A maid promoting a maid cafe in Akihabara, Tokyo, Japan. Akihabara is a popular place to buy anything electronic, but there are also many manga (comic) stores. The obsession of the otaku (geeks) with manga featuring maids led to this peculiar popularity of maid cafes. Generally speaking, you go to a maid cafe to hear people singing karaoke to cute anime cartoons, and to be served coffee and snacks by girls dressed as maids. They will probably do a little performance about putting their love into what they brought to you. It's cute and harmless and in no way sexual. In case you're wondering, no you're not allowed to take photos in the cafes. If you're female, you might be able to pay a fee to dress up as a maid yourself and have a video taken of you in costume singing karaoke. All the anime are in Japanese though!

[creampuff]

I don't quite like the way your composition cuts her off at the legs and I think there's just too much space above her head but hmmm, I like her!!!

[RobG]

I don't quite like the way your composition cuts her off at the legs and I think there's just too much space above her head but hmmm, I like her!!!

Space on a Tokyo footpath was extremely limited for me to back up with the 35mm lens. At the same time, I don't like to put the top of someone's head at the edge of the frame. The 16-45 zoom would have allowed me to get all of her in the frame (plus more of the ugly rolladoor in the background), but I'd bought the 35mm lens 2 days earlier and was keen to try it.

Maybe you were disappointed not to see the boots she was wearing?

[MANCLUB]

Que curiosos estos japoneses !!

[Hambino]

normally the maids won't even let you take their picture OUTSIDE of the cafe, no fair! lol nice shot

[RobG]

normally the maids won't even let you take their picture OUTSIDE of the cafe, no fair! lol nice shot

As I recall, I asked nicely in Japanese, and maybe the reason I got away with it was that it was New Year's Day and business was very quiet! I did go to the cafe she was advertising and spent some money there, so I guess her advertisement was successful. Many businesses in Akihabara are hard to find because they're not on the ground floor.