Saturday, August 6, 2011

Akihabara comes to Boston


Just a short walk from the MIT campus, Cambridge’s All Asia Café usually caters to fans of rock and punk but for one day out of the month the bar is transformed into an Akihabara style maid café.

Maid café’s have been popular in Japan for about ten years now. These cafés are designed to appeal to Otaku (fans of Japanese anime & manga). The wait staff dresses as maids or butlers and sometimes other anime characters too.

As a self confessed Otaku I’ve often wondered why someone hasn’t tried to get a maid café started up here in the United States. Well it turns out someone has.

Reni Mimura is a J-Pop idol who has relocated to the US. She has a traveling maid café and show that periodically appears in big American cities like New York, Boston, Washington and Houston.

When I learned Reni was planning another show in Cambridge on July 23rd I contacted fellow Knight Chris Parker and made plans to attend the show.

We were greeted at the door by two of Reni’s maids who gave us a “welcome home” in Japanese. Next we met Reni herself. She was dressed in a blue maid’s uniform and wearing pink bunny ears. I had expected that Reni might remain hidden from the crowd while not on stage, like a headliner at a convention, but she was present for the entire show waiting on customers, directing her junior maids and participating in the general set up.
Here’s Reni!

Reni makes it a point to learn the names of everyone who comes to her shows. This might seem like a tall order for a woman who has over 8,000 facebook followers, but by the end of the day she seemed to know everyone in the bar.

The maids stayed in character the whole time addressing patrons as “master” and thanking them for their support. When food and drinks were served the maids performed an interesting ritual that was meant to imbue the food with “moe energy”. Some patrons didn’t know what to make of this and others seemed disinterested, personally I got into it.

The menu emulated the fair one would find in a real Japanese maid café. I sampled the spring rolls while Chris tackled the seaweed salad. Some pricier items included a large bento box meal and a sake martini.
Festivities began with karaoke where patrons were invited to sing their favorite anime themes and J-Pop tunes. This was followed by a fashion show by Ichigo Black, a Boston based design company that produces original clothing inspired by Japanese street fashion.
Fashions by Ichigo Black.

Next the Maid show began. A novice maid Candy-chan was introduced to the audience and Mae-chan head of Reni’s Boston maids sang a few solos. Reni sang and danced performing several original songs in both Japanese and English.

Cosplayers strike a pose.

Other activities included a cosplay contest and a group game of rock paper scissors. The winner of the game was declared the “Moe Moe King”. The King received a free autograph from Reni and was invited on stage to operate the bubble machine when she sang “Otome” a song from her most recent album. Folks really got into this grabbing for the bubbles as they floated over the crowd.

Reni and the Moe Moe King. Wait! Is that Chris Parker?!?

After the scheduled program ended the DJ opened up the dance floor and patrons were invited to take photos with Reni and her staff.
Reni and her staff celebrate another successful show.

The atmosphere of the event was extremely positive. I’ve often read that social interaction in Japan can be very formal but Reni appears to have left all that behind. Instead you feel like you’ve walked into a high school anime where everyone knows everyone else. Women often added the friendly “–chan” honorific to their names while some of the men went with the more fraternal “–kun”.

A one day pass to a sci-fi or anime convention can cost you anywhere from $25 to $65. But admission to Reni’s Maid Show is only $10 and just $8 if you come in costume. It’s a great way to make new friends and meet others fans of anime and Japanese pop culture.

Reni’s next Boston show is on August 20th. Anyone interested?

For more information on Reni Mimura and her maid shows check out her web site at: http://www.renireni.com/

2 comments:

  1. Looks like it was a great time!
    Almost looks like Chris was Reni's servant.

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  2. I think it's debatable who's the servant and who's the master at these shows.

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