1/25/2006

Over on the Nikkei Business (in Japanese only) is a new Japanese trend: “princess restaurants.” As I reported about before in “Maids” for anime-addled otaku and in maids, the trend for prevy maid cafes is one of Japan’s only growth industries. Now Japanese women have found their fun at the “Princess Heart.”
The translated gist of the Nikkei report is that the staff wears pink, filly maid clothes treats their customers with a complete “princess feeling.” The restaurant “Princess Heart” has been a hit—its popularity on Saturdays is such that all the 110 seats always reserved.
As you see in the picture, customers sit on “throne chairs” and are treated to the famous speech of Snow White “Mirror, mirror on the wall who’s the fairest of them all” in the “princess room.” The principal target customers are OLs ages 20 to 30 but they do have some women ages 50 to 60 and a few couples (single men are not allowed). Located in Tokyo’s Ginza, prices for a typical meal run 4500 to 5,000 yen per se course (around $50 USD). For more info, visit the Princess Heart homepage.

UPDATE:
Yikes!
I just found another ‘maid cafe’ trend in from the moe women’s point of view … “Butler Cafe”!

Gothic Humberts
PatrickMacias.blogs.com, January 23, 2006
March 2006 will see this opening of the first Butler Cafe in Japan. Name: Swallowtail. Location: Tokyo’s Ikebokuro district, in that increasingly well-known hideaway for female otaku known as Otome Road. URL: http://butlers-cafe.jp.
The establishment, which will be decorated in high old European style, will aim to transport female customers to a world where they are rich beyond belief, or a princess in a royal dynasty …more…