When I was in Tokyo for Golden Week I visited several districts.  Shibuya, Shinjuku, Harajuku and other famous areas I was able to explore and see what Tokyo had to offer.  One district I personally had a lot of fun at was Akihabara.  Of course this is known by some as the otaku capital of the world, however I was curious to see if this was actually the case.  To my great surprise, it was exactly what I expected it to be.  People looking in shops that were plastered with pictures of AKB-48 members, talking to their friends or themselves about how cute they looked in their school girl uniforms.  The streets lined up with young looking women dressed in maid costumes beckoning people into their café.  I had always had a stereotype that maid cafes were visited by creepy otaku Japanese guys to be served by young girls dressed in reveling maid costumes in a completely sexualized atmosphere.  In order to confirm my suspicions I decided to try one out. 

 When I walked in I was greeted with the usual “welcome back master” and was showed to a seat at the bar.  Looking around, I saw young girls dressed in maid costumes and middle aged men sitting at tables clutching their newly bought manga of some sort.  At this moment I realized that I was the only girl customer in the entire café and immediately ordered a beer.  The maid washed my hands for me with a cloth and brought me my beer.  Relaxing slightly, I began to listen to the conversations around me.  To my great and utter surprise they were completely innocent conversations.  Of course somewhat socially awkward in their execution however, just a normal conversation talking about their favorite anime characters or problems that they were having at work.  It actually caught me off guard.  The innocence of the actions around me was almost appalling.  By ordering anything at the bar you could play one game with one of the maids. When one said game, I was almost afraid to see what the game was. But when I asked to play I was showed a list of games that consisted of Jenga, Uno and several other board games.  I wondered to myself how can something that I expected to be so sexualized be so innocent.  However because of this experience I was able to realize that maid cafes are made for people who are not respected in society, who do not have people to listen to their conversations about anime and games.  I could almost say that I felt as though this sort of place was not a bad thing but something good to help these people feel respected and encourage them to talk and engage in other people.  All in all it was a good experience.