Sumimasen Gyaru-son!

Tokyo has a lot of “Maid Cafes”, especially around the Otaku district of Akihabara in the Akihabara Electric Town (Akihabara Denki Ga). These Maid Cafes usually have cute girls dressed in lolita-style maid outfits, and serve the customers with drinks and food. If you pay a little extra, they will even play games with you, such as Connect 4 or draughts etc. These cafes have been the province of young male otaku until now…

The Otome Road (Maiden Road) in Ikebukuro district is becoming the yaoi answer to Akihabara’s otaku centre. Yaoi is a genre of manga popular with girls that focuses on homosexual love between men and is often sexually explicit. Yaoi as a term more used in English speaking countries, as the term “BL” (or Boys Love) is used more in Japan. A restraurant has opened on Otome Road called Lily Rose, which is a BL restaurant. The restaurant’s waiters are all really attractive young men in the BL style. Well, they’re really young women, dressed as young BL guys, with male names like Kaisuke-kun (kun being a honorific like san, but reserved for younger males you’re very familiar with). Generally in BL stories, you have “seme” and “uke”. Just like in martial arts where seme “attacks” and uke “receives”. This term has been used in terms of sexual relationships for a long time, and is in no way pejorative. Seme is generally more a traditional “masculine” role, being restrained, strong and protective – whereas uke would be more andryogenous or girlish in looks and behaviour. The waiters are called “gyaru-son”, which is another great portmanteau-type Japanese joke. Gyaru means “gal” as in a trendy young Japanese girl, with the word “son”, making a play on “garcon” – French for boy.

You might think it’s a little strange for girls to come to a restaurant staffed by girls to see guys – but one patron likes it: “Because the staff are really women, I can eat without fear of a man trying to pick me up, allowing me to take in the beauty of the ‘men’ around me as I enjoy my food.”

It’s just another reason why Japan is the most fantastic country on earth (^ ^)

Dakimakura (抱き枕)

Dakimakura (or 抱き枕) are large “hugging pillows” popular in Japan, and some say a new craze. They’ve been around since the late 90’s, but are gaining popularity as covers for the pillows have been given away in a few Japanese magazines, and in stock in a lot more “utaku” shops. Typically they are slightly-smaller-than-lifesize pillows designed to be hugged in bed, and often have screen-prints of popular anime or Bishōjo Game characters. Bishōjo games (or 美少女ゲーム, bishōjo gēmu – game of beautiful girls) are video games, where the player interacts with a cute, anime-type character. Gameplay is pretty much seducing the character, leading to pornographic scenes, but sometimes these games feature characters who will become your girlfriend, and you must then interact with them to keep them happy….or maybe put out (^_-)-* They usualy fall into three categories; dating sim, eroge (Japanisation of “erotic game”) and visual novel – depending on the content.

Although dakimakura are a good way for a keen otaku to get their favorite character into bed, some go that little bit further and opt for the inflatable version, complete with…erm…’openings’. I was in a shop in Aikihabara a while ago where they had a vast range of these versions, along with outfits you could buy for them. I guess the extention to this is the realistic “real dolls” available in Tokyo, and even available to rent!

Interestingly, the idea of sleeping with something like the dakimakura isn’t a new idea, as the chikufujin (竹夫人 – bamboo wife) has been around for a long time as a hollow bamboo roll – about the size of a human – that could be slept against to keep you cooler at night. The air would flow through the chikufujin as you slept against it. Although I’m fairly sure that the blow-up versions aren’t meant to keep you cool at night!

There are lots of dakimakura , available from Mandarake in Japan, and some on J-List too.

Love Hotels

According to Japanese Love Hotels: A Cultural History by Sarah Chaplin, 1% of the Japanese population check into a love hotel (ラブホテル rabu hoteru), and 50% of all Japanese sex occurs in them. There are over 30,000 Japanese love hotels which earn more than 4 trillion yen per year, which is twice the value of the Japanese anime market. Love hotels generally offer a room rate for a “rest” kyūkei (休憩) or an overnight stay, although a “rest” is the more popular option. Generally they’re used by young couples who live with their respective parents, although they’re also used for prostitution in some cases.

Originating from “tea rooms” (chaya 茶屋) used by prostitutes, they became known as “tsurekomi yado” (連れ込み宿) or “bring-along inns” during the second world war, generally run by home-owners with spare rooms. The term “love hotel” apparently comes from an Osaka motel called “Hotel Love” which had a rotating sign on the roof with “Hotel” on one side, and “Love” on the other. The mis-reading produced the term “love hotel”, and it stuck.

Photo from Misty Keasler Photography; Love Hotels: Japan

While originally Love Hotels were just a room with a bed, the more expensive places offer themed rooms to cater for most fantasies; medical examination rooms, fairgrounds, bondage dungeons, and even subway carriages for people to indulge in “chikan” (痴漢, チカン, or ちかん), or “train groping”.