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Japanese-Style Maid Cafes Have Opened in Los Angeles

If you've been thinking to yourself "you know self, I'd really like to experience some surreal Japanese sexual creepiness but I just can't afford a trip to Tokyo right now" - great news! Among Japan's recent innovations is the Maid Cafe, a place where prepubescent-looking girls and boys dress up as French Maids and spoon sweetcake into the mouths of patrons. Because why should cosplay (enter if you dare) be limited to geeks? Naturally this is an institution tailor-made for the City of Angels, and indeed two Maid Cafes have opened up in the Greater LA area.

It turns out, though, that some people consider restaurants staffed by girls in fetish outfits to be a little... declasse. Knowing that, these fine establishments have gone to great lengths to convince customers that French Maid servers are the height of ironic and kitschy sophistication Ironic and kitschy and and not at all creepy sophistication.

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Tags: Cosplay / Travel Trends / Videos / → All Tags

Open Arms Travel: Japan Invites You to World Cosplay Summit

Give me your tired, your poor, your costumed masses yearning to break free: Japan welcomes wacky performance artists everywhere to the World Cosplay Summit held this Saturday and Sunday, at which presumably cosplayers will issue a statement solving the problems of the world.

In all (or most) seriousness, the event, which includes a parade and the ominously named World Cosplay Championship, marks a turning point in Japanese attitudes toward visitors.

Where tourism offices may have once been cool to anime-crazy foreigners, it recognizes now that they're a lucrative market, as your local Hot Topic knows. As the event's website proclaims:

These young people who know Japan from manga say... JAPAN is COOL!

Related Stories:
· World Cosplay Summit [Official Site]
· Japan Gives State Welcome to Cosplayers [AFP]
· Travel Trends coverage [Jaunted]

Tags: Crime / Akihabara / Anime / Cosplay / Japan Travel / → All Tags

Stabbing Spree Shocks Tokyo's "Electric City"

Seven people are dead in Tokyo after a twenty-five year old man went on a rampage with a rented truck and a survival knife. The killer, Tomohiro Kato, struck in the Akihabara district, where tourists shop for the latest electronics and Japanese nerds visit arcades in manga inspired costumes. The neighborhood is known as the mecca for the obsessive anime and video game fandom known as "otaku" culture.

In the hours leading up to the attack, Kato wrote postings on an online messageboard that revealed his murderous intentions. The first post, written at 5:21 am Tokyo time warned:

I'll crash my vehicle into people and if the vehicle becomes useless, I'll get out a knife. Goodbye everyone.

Though Japan has a reputation as a relatively safe country, CNN notes that "stabbing attacks have become more frequent in Japan in recent years as violent crime has increased." Just three months ago a man killed one person and hurt at least seven others after going on a "slashing spree" outside a Japanese mall, and seven years to the day before Tomohiro Kato lost it in Akihabara, a man stabbed eight people at an elementary school on June 9, 2001.

It might be a good idea to bring along some chain mail if you're headed to Tokyo any time soon. You can tell the anime nerds in Akihabara that you're just joining in on the cosplay fun.

Related Stories:
· Tragedy Strikes Tokyo's Geeks [Times SA]
· Man on "Murder Mission" Stabs 17 in Tokyo [CNN]
· Japan Travel coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: Hunter Walker]