the circle of regulars andindeed her own character. The maid cafe is an alternative social world for not only

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regulars, but also maids. Mei, a graduate student pursuing a degree in chemistry,referred to working at Nagomi as a time outside of the reality of work, school, andhome. Note that although Mei is working part time (baito) at the cafe, she does notconsider it “work” (shigoto), which in Japan can imply an occupation that definessocial identity. In this alternative social world, which Mei calls the “maid world”(meido no sekai), she feels that she has gained access to another life with, through, andas her character. Maids are paid for their work in the cafe, and regulars pay to spendtime with them in the cafe, but the exchange of money is only the beginning ofaffective relations that are mutually fulfilling, though not always symmetrically so(Takeyama 2010, 238).

Conclusion

In this paper, I have argued that maid cafes are one example of the “affectionalcommunities” (D’Emilio 2007, 257) emerging as an alternative to family and work groupsin contemporary Japan. Where Anne Allison draws attention to social alienation leading tointimacy with “constructed realities” (Allison 2006, 83-88), I have argued that the maidcafe provides a frame for affective relations that depend on sharing constructed realities orfictional contexts.12 The maid cafe evolved out of affective relations with fictionalcharacters in the 1990s, described as the moe phenomenon and emblazoned in datingsimulation games, which inspired maid cafes. It is telling that maid cafes are referred to as“moe space” (Aida 2006; Galbraith 2009a, 136), where moe means an affective responseto fictional characters. In maid cafes, waitresses not only wear costumes, but also performcharacters inspired by manga, anime, and games. As a “2.5-dimensional space” associatedwith manga, anime, and games, the maid cafe allows “delusions” to open into everydayreality and disrupt common sense (Honda 2005, 19, 142, 145–152). Affective relationswith the maid are not private or exclusive, or even limited to the human, but insteadexpand out into alternative formations such as the circle (in the case of Dragon and Ringo)or love vector (King and tsundere). Insofar as they are not oriented toward gaining sexualaccess or release, relationships between maids and regulars are characterized by“unconsummated erotics” (Freeman 2002, xv). Maid cafe regulars are considered bycritics to be highly irregular men, even failures, but this paper has argued that maid caferegulars are imagining other ways of living and loving (Halberstam 2011, 88) that are notoriented toward achieving reproductive maturity and are not limited to the couple orfamily. In maid cafes and affective relations with maid characters, we can observe theemergence of alternative social worlds.

Notes

1. Adorno 1998, 75.2. While acknowledging the adoption of the maid uniform in pornography and the sex industry,

I found no evidence of sexual services being offered at maid cafes in Akihabara, Japan,between 2004 and 2009.

3. Uno Tsunehiro notes that the late 1990s, following the bursting of the economic bubble, was atime when people in Japan were seeking “unconditional approval that does not rely on socialself-realization” (Uno 2011, 19). The rise of anime and games focusing on romanticrelationships and downplaying society seems to have been a part of this trend. However,relationships with fictional characters, I will argue, is not antisocial, but rather a different formof social realization.

4. This research was conducted while I was a graduate student at Sophia University and theUniversity of Tokyo. These Japanese institutions did not require special procedures to work

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with human subjects. Instead of external review, I found that I needed to be personallyreflective about the ethics of my practice while negotiating relationships in the field. Spendinga great deal of time in five cafes, I naturally introduced myself to other regulars, gave them myname card, explained my research and asked if they would allow me to hang out with and learnfrom them. Only those who agreed are included in this write-up. When conducting interviews,I used a digital recorder to ensure accuracy. Before recording, I again explained my project toinformants and asked if I could quote them. Only those who agreed are included here. I alsoasked informants how they would like to be identified, and they provided me with pseudonyms,which I use throughout. In most cases, regulars exclusively used handles while in the cafe, andpreferred to be identified this way in everyday interactions and in my write-up. All interactionswere conducted in Japanese, and translations are my own. When I was unsure of myunderstanding, in terms of either translation or interpretation, I would share my notes or showthe transcript to the informant concerned ask for clarification. Happy to oblige, informantssometimes went further to change their statements or ask that certain things be struck from therecord. I respected their wishes, with the understanding that this also was a negotiation of ethicsthat limits what can be included in my write-up.

5. This number was reported in a press release from LiNK-UP, the company behind @home cafe.They estimate that the number of visitors had swelled to 1.5 million in 2010. See ,http://animeanime.jp/release /archives/2010/04/homecafe150.html. .

6. One regular called himself a “single aristocrat” (dokushin kizoku), which he explained assomeone with a decent income that does not have to be spent on family, who thus can indulgepersonal interests.

7. Ojo-sama, translated here as “young miss,” actually means “a daughter from a decent family”(Inoue 2006, 202). While “master” perhaps implies a higher social status, a comparison of thescripting of female fantasy in maid cafes falls outside the scope of this paper.

8. The formula of the maid cafe is made alarmingly explicit, almost parodic, in what Royal Milkcalls “soul care” (kokoro no kea), where customers pay 6000 yen for 30minutes ofuninterrupted talk time with a maid. Mikan, who works at Royal Milk, explains that mostcustomers who pay for soul care want to share their hobbies, or rather to have someone listenand show interest (see also Saito 2011, 40-41). Soul care is a condensation of the pattern ofmultiple visits and short conversations with a maid, who gets to know the customer over timeand, perhaps, comes to care about them.

9. “Dragon” and all other names used to refer to informants are pseudonyms. In most cases,informants already exclusively used handles when in the maid cafe. For example, Dragoncalled himself “Doragon,” a phonetic sounding out of the English word Dragon, and all themaids and regulars used this name when interacting with him. Though, Dragon, like manyother regulars, used a rather fantastic and un-Japanese sounding name, it was his “real” name inthe context of the maid cafe, and he asked me to refer to him this way in everyday interactionsand in my write-up.

10. This information comes from a personal conversation (August 14, 2010) with Nakamura Jin,who knows the founder of Cure Maid Cafe.

11. In this approach to role-play, I intend to draw parallels to John D’Emilio, who argues for“sexual expression as a form of play” (D’Emilio 2007, 256).

12. In her discussion of Pokemon, Anne Allison points out that the social and economic unrest ofmillennial Japan has led to the “character therapy age,” where people become intimate withfictional characters and derive from this a sense of wellbeing (Allison 2006, 91; see also Honda2005). While one might question how “real” intimacy can be with fictional characters, IanCondry argues that “It makes more sense to think of media’s reality (or actualization) in terms ofan emotional response than in terms of a physical object” (Condry 2013, 71). Here I would like tosuggest that the maid character, like media, is real based on affective relations with her. For afundamental questioning of the “reality” of human relations, see Pettman 2009 and Saito 2011.

Notes on contributor

Patrick W. Galbraith received a PhD in Information Studies from the University of Tokyo, and iscurrently pursuing a second PhD in Cultural Anthropology at Duke University. He is the author ofThe Otaku Encyclopedia (Kodansha International, 2009), among other books. He can be reached atpatrick.galbraith@duke.edu

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