Oh, sweet God. What fresh hell is this?
Hello. Hello.
Konnichiwa. Nice to see you.
Hello. My name is Chimu.
Chimu? Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you too, Chimu.
I'm Sue.
Nice to see you.
CHIMU RINGS A BELL
Am I tri... I'm tripping, right?
This is a maid cafe, another uniquely Japanese phenomenon.
This is the place to come if life becomes a bit too...adult.
Shake-shake.
You hungry?
No, I've lost my appetite, but I might have some tea. Tea?
Thank you.
Genuinely, I don't think I felt more uncomfortable in my entire life,
than I have done just them.
Chimu, who's obviously probably around about 20,
is dressed like a 12-year-old,
is speaking with a voice that's sort of like the Chipmunks on helium
and is giving me a card saying, "Welcome back, Princess.
"Welcome home, Princess"
and some information for masters and princesses.
Despite my obvious discomfort at
being shouted at by a 30-year-old baby,
I'm starting to notice a connection here.
The ritualised behaviour, the male clientele, the dressing up
and silly games.
It feels like a modern iteration of the geisha, blasted 300 years
into the future, dressed in pink
and dropped into a cafe in downtown Tokyo.
What do Japanese men want?
They can't want this, they can't want this in a woman.
They can't think that is a woman.
They can't think that that's...
Why any Japanese man would want a woman to be like this?
Why there has to be a master, why women are princesses?
Why are there bells ringing?
I'd better go cos I've got a game of Hungry Hippos in five minutes.
Oh, thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.
OK. Just a moment, please.
OK. These drinks, mua, mua, delicious magic.
That's magic?
Yes. Ready? Yes. Three, two, one.
Mua, mua, ooh!
Oh, I get it.
That's...
OK, delicious.
Great. That's helped it.
Thank you, Chimu.
Very, very delicious. Mua. Mua. Thank you. Thank you.
Yep, stone-cold now, totally stone-cold.
Oh, God. There's more of them, they're multiplying.
There's about 200 of these strange places dotted across Japan.
Can I ask you how often you come here?
What do you get out of this place?
What is it you love about the maids?
Does it feel like an escape?
Would you be able to talk to a girl in the street the way you talk
to the maid?
This place is a way for shy, nervous men to meet women in an environment
where the relationship is incredibly coded.
There's boundaries that are set.
There is master and servant.
And when those parameters are in place,
those guys don't have to deal with the thing they fear most -
all the messy, awful weird stuff that goes along with intimacy.