Spam From Japan

It’s considered to be a gaijin rite of passage to visit a maid cafe, equivalent to climbing Mount Fuji or visiting Kinkakuji in Kyoto. As I had yet to do so, I decided to visit one while on a trip to Akihabara.

The area around Akihabara was crowded that Saturday. Close to Halloween, there were women standing on street corners in outfits that paired maid dresses with witches’ hats. Most clothing was colourful variations on a traditional French maid uniform, but there were a few schoolgirls. When someone wears a uniform supposed to telegraph that they can’t be any older than eighteen in order to entice me to have a cup of coffee with them…? I am squicked. Please, no more schoolgirls.

The women handing out leaflets for Mononopu (もののぷ) were wearing purple kimono/maid uniform hybrids. If that wasn’t perfect enough, they were equipped with plastic pink samurai armour. The leaflet described the place as a Sengoku era maid cafe and, suddenly, my choice wasn’t so difficult.

Mononopu opened in early May of this year (2009, my time-travelling friends!) and can be found down a deserted-looking alleyway behind an AM-PM convenience store on Chuo Doori. I stood staring at the sign outside for a while before a maid ushered me into the entrance hall and towards the lift. She was accompanying another man and it seems quite common for maids to lead you to their workplace if you have trouble with directions.

I was surprised how normal and cafe-like the interior was. Sure, there were flags depicting the family emblems of different generals of the warring states period. Yes, the decor was black, purple and pink. But the open-plan atmosphere suggested it could have been any cheaper cafe.

They asked me if I would mind sitting at the bar as all other seats were taken and I agreed to this. This might have been a mistake, as I believe it carried an extra charge even though it was a choice between sitting there or leaving. They handed me a menu which included machine-translated English (no human translates ‘Saturday’ as ’soil’) and one of the maids spoke a little English.

I decided to order a coffee and chose the one that had ‘oekaki’ written next to it. When it arrived, the maid asked what I would like her to draw. This baffled me. Surely this was some kind of combined psychology and personality test. Would I be judged on my answer? I said she could choose and she asked me what animals I liked. See the photograph for the result. Thank goodness she gave me a suggestion of what was acceptable, or else I would have asked for a clown eating a banana.

Finally, she blessed it with a purple plastic samurai sword, demanding that it be delicious or else and I was pretty much left to my own devices. Overall, it was definitely an experience worth having once, albeit an expensive one. In total, it was 1000 yen to be seated, plus 700 yen for the coffee.