Is this what all Japanese maid cafes will be like in the future?
With Japan’s population aging at an alarming rate, one event in the city of Kiryu in Gunma demonstrates that it doesn’t matter if you’re young at heart.
A maid cafe is open only once a month but is attracting attention and popularity from both customers and national media. This is not like a maid cafe in Akihabara, where you are likely to be served by a very young and cute lady. The maids are all aged 65 or older.
According to a report in the Yomiuri, people are coming around Japan to meet the maids.
At the year’s first event on January 4, seven female volunteers aged between 65 and 72 served a menu of low-calorie lunchboxes. When asked by patrons to pose for pictures, they dutifully make a heart pose with their hands.
The cafe event, called Meido Kissa Shangri-La (here “meido” is a pun, sounding like “maid” but written with the kanji for the Buddhist underworld, and “kissa” means a cafe), is run by a local nonprofit called Kids Valley involved in activities for senior citizens and children.
Held since last July once a month on a Saturday morning on the ground floor of the building where the nonprofit is located, the events attract around 40 people, plus some people in their teens and twenties from as far as Tokyo and Osaka who heard about the event on social media. We wonder if these visitors include any jukujo fetishists?
“I learn a lot when talking to older customers,” commented a 65-year-old woman who ordinary works as an after-school child support assistant but has been volunteering as a maid since December. “And young women tell us how cute we look, which restores our youthful vitality.”
According to a 40-year-old man who works at the nonprofit behind the project, there are lots of people who want to join the maids. “I feel the energy of older folks who want an outlet to do stuff.”
