Mother Cafe, culture, japan, mom, oddball, osaka, otaku, strange, weird

A Man Needs a Mother - Japan's Otaku Culture Dumps the Maid

In a cafe deep in the heart of Amerikamura, Osaka, tables of otaku are sitting down to tea and cake with women old enough to be their mothers. Mother Café is an otaku fetishist establishment staffed with women that give off a motherly vibe; maid cafés are so yesterday.

Working up the courage to talk to a woman in a skimpy outfit like one would find in the well-publicized maid cafes can be nerve-wracking for the shyest of the shy. This is perhaps what gave Mother Café boss Asahi Geino his golden egg idea; that Osaka's loneliest otaku crowd would be more comfortable talking to someone that reminded them of their mothers.

So, what do you get at a mom café? According to Geino, "We staff our cafe with women who look older than they actually are, but they're also capable of understanding worries people have and have experience in dealing with people of all ages. Our aim is to become a kind of therapeutic cafe where customers feel at ease enough to be able to open their hearts to staff."

There are 10,000 manga titles to choose from, the opportunity to be hand-fed a slice of cake by a woman that may or may not remind you of your actual mother and if you are a regular; you get some lifestyle-related nagging thrown in for good measure. [Mainichi Shimbun]

11:10 PM on Thu Apr 17 2008
By Chris Magor
6,800 views
23 comments

Comments

fearless_fx at 11:15 PM on 04/17/08
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[www.bu.edu]

This intrigues me.
Sora57 at 11:20 PM on 04/17/08
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And this belongs on a gadget blog because....?
monkeybars at 11:22 PM on 04/17/08
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@fearless_fx: Excellent use of the images
HonusWScruggs at 11:39 PM on 04/17/08
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It's... for an abortion movie? Pretty funny.
atuck at 11:42 PM on 04/17/08
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@HonusWScruggs: Boosh
Chris Magor at 11:44 PM on 04/17/08
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Vera Drake, but she did look like a great matronly mother.
Drvec at 12:01 AM on 04/18/08
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@Sora57:
Gadgets = Akihabara = Otaku = Mother Cafe
It's tenous but valid!
Canthros at 12:22 AM on 04/18/08
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This phenomenon is more than a bit creepy.
ittekimasu at 01:21 AM on 04/18/08
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don't like how they used the word fetish to describe it -.- mothers all over japan must be shivering at this very moment.
VakeroRokero at 02:30 AM on 04/18/08
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They gave us Bukkake.

We give them M.I.L.F.
EQC at 02:41 AM on 04/18/08
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This is perhaps what gave Mother Café boss Asahi Geino his golden egg idea; that Osaka's loneliest otaku crowd would be more comfortable talking to someone that reminded them of their mothers.

There are 10,000 manga titles to choose from, the opportunity to be hand-fed a slice of cake by a woman that may or may not remind you of your actual mother and if you are a regular; you get some lifestyle-related nagging thrown in for good measure.

Neither of these examples is even close to the proper way to use a semicolon.

(apologies for being a punctuation Nazi...)
jkr at 02:50 AM on 04/18/08
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...
nightmajik at 05:21 AM on 04/18/08
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I think fetish is the wrong word (well, hopefully it's wrong for most people, at least). I think this is nice, give socially awkward people a place they can go out and feel more at least just having a conversation.

Random trivia: There is nothing very American about Amerika Mura (America Town, it means). It's pretty much like the rest of Osaka.
nightmajik at 05:21 AM on 04/18/08
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@nightmajik: Wow, 'at least' was definitely supposed to be 'at ease'. >_> Typo much?
strider_mt2k at 06:46 AM on 04/18/08
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Connectedness Index: 717
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@fearless_fx: Agreed.
Curves at 08:54 AM on 04/18/08
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Connectedness Index: 389
Brought to you by Acura TSX

For things you have always wanted to tell you mom, but dont want to get grounded because of.

Sit up straight and for heavens sake, get a hair cut.
Rhodizzle at 09:32 AM on 04/18/08
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Is the lady pictured the one that took over Hogwarts in the last Harry Potter movie?

She looks darn close.
B1663R at 09:37 AM on 04/18/08
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what? hmmm... whatever, i guess they can ... i dunno, *bangs head on desk*
Argyle at 11:22 AM on 04/18/08
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The Japanese are weird...
Fountainhead at 11:34 AM on 04/18/08
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Duh, Japanese weird? Gee you think?
May have something to do with having such a closed society.
MarlboroTestMonkey7 at 12:10 PM on 04/18/08
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@Sora57: No way to talk to your false mom!
FightingChance at 02:18 PM on 04/18/08
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Someday the Japanese will be crushed under the weight of their combined fetishes and neuroses.

nyoro~n
noasalira at 02:20 AM on 04/19/08
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@FightingChance: just what I was thinking, instead of being admired as 'odd' these things need a little bit more serious study...