For the reason of my birthday I was searching in some cosplay webs for a present for myself. Then I ended in a place that was not related at all with the prince-like atmosphere of the school uniform of Kuran Kaname I was looking for, this is, a site of maid costumes (laugh). I cannot have a straight opinion of this so-called maid culture. The only maid cafe I went was a normal place where the prices of food where expensive and the maids wore cute long black dresses with white aprons that did not call so much attention. The place I went of course was, a cafe where male and female costumers attend, enhancing more the cuteness and elegance (if I can call it like that) that the image of the maid has. If the thing that you are searching is another thing, of course there are a lot of options in Tokyo, but I cannot find the sense of all that, even in the most exotic fantasy I can imagine.

The costumes shown in the site I visited varied depending on the purpose, some of them were very nice and kawaii and others where sexier and leaving few things to the imagination. The store indicated that they sell costumes that real maids wear (laugh), and yes, we can say the girls of the maid cafes follow that fashion. Then I had a moment of eloquence and did a five-minute-research about the topic, finding that here in Japan there is a thing called the Nihon Maid Association, an place that, among other things, offers official recognition of a variety of skills and techniques that a real maid is supposed to have (that is, manners, knowlegde of cleaning, keeping a house, take care of their masters and so). If I did not read wrong, they have three ranks (first, second and third kyu), being the third the lowest and proof of the adquisicion of the most basic skills, and the second and first the more advanced levels. As far as I know one can begin being a maid on one of this famous cafes or places alike, but there are another kind of services, beyond all the dark limits of this culture, and it is simply being a housekeeper that works for a normal person or family, with the only different detail that there is no old and loud woman doing your laundry, but a cute young girl in her 20's, dressed like a french maid that treats you as her master (ご主人様= goshujin-sama). Since I am more interested in butlers that maids (woman or men, but butlers at the end), this fact surprised me completely. I knew this by a link that was in the site of the maid costumes before- it is the same company. So they sell costumes but also offers you the service of contract a maid to take care of your children or clean your office or house. From the costumer's reviews it is pretty obvious that many of them are men, and seeing the pose of the models of the costumes of their sister site, everything has a very questionable taste. But all that those maids do is cleaning your house in a more kawaii way (they have butlers too it seems, but there are no photos of them). For me, I think I cannot contract anyone to cleaning my house, I don't care if they are cute or not. The sole idea of someone that I don't know is touching my personal belongings or clothing makes me feel sick. But the worst thing are the prices! Who is willing to pay more than 300 dolars for two hours of kawaii cleaning? This is crazy. And sad. Knowing how the average japanese-male-otaku looks, because they are not precisely graceful bishounen, I feel very sorry for this nice girls that have to work for them. But the weird fact is that a lot of them choose this path and enjoy it.

Labels: butlers, cosplay, maids, moe