Further investigation was warranted on this whole crazy maid thing, and not just because I went to Akihabara again on my way back from that side of the Yamanote the other day.

I still don’t think I want to go into a maid cafe, but right outside of JR Akihabara station, there were plenty of maids handing out flyers and stuff. One such flyer was actually for some service where you can “Go on a date with a maid,” and she’ll follow you around and go to restaurants, arcades, and the other places in Akihabara that the nerds love so much. Not prostitution, I guess, since at least according to the flyer, those kinds of services aren’t included. But it is Japan, so I’ll bet there’s something even more shady about it. The cost was like 6000 yen for an hour, so for a buck a minute, only the rich and super-pathetic nerds can afford it.

Back to my observations outside the station. I was there around 7:30PM, and hanged around the outside of the station for about 15 minutes. During that timespan, I saw the following:

• 6 maids “working” handing out flyers.
• 4 maid cosplayers, i.e. dressed up just for fun.
• 1 person dressed as a cat. I couldn’t tell if it was a male or female.
• 1 wannabe idol singer, trying to peddle her CD by shaking her ass.
• 1 old man sweeping the street (more on him later)

The old guy I was talking about was the resident floor-sweeper I guess, maybe a groundskeeper. There is also a possibility that he was a homeless guy who just likes to sweep. Either way, he was wearing a sweat towel and a Moe~ (萌え) shirt that also said “Akiba in Japan.” After sweeping once, he took a break and went over to the little kiosk near the station and bought a flask of whiskey. While drinking his whiskey, he went over to talk to some chicks, who surprisingly didn’t run away and instead talked to him for a few minutes.

That was pretty much the end of my short investigation into Akihabara again. I don’t understand it really, and will likely never try.

Please also note that it seemed like the average age of the maids was like 15.