Chapter 738: Maid’s Restaurant
Masayoshi Kishimoto got off the subway when he arrived at Akihabara station and walked out of the subway entrance again. He pulled out his cell phone from within his right pants pocket and looked at the time, it was time for dinner.
While he was thinking about what to eat, a young girl in a maid’s outfit wearing white stockings on her legs and holding a billboard high above her head attracted his attention.
Masayoshi Kishimoto immediately had an idea. He would go to the maid restaurant to have a dinner, and then go to see an underground idol performance. Such an arrangement would be absolutely beautiful for otaku.
Tonight, Masayoshi Kishimoto, who was a pseudo-obsessive otaku, didn’t hesitate to walk towards the maid restaurant that was advertised on top of the advertisement.
As soon as he entered, he was greeted by a couple of young girls, also in maid outfits, with the professional smiles and gestures they were supposed to have, “Welcome home master.”
Kishimoto Masayoshi felt so amused that he headed straight ahead and was led by one of the store’s maids is to an empty table and sat down. As soon as he sat down, she brought the menu she had prepared in her hand to him.
It was Masayoshi Kishimoto’s first time at the restaurant, and he didn’t know what was good and what was not. So, he chose what the shopkeeper recommended, based on the rule that there was no room for error.
Masayoshi Kishimoto’s right index finger was pointing to some of the food pictures on top of the menu one by one. Even if he wanted to drink scotch or Chinese white wine, it would not be sold here. He then had to ask for a cup of oolong tea.
The restaurant maid said with a joyful smile, ”Master, please wait for a moment. This will go and carry out a preparation for you.”
After she finished speaking, she turned around and left. Masayoshi Kishimoto looked at her distant back but did not have any undesirable thoughts produced inside his head.
Not only had he seen and slept with all kinds of beautiful women, he wouldn’t put such an unusual girl in his eyes.
A maid’s restaurant was not acceptable to everyone in Tokyo, Japan at this time. Many of them thought that a maid’s restaurant was some kind of weird and unorthodox place.
It existed only to give otaku a channel to turn their fantasies into reality. To be fair, the food here is a bit more expensive than the equivalent of a normal restaurant.
However, it is also value for money, after all, there are many people in this world who are willing to spend more money for their dreams. It would be unrealistic for a maid restaurant to pay the same hourly rate as a normal meal.
First of all, the girl who can work here, the hourly wage has to be a bit higher than in the same normal restaurant. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be possible to attract young girls to work in a place like this wearing a maid’s outfit.
If the operating costs were higher, then the businesses would naturally pass the extra costs onto the consumers.
Masayoshi Kishimoto slightly looked at the surrounding tables, and there were also people. The tops of their dresses were standard otaku style at a glance.
Jeans, sneakers, a plaid shirt that had to be tucked into their jeans, and a duffel bag that was never far away. This is the most typical image of otaku.
They are able to talk about their favorite ACG culture, full of confidence, and even when they argue with others, they instantly become strong.
Other than that, on a regular basis, they more or less give others an outward impression of being unconfident, disheveled, and unmotivated.
Masayoshi Kishimoto wasn’t intentionally eavesdropping, but the distance between them was relatively close, so it was easy to hear what they were talking about. It was easy to raise the volume of one’s voice naturally when one spoke in an excited manner.
From Masayoshi Kishimoto’s point of view, there was no difference between them and ordinary people. What was wrong with spending money on their own preferences and paying for their favorite lifestyle?
Japan’s otaku weren’t exactly nibblers. They’re just passionate about the subculture and will satisfy this one hobby by working part-time or working to earn money.
It’s common for the average Japanese kid to work part-time to earn money to buy whatever they want for themselves. Many of them start working part-time in junior high school, and this behavior is an extremely normal social phenomenon in Japan.
Among them, there is no lack of vanity, more than their own financial capacity of too many girls or in order to be able to easily earn money and choose to aid sex.
It wasn’t long before what Kishimoto Justice had ordered was delivered to him by the maid. She didn’t look at him with any strange eyes from start to finish.
As a matter of fact, Masayoshi Kishimoto didn’t give the people here a strange feeling at all. He was already exceptionally well-maintained, and looked to be around twenty years old, ten years less than his actual age.
Above his age group, that was generally the mainstay of the otaku clan. They tend to have a certain financial ability, and also have quite a bit of knowledge about ACG culture, and do not lack the vitality of young people.
Moreover, in a place like Akihabara, there are all kinds of weirdos. After staying here for a long time, working here for a long time, and seeing a lot of them, one would not be surprised.
While eating his own dinner, Masayoshi Kishimoto was infected by the atmosphere around him, and couldn’t help but continue to think inside his head about the formation of ACG culture, and subsequently why it was able to profoundly affect so many people.
One more theory is that since Japan was defeated in World War II, the Japanese people had no way to vent their inner dissatisfaction and pressure, so they put their spirits on manga and cartoons.
Over time, coupled with the rapid rise of Japan’s economy, many children from ordinary middle-class Japanese families, who were well fed and clothed, became addicted to them.
However, Masayoshi Kishimoto believes that it is still quite one-sided. A decade or two later, not only the Japanese, but also the Chinese, Koreans, Europeans and Americans, there are many people deeply involved.
The only explanation is that human nature has a preference for this kind of thing. Whether it’s glorification or avoidance.
Whether it’s glorification or avoidance, it’s only natural that the majority of ordinary people, living in an unfair world, will always have negative feelings when they encounter difficulties and setbacks.
Moreover, it is very difficult for the common people in Japan to move up the social ladder on their own. The sporadic emergence of a few representative figures is no substitute for the totality of Japanese society, and it is not possible to arbitrarily define Japan as a country with good class mobility.
Even if there is no hope of rising up the social ladder, people still have to keep living. How to make oneself not to live so painful, since the need to find a spirit can be supported by something.
ACG culture caters to this spiritual need of ordinary people. Akihabara culture can also be described as the culture of the common people of Japan, and that’s not too far off the mark.
It’s a good place for them to get some spiritual support. They could find here a suitable outlet for all of their disappointments and unhappiness in reality.