Bring on the Maids!

The New Year holidays are drawing to a close. The time has come for those friends who gathered from London and across the rest of Japan to file homeward out of Tokyo. It therefore seemed like a natural point to go on an excursion that I and a few of my friends had wanted to take whilst in Tokyo. Bring on… the maids.

This is one adventure that might never have taken place had I not the excuse of friends who wanted to go to a maid café. Simply going to Akihabara, Tokyo’s famous ‘geek town’ can be quite a grueling experience. Perhaps more so then anywhere else in Tokyo, here runs an ugly undercurrent of anti-social tendencies, loneliness and misdirected sexuality. And remember, this is coming from someone who owns a topless cartoon figurine…

Still something seems wrong with Akihabara. The various anime themed department stores in the area sell a mind boggling range of tat, some of which have some pretty disturbing implications. Take the giant body shaped pillow, with a female anime character printed on it, clearly intended for cuddling at night in substitution for human warmth. Similarly-themed are the 'breast pillows' - modeled charmingly here by a fellow student.

Yes dear reader, shake the disbelief from your eyes, for you read correctly. Akihabara is a little on the wrong side of sexual frustration and poorly disguised innuendo, even for ME.

Nevertheless, we the intrepid chosen, found ourselves stumbling off the tube into the lazy Sunday afternoon sun, into a mecca of maids handing out leaflets, girls in bizarre anime-influenced costumes singing home made J-pop, and electrical shop attendants rapping, yes RAPPING about their household wares.

And almost immediately the tone was soured. While the 'premium' type of maid, who I will discuss in detail in a minute, is well protected in the unassailable and well ventilated ivory towers so quaintly given the moniker 'cafe', things are not so easy on the mean streets. There are those who do not make it to the dizzy heights of the maid cafe, yet soldier on valiantly observing their right to dress as cats/french maids/any twisted sexual fantasy you might care to mention. These girls (perhaps they are merely too young to be allowed to work in a maid cafe) are forced to perform in their unadorned natural habitat: in front of the zoom lenses of a lot of dirty old men's cameras. The right and natural place for young girls not yet of an age eligible for work in a respectable establishment. Tough but fair.
And although this is a sight that says to me that god is in his heaven and all is right with the world, when I thought to myself "...and perhaps those that survive this without being 'disappeared' by an old man or accidentally becoming a porn star will one day earn the right to serve me coffee on their knees in a real cafe" I would be lying if I told you I did not feel just a little guilty.

How surprised I was then, when the time came to see the real thing in action. The cafe that we had decided on was called the "@home cafe", and was situated confusingly on the fifth floor of the Akihabira Don Quixote, a famous variety store. We got lost on the first floor and decided to ask someone how the hell you were supposed to scale the legendary heights of the claustrophobic, neon-dripping shop. And who better to ask then the pair in maid outfits, who are clearly on a coffee break, laughing and chatting as they sit casually on a desk by the descending escalator. Shouldn't they be cleaning something? Never mind, I am fairly certain they will be cowed by my manly presence back into maid-mode. I propel myself over, injecting just a little swagger into my walk.
"Excuse me," I clear my throat, "you wouldn't happen to work at the maid cafe in this building?" The carefree smiles do not disappear. I think one of them sniggers.
"Yeah, fifth floor" the closest girl meets my gaze with an indifferent smile. It is the amused and healthily self-confident smile of a normal young woman.
"Yes, well I was wandering if you could tell me how we get up to the fifth floor from here. Please."
"Over there on the left." With this she turns back to the other girl, who is swinging her legs and laughing into her coffee.

And so I limped back to my friends.



I am not sure I can pinpoint the exact moment. Perhaps it was not a moment at all, and was simply a slow shift in my awareness, like the movement of tectonic plates, that has continued to create the landscape that I aim to relate as I sit down to write. Either way, the fact of the matter is, I had a bit of a revelation. These girls are like fucking rock stars.

You see, they write pop songs under the name 完全メイド宣言 (Perfect Maid Declaration), including the one in the video above. This video and others like it are blasted out of TV sets positioned on the walls of the cafe. The most popular maids become minor celebrities in their own right. The no photography rule (yes, I am ashamed to say that for the photos of the maids, I went a-stalking on the cafe's website and got a little liberal with copyright law) is not merely in place to force you into buying a photo opportunity with the maids, but to stop a hellish free-for-all photo-apocalypse that would surely make the gentlemen snappers on the street outside look like small fry.While we were ushered into the clean, bright white 'living room' section of the cafe, the maids did, as promised, squeak "Welcome home master" in the hyper-effeminate way that only a particular type of Japanese girl can manage. Female customers were also addressed as "Princess" and this, coupled with the family group that had bought along a small child for the ride obliterated any kinkiness you might have felt was implied when a group of young attractive girls dressed in servant's clothes and called you "master". In fact, you would feel like a bit of a dirty old man for making such an assumption. Had you ever made such an assumption. At least, I think you would probably feel like a dirty old man for making such an assumption. Had you ever made such an assumption.

This is the nature of the maid cafe. In a particularly Japanese way, the maids exist in a no-man's-land in between innocent 'cuteness', and implied sexuality. In the same way that mp3 download sites sometimes warn you that it is illegal to download mp3s except as backup for cds you already own, the maids are masterfully efficient in never displaying any open sexuality. Those mp3s are just there for boring old backup purposes. If you can think of something more interesting to do with an mp3 site, that is your business. So the maids are not about violent and sexually inspired subjugation of the female sex. Just like I definitely did not imagine they might be. I was thus spared the discomfort and emasculation of being more feminist than the maids. Also, I was relieved to find things did not go the other way; they were not threatening or overpowering. Just like a with proper rock star, power and respect does not necessarily lead to arrogance. All professional entertainers alike, have a responsibility to entertain. Professionally. The maids simpered and smiled with a professional almost to the point of clinical impunity.

When a maid kneels at your table and stirs your coffee, it is not really about a dominator and a dominated. It is a performer putting on a show for an audience; it seemed clear that our embarrassment was by no means reciprocated. After a well-rehearsed routine wherein she bade us to make heart shapes with our hands and cast a spell on our coffee "to make it more delicious" our maid swooped away, leaving us with our bemused smirks. One of my friends was twice tricked into looking like a big girl. Once when ordering a cake as it was written in the menu, he found himself asking for a "widdle-bear-cake", and again when a maid was pouring sugar-syrup into his drink; she instructed him to say "Nyaa!" when she had poured in enough. Basically, he used the Japanese onomatopoeia for the mewl of a kitten. That was probably the most entertaining aspect of the trip.

We drained our coffees and played with the overly sweet, creme-draped cakes that we had ordered. Shuffling though the gift shop, it seemed wise to steer clear of the large towel decorated with an almost life sized photo of one of the maids and the box of traditional Japanese sweets similarly plastered with maid photos. These where obviously intended for the pudgy young men who turned up alone decorated with @home cafe badges and the old men who also turned up alone, decorated only with enormous grins. Watching those people sitting lonely at their tables for lunch, cracking smiles only on receiving the squeaky attentions of one of the maids, had been a little saddening. However, it was part of the dynamic that made going to the cafe such a guilt-free experience. We all walked away clearly understanding who was being payed abnormally well for working in a cafe, and who was paying through the nose for a very ordinary cup of coffee. Although those customers presented fairly tragic figures, there were plenty of more normal-looking human beings present, and we left feeling relieved that we were amongst those who had just gone for a bit of mild entertainment, and not out of any debilitating fixation for those eternally nonthreatening young girls, and their frilly outfits. And their big swishy skirts. And those crazy little pink tie things. And those wide almost inviting eyes...
Ps. Because you definitely can not buy it in England, I don't think it is immoral to tell you the location of the 完全メイド宣言 song Maiding Story.mp3

TeH |\|1p|>0nZ!!!!111oneone

So, it has been a long time, friends. I wonder how you have been doing while the silence between us lasted. Perhaps you doubted my return. Perhaps you even strayed to other blogs. But I told you I was in this for the long term! I always intended to come back, when the chaos of moving to Japan was over. You knew that. And still you moved UK: resistance back up into the number one spot in bookmarks. But never mind. Let's forget the past. Let's start again.

Wow a lot has happened. As anyone would have expected, moving to Japan has been quite a shock to the system. One of the first things I noticed was how damn stylish everyone is. Seriously, how am I ever supposed to impress the ch1x0r when everyone else is THIS cool?

Yes the general level of English around here is so bad, that it is not a problem to demand fellatio on a T-shirt. In fact, I would venture to say that it is encouraged. One of the great side effects of the shockingly poor level of English understanding in Japan is the amount of freedom it proffers in public. It is quite liberating to be horrendously rude about everyone in ear shot. Even more than usual, I mean. Because over here they don't realize they should be punching you.

Having mocked the Japanese people's English, it's probably only fair I say a few words about my Japanese. After some careful deliberation, I have decided on the following words; 'Oh dear.' They seem to sum it up for me. I did not do any kanji revision over the summer holiday, so that my grasp of the written language has recessed back in on itself faster than Shinji goes back into the feotal position. (w00t!) I'm playing the DS Zelda in Japanese, partly to avoid the hassle of shipping a JAPANESE game from England, and partly due to a stubborn 'I'm in Japan, I'll play it in Japanese even if it's less fucking fun than Dead or Alive' attitude, and it is like having two games for the price of one; A Zelda game, and a Japanese reading-comprehension game. One of those games is fun.

It's hard for me to be fair about the game, because I am playing it through a filter of 'What? "The flaming road of the permission to continue is for when the wind of breath reaches the flame of the road?" What the fu... oh, what, you want me to BLOW ON THE CANDLES? Jesus.' But it looks gorgeous, I do find that I end up blocking the screen a little with my hand, but I'm getting more used to the control system, and I think it is much better than some kind of button-pen compromise, the score is not up to Ocarina of Time standards, but will probably grow on me, and I love the fact that the faerie uses Navi's sample for "Hey!" when she wants your attention. I always liked the idea of cell shading in Zelda, it was other factors altogether that left Windwaker feeling hollow and foreign to the Zelda world - The DS one is much closer to the mark. All in all, this game feels very comfortable, like it naturally belongs in my hands. I'm looking forward to what it holds in store.

So what have I been up to in the land of the l337? Less then you might have expected, to be honest. I've been busy with school and everything, and some of the geekier areas of Tokyo, quite frankly, scare me. That's not to say I have been completely inactive. Oh, heaven forbid. I felt incredibly lucky to have a chance to go and see the Tokyo Game Show, surely something of a mecca for people like you and I. So now that enough time has passed to render all the 'hot' and 'exclusive' information from the show completely and irrefutably yesterday's news, I get around to writing a little about the show. To be honest, I wasn't privy to that much 'hot' information anyway, as this was not a press-day, but an open-to-the-public day, and also, the sheer scale of the thing was overwhelming, and I spent a lot of the day in awed, aimless circumambulation. The crowds were mad. As much as I wanted to see the new Biohazard (That means Resident Evil, you noob!) and Final Fantasy stuff, the crowds were just too much. I did cue up so that my Japanese friend could give the upcoming Dragon Quest on DS a try, and it looks beautiful. Fairly old-school, but I have a felling that it's going to be a real joy to play. Square-Enix are pouring the same amount of love into the upcoming Final Fantasy DS stuff, there's really going to be a lot to get exited about.

I also had a runabout on the upcoming DS Ninja Gaiden (A lot of DS I know, but it is the only console that I have out here) and it looks great and plays as smooth as butter. It is all done with the touch pen, and somehow it is even more satisfying to hack and slash your way though than Zelda. The demo went as far as the first boss battle, an angry looking red dragon. It was pretty easy to dispatch the sucker, but things will surely get harder, and the game will be a distracting play regardless of the difficulty.

In other news, they were showing videos of what is going to be the 3rd in the 龍が如く series (Yakuza 3) and it is set in Samurai times! You play as one of Kazuma Kiryu's ancestors (who looks miraculously like him) At first I was a little upset. No more nasty-looking suits. No more screams of "What the fuck!?" No more super-realistic vision of Kabuki-cho. But the videos looked amazing, and if Sega manage to carry through the lovable antihero and feeling of the originals, then this may well be the first of the PS3 games to really excite my interest. Don't hold your breath though. Yakuza 2 has not even had a confirmed European release, so things look equally dodgey for Yakuza 3.

Even If I never get a playstation 3 and never see Yakuza 2 or 3, being in Sega's corner was the closest I've had to a religious experience yet. It was great just soaking up the Sega vibes; even if half of the games on show were obscure JRPGs that I will never play or care about. As much as I don't consider myself into the kinky booth-girl stuff, there is something really, really hot about a girl in a capcom dress. I suppose this is one case in which the brand on the clothes is important. After those photos I made a bee-line for the Tecmo girls, but the girl I was with started getting annoyed. For annoyed read: fucking furious. Don't worry, if you want to see all the booth girls there is a website dedicated to the subject; Destructoid.

Well, I saw a lot at the game show, but I think I have pretty much written up the best of the bunch. I hope everyone is appropriately jealous, and messages me to say so, because if not, what was the point of coming all the way to this very difficult-to-live-in country?

Rose & Camellia...IN MOTHERFSKING ENGLISH!

"The elegant art of feminine fighting" 'nuff said.

Ouendan 2

Generally, I consider myself a moral person. Not that I am claiming virtuosity from a viewpoint that has any pretensions of objectivity; conversely, I have my own idiosyncratic honour system, patched together from bits of outdated chivalry and bushido. It is a system that formed itself without any particular reference to practical application in the actual world. As a rule, my cobbled together honour system is sufficiently unmalleable to cause considerable difficulty in life and its delicately indefinable shades of grey.

Strange, then, is the alacrity with which I have delved into the ethically unmarked territory of computer games. The duality of the Zelda series, (which broke me into the world of hardcore gaming) when its classic hero-comes-of-age myth comes up against the encouragement of casual theft and aimless violence against nature, is well documented. Not to mention the shoplifting Easter egg in Link’s awakening. In fact this ream of amorality runs back into the genesis of computer games; before games began entertaining the concept of plot, players had little reason to attach real human meaning to their actions on the pixel plains. Games’ first steps into storytelling were tentative, like a toddler who has just discovered a way of irritating his mother into distraction; simultaneously triumphant and terrified. SMB on the NES/Famicom may have had us rescuing a princess, yet that unforgettable opening frame saw our primary-coloured plumber placed into the three-quarters sky, one quarter repetitive pixel landmass of the first level without so much as a cursory piece of explanatory text. In fact, for those of us with a consumer conscience weak enough to buy an unboxed second hand game, or those of us who were too ADHD to read the instructions, (that’s me on both counts, then) the first point at which it was clear a princess was being rescued by all of this surreal jumping and squashing was at the end of the first world. By this point, we were so hooked by Mario’s exploits that we did not really care why we were supposed to be taking part.

Picture, if you will, the openings for ‘Doom’ and ‘Escape from Castle Wolfenstein’; the player was dropped into the foreboding corridors of the game world covered in his afterbirth, still blinking in the light after the relative darkness of the womb of reality. No introductory text, no cutscene, no training mission incorporated into the plot in a clumsy attempt at concealment; nothing between you and a brand new, unforgiving game. Although we would never allow a game to have so little story in these enlightened days, in retrospect I can not help but admire the Spartan purity of those games. It was a type of beauty.

As computer games have marched on into the present, it has become difficult for developers to come up with new excuses for us to solve puzzles, dispatch enemies and explore worlds that in many ways remain unchanged from those simpler times. Storylines are often spurious and ‘tagged-on’ to the game. Computer games are a unique creative product, as the plot is so often a slave to the format. This leads to an inability to truly inspire empathy for a game character. If one were to create a stronger bond between play and plot, the landscape would look a little different. Everyone loves a good antihero, yet the GTA franchise opted for strait down the line villains who kill and steal without ever satisfactorily explaining why. If we truly suspended disbelief in the game world, I think that a GTA game would really be too horrific to play. Yet people play, putting no emotional weight on the events of the game world. This missing connection is endemic amongst the makers and players of games. I have heard it said that the problem with the few games that do offer moral frameworks is that they utilize systems of cause and effect; and the games then breakdown, as players choose actions depending not on the whispers of their hearts, but by calculating which choice has the most beneficial results on their character, stats, or situation. They turn a moral choice into a strategic one.

On the other hand, the design of the games we play often seems held back by the story. Surely the great art of games design is the creation of original and expressive ‘gameplay’ (dirty word). Generally, an action movie story would make an awful novel, and the plot of a novel would have trouble squeezing into the framework of a modern poem. The content is dictated by the form. However, the baby format of computer games still looks to its big brothers for inspiration, and our games stories are often compromised versions of what should really be scripts for substandard action films. These stories, themselves altered into unbelievability in order to fit the accepted kill-run-repeat format of computer games also detract from the freedom of games design – there must be buttons for shooting, jumping and reloading etc. not leaving much space for innovative game design. It begs the question, have action games really moved on since the Diehard trilogy on the Playstation One?

So the plot conventions stunt our games, and the way games have been designed has twisted plot conventions towards immoral, inhumane and unquestioning murder marathons.

I think I have found the cure.

燃えろ！熱血リズム魂　おす！闘え！応援団２ (Burn! Hot-blooded rhythm soul Go! Fight! Cheerleaders 2)　or Ouendan 2 as it is more practically known, is an epoch making revolution, disguised as a light-hearted rhythm game. You may ask ‘What is so revolutionary about a rhythm game?’ and the answer is that the gameplay alone may not be revolutionary, but this game is more than the sum of its parts. What is special about the gameplay, is that it will make you feel as if the DS was made specifically so Ouendan could come into existence. The interface is so intuitive and immediate that any game that expected you to do something as dull as memorize the buttons on the Playstation controller, now seems more than a little offensive. Here where you hit beats, run along slides and scrabble around spinning wheels as you see them, there is nothing between you and the actual ‘playing’ of the game. There is no need to worry hard-core pwnerers, this game gets very hard. And you can not call yourself a man until you have ‘done’ the cheerleader girls. Literally.

Of course, no one has made an action film about dancing your way to victory (that I know of, but I would seriously love to be corrected on this one), so Ouendan is free from those stylistic hangovers that haunt games so unforgivingingly. This game also frees itself from the ‘kookiness’ of rhythm games like Parappa the Rapper, and the pure plot evasion of DDR, Taiko games, and just about everything else on the rhythm game market. No, Ouendan is a proper story game.

Ouen is the Japanese word for ‘cheer’ as in ‘to cheer someone on’, and the Ouendan of the title are two groups of young hard-as-nails men, who wear uniforms redolent of those preferred by extreme right-wing political parties and gangsters in Japan. What do these suspicious young men do with their time? Car-jack and transport drugs? No. Embark on cop killing crusades, doomed to end in a bitter-sweet blood-spattered last stand when the swat hit the scene? No.

They solve ordinary Japanese people’s oppressively ordinary problems by dancing to J-pop.

In an obvious sideswipe at the current state of computer games, these violent, dangerous looking men take part in the campest of action to solve the smallest of problems. At first, the extreme ordinariness of the stories may seem silly; ‘I have to help a high school girl organise a choir club? Why?’, but as your hyperbole and cliché frazzled brain slowly accustoms to the game, you will care about and believe in these characters more than 500 hundred identikit fantasy worlds on the brink of destruction.

Continuing the theme of breaking the stale computer game blueprint, these stories are all exemplary pieces of moral correctness. Objectively. With every level, your heart will weep tears of joy (well, tears of blood, probably, but Joyful ones.) to have finally found a game that lets you do right again and again. The Ouendan use their cheer-leading skills only for good, bringing nothing but happiness. And as wanky as that sounds, it feels really good. Help a Sumo wrestler win matches so that his sponsorship money can support an orphanage? YES! Protect Japan from a rampaging Godzilla-sized kitten by building a giant robot which will challenge the feline fiend to a game of Chinese chess? YES! YES! One game has you help a young werewolf hide his canine side so he can share a successful date with a girl he likes. However, you are helping him to build a relationship on lies. Never fear! When you succeed, a deus ex machina kicks in, the guy reverts to wolf form, and the girl accepts him as he is! YES! YES! YES!

Obviously, some of the stories do slip into the supermundane, but they do it with a style and charm that I have not witnessed in computer games in years. People may argue that the connection between music and story is spurious, but when is the last time that you solved anything by picking up some heavy weaponry and murdering armies of evil people with bad AI? That is right, never. And how many times have you been cheered on by great songs at times of trouble? Probably a few more times. The music is absolutely spot-on throughout the game, and from what I have seen of the track list for the Western conversion, Elite Beat Agents, it kicks the SHIT out of our attempt.

This game has broken games down, and built them up again from the beginning. Instead of dropping you in a clichéd world that you have to save despite not really loving, this game instead concentrates on showing you how to love the world. And once you have cheered these believable people on through their very human hopes and dreams, if the world were to come under threat, it would be something you would feel a real passion for fighting to save...

When Edge gave this game eight out of ten, at first I accepted that, as a very high score for Edge. But to be honest, I was wrong. a critic can not simply decide the value of a game, he must observe themes that it is trying to express, and the success with which it achieves its goals. Ouendan 2 is a ten out of ten game. We should not accept Edge’s scoring scheme, whereby the maximum possible score is eight out of ten, unless it is a Zelda game, which will get nine out of ten irrespective of whether it is any good or not. Edge holds on to that number ten for some mythical game-to-end-all-games. Well, Ouendan is the opposite. It is a new beginning for games. Developers take note, and don’t fucking waste it.

Ps. Once more, you can download the soundtrack to Ouendan 2 here

Public Service Anouncement

I want to sleep with the girl in black lace gloves. A Legend of Zelda keyring and sloppy seconds to anyone who brings her to me. (She can chose to wear the gloves or not.)


Online Videos by Veoh.com

The same band also provided this lamazing video (lamazing - simultaneously lame AND amazing - see also; TATTU, heavy metal, and slap bass.)


Online Videos by Veoh.com

Now THAT'S what the Onimusha sound track should have sounded like.

Bara out.

Gangsters and Politicians

There is something intolerably tedious about student politics. When the time comes around for university elections, numerous scruffy, earnest chancers emerge. It is distasteful to watch a set of inexperienced and unqualified fools struggling to interest the tiny proportion of students who vote, armed with nothing but a few vague statements of intent which promise nothing, and a some spectacularly forgettable tag phrase. It all stinks far too much of real politics. And there is no way I’m voting for a white girl with dreadlocks. Ever.

The student common room is hardly crying for more unread, cheaply printed posters in any case. The student’s space at university is a tragic affair, groaning as it is with the colours of multicultural murals and piecemeal furniture. The whole space is made sadder when you stumble across one of the flop-tastic music nights that hobble into the room some evenings. Which is probably why the trying-but-not-quite-cool-bar, clockworks, seemed so fun on Friday night. It also dredged up halcyon memories of the first year of my degree, when going out did not seem like a self-destructive act of rebellion and an insult against the teaching staff, because maintaining a life and a Japanese degree has begun to seem like a Herculean feat.

It was at clockworks that I wore my new waistcoat, only to find my good (and more stylish) friend was wearing one ‘which he had had for ages…’ Well, it’s no real problem for me, as the waistcoat is part of a new image Idea I am trying to put together. It has probably come from the fact that I have been spending a bit of time with various Japanese fashion students, and it has dawned on me that many of the boys, while capable of being incredibly stylish, have a propensity to look slightly sleazy, as if they have just fallen off the back of a Yakuza van into a fashion course… and so I have become interested in the idea.
I found a Dior image that I think expresses the feeling quite well. So I became interested in collecting clothes that have a slightly 'untrustworthy' image. It's difficult, because if you take a step too far, you look like a cheap mobster, which is not ideal. However, I think if you get it just right, you might be tapping into the very nature of male fashion; because men may have a more utilitarian view of fashion, in that they are more pointedly interested in how the opposite sex respond to their clothes. So, if you are willing to embrace the sleaze a little, you might be able to make a comment about how men interact with fashion. Maybe. 今日はそろそろ。