It's not looking good for Akihabara's maid cafes as customers drift away from paying exorbitant prices for cups of coffee where there are no "extras".
According to a media report, maid cafes started in Akihabara in 2001 and then you get visit on for a drink for a mere ¥500. (These days it is more like double that or more!)
Based on national database figures, there were a mere 132 maid cafes in Akiba at the end of 2011. Since the peak was 282 cafes, this means 150 -- over half -- have closed.
In the decade the world economy has hardly done so well and Japan in particular is ...
Remember how last year we blogged about Soine-ya, the awesome bed-sharing place in Akihabara?
It's a kind of logical mix of enjo kosai (compensated dating) and maid cafes, allowing you to snuggle up and "sleep" (but nothing more) with cute young girls.
They have now opened a new second place in Shinjuku and also offer a new service!
Now you can doze on a lady's butt for the pricey sum of ¥1,000 per minute. That's something like $11 for 60 seconds!
Not sure how much shut-eye I could get knowing my wallet was being emptied in such a way, but I guess it's more the feeling ...
Do you like Akihabara maids?
Who doesn't?!
Even if otaku idol girls are not your thing, everyone can still see that an Akihabara maid cafe lady is a hottie that needs to be given the real customer attention she demands.
Now you can... with just your hand.
The Akiba Maid Onahole has been cloned from a genuine Akibahara maid.
Now you can pump away inside a maid till your heart's content every day -- and without paying the silly table charges they slap on you in Akiba.
We visited one maid cafe last year and were a bit disappointed, to be honest. They were employing ...
Ever wanted to sleep beside a cute girl? Who hasn't, right?!
A new shop, Soine-ya ("bed-sharing"), has just opened in Akihabara that lets you sleep next to a woman for those times when you want to feel the warmth of female flesh beside you.
It costs ¥3,000 for twenty minutes, or ¥6,000 for one hour. You can also pay for the pleasure of sleeping or resting on a girl's lap, which costs ¥1,000 for three minutes.
Apparently customers are similar to the patrons you find in maid cafes and some are prepared to spend ten of thousands of yen.
The shop claims to be the first such in ...
We in Japan are no strangers to the irresistible allure of hot girls in maid outfits, with meido kissas continuing to grow in popularity year-in-year-out, countless manga and romance novels focusing on maid-and-master trysts and the almost-obligatory appearance of every AV idol ever in a maid-themed movie or ten. Perfectly straddling the border between endearing innocence and smouldering sexuality, I don't think I'm alone in thinking maids (quite rightly) occupy one of the top spots in most every guy's list of perfect fantasy girls.
Apparently folks in the West aren't oblivious to the ...
Creator and marketing mad scientist behind AKB48, Akimoto Yasushi, was quoted as saying, "The least popular members are holding us back and we need to get rid of them." due to the less than stellar turn out for Oku Manami's graduation announcement event.
Of course you know Atsuko Maeda, Tomomi Itano and Yuko Ohshima. He's not talking about them. He's talking about the huge chorus of unknowns behind them who do little more than create a cheerleader effect that gets so many otaku hearts fluttering.
Upon hearing this news, quite a few of the "unpopular members" as they are referred ...
Which of these barely legal Japanese Idols would you pick to bark for you?
That's the theme for the new Wonda coffee campaign staring our favorite future porn stars. The rules are simple. When you buy a Wonda coffee, remove the campaign sticker and go to the website and "place your bets" on a roulette wheel full of, you guessed it, the AKB48 girls. If you choose the correct girl, she will say "wan wan!" (woof woof) and you win a dog strap for your cellphone (lame) and a limited edition AKB Wonda coffee with a picture of one of the members on the can.
The winning girl changes ...
Adidas announced their new model "Originals" in true Akihabara style last week with maids.
Katou Natsuki appeared first on stage in a blue maid outfit holding the new model in her hand and greeted all the otaku (geeks) in their very own language, "Sorry for making you wait master(s). Natsuki da nyan!" Nyan is the sound a cat makes. When maids take the stage, the otaku watch. When the maids add a meow at the end of their sentence, the otaku "stand" at attention.
Natsuki, who has previously admitted to being a bit of a cosplayer, broke character after her grand entrance and admitted ...
Nostalgia is a powerful tool and Yahoo reports that super popular idol group Morning Musume is calling back all of our favorite graduates to form a Dream Team to battle the young whipper snappers from groups like AKB48.
Dream Morning Musume's roster includes Nakazawa Yuko, Iida Kaori, Abe Natsumi, Yasuda Kei, Yaguchi Mari, Ishikawa Rika, Yoshizawa Hitomi, Ogawa Makoto, Fujimoto Miki and Kusumi Koharu. Tsuji Nozomi, another former member, was slated to join but after the birth of her second child she's taking some child care leave. While the currently active Morning Musume has an ...
Many of you avid AKB48 fans out there may already know, but the domain name for the uber-popular idol group AKB48 is up for grabs and seems to be selling for ¥10 million ($100,000 USD)!
Zakzak has reported that the licensing for the site will be up for grabs and someone made sure they swooped in and will take their place as soon as the last tenants let their lease lapse. The current owners of the site incidentally are rival idol creating factory Hello Project. Try typing in AKB48.com in. You'll see that it takes you to the homepage of the managing group that brought us the Morning ...
