And today, Zero Hedge has another version of ANA ad for me - "Find Your Angle".
In addition to the top banner, there is also a square banner on the right side, with a young girl with a blank face with color-contact-lense-augmented blank eyes in a maid costume.
For those who don't know about "maid cafes" in Japan that have cropped up in the past 10 years or so, they are outfits where customers can engage in a conversation, play games with young girls (as young as high school students) and women dressed as maids who work at these outfits. Some cafes offer alcohol beverages. There are "maid cafes" specialized in giving hand and foot massages. Some apparently give more than hand and foot massages.
Maid cafes like this one in Akihabara say "We're waiting for the return of our masters".
I personally find it very insulting and demeaning for girls in particular, but if you read Japanese commentaries on the subject, you'll find these cafes are lauded as empowering for young girls and women.
(And they wonder why women don't marry and the birth rate is low in Japan?)
These "maid cafes" have totally ruined my favorite town Akihabara, as far as I'm concerned, which used to be just the place for tech geeks of all ages.
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14 comments:
And here we can meet those wonderful characters ...
http://letsdojapan.com/#en
The 360 video almost gave me a seizure.
Akihabara maid cafe has iPhone app...enjoy, Areva.
http://www.crunchyroll.ca/anime-news/2013/02/09-1/maid-cafe-app-released-in-japan
Well, there are about 60 maid cafe in Akihabara due to reason that shy tech geeks are easy victim for experienced maids that charge cover fee, drink fee, extra conversation fee...etc. Let us say there are 5 to 6 girls for every cafe. Simple mathematics is telling us there is unusual amount of desperate naive geeks in Akihabara who don't know where to spend their money.
They opened one in the USA but it failed miserably after only four months.
At least it's not a "cuddle cafe" where lonely geeks can ask to lay their head on a girl's butt cheeks while they read manga for an expensive while. Pathetic.
Akihabara m's
What do you expect from a society that is institutionally sexist and misogynistic? Japanese men are dumbasses anyway and treat women with disdain .... i know i have to live here and witness it.
How a nation can have so many fetishes and hang ups about sex at the same time, I do not know. Talk about "not cool".
This scene is truly sad.
Aftermath of the bubble years, a generation with no prospects and no obvious path forward. Does anyone in Japanese politics ever visit this area, or pay attention to the desperate needs of the younger generation?
Netudiant, the answer is, non, non, et non. In Japan nobody is to create discomfort for anyone else regardless whether they themselves are in discomfort or not, and all desires are to be appeased in the most polite and nonchalant ways(however lame). Remember though, the bigger the front, the bigger the back. The state of Zen is just an illusion.
It is taboo to go about talking of youth with no prospects(how insulting and disturbing!). They will resent you and ostracize you. Shut up, do not question the teacher(display one-upmanship and cause chagrin), read your manga and spend your money on idiotic shit to keep the economy going.
What ANA executives and Prime Minister Mr. Abe 安倍 晋三 think "cool Japan" looks utterly cheap and tacky.
The Japanese anime and pop culture tends to be popular among the populations that are juvenile and chauvinistic in general. If JP officials think this would revive Japan's global position, they are more hopeless than anyone can fix.
So sad, once a nation of advanced technology and engineering, now this is all they can show to the world.
No wonder why Japanese women do not want to get married and have more babies. In that aspect, I think Japanese women are far smarter.
oh yes Japanese women are far smarter, they are the best speakers of English and actually think more deeply than the guys, Japanese men are weird , perverted, strange and creepy and beleive me that is not a generalization it is a common fact.... the salarymen types are just automatons with no brains...
Didn't see this post until now.
Regarding this paragraph:
"I personally find it very insulting and demeaning for girls in particular, but if you read Japanese commentaries on the subject, you'll find these cafes are lauded as empowering for young girls and women."
Different cultures have different ideas of what is empowering. I personally can't see how maid cafes are empowering, but there are many things that are considered "sexist" in countries like America, but are considered normal or powerful in other countries. When it comes down to it, it's up to the perception of each culture. Just because it's sexist to us doesn't mean it's sexist to them.
Also, regarding this sentence:
"And they wonder why women don't marry and the birth rate is low in Japan?"
There are many reasons for that, and some are not Japan=only problems. I think the main reasons are financial situations created by the government (ie. money required vs money earned), and unrealistic expectations by both men and women. It's at a point where there are far more pros to staying single, and relationships aren't worth the hassle.
By unrealistic expectations, I'm referring to idealization of the opposite gender. It's because of society's obsession with perfection and it's an increasing problem in "first world countries", although not yet as significant elsewhere as in Japan.
If anything, I wouldn't be surprised if the birth rates in other countries remain high because people in other countries don't consider consequences and don't care if they get themselves or other people pregnant.
On a side note, there's also the issue of Japanese mothers having children with foreigners and then running back to Japan with the child. From what I've read here and there, Japanese women seem to prefer foreign men and often expect them to be rich. That kind of attitude and behavior isn't helping Japan's birth rate either.
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