Concept
The concept behind the cafe, Hirohata says, came to her after interviewing "over 200 women" who all told her that Japanese women "want a cafe where the waiters were male, good-looking, will treat them nice, but most importantly were Western." The cafe claims to be a place of "healing" for women at an affordable price, in which Japanese girls are provided a "safe setting" to interact with foreign men. The cafe attempts to create an atmosphere reminiscent of a western fairy tale. The butlers treat the customers in a cordial manner by opening doors, taking coats and pulling out chairs, and tiaras are even presented with their meal. The butlers, down on bended knee, play games and, when desired, engage in English conversation as entertainment for the "princesses." A lift me up photo is even on the menu in which the customer can be lifted by the butler of her choice for a picture they later print out. Western-style fantasies have long been popular in Japan, an example being the large success of the Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea theme parks since they opened in 1983 and 2001. The butlers are foreign males, often in their 20's and ideally "cute, cheerful and sweet."
Read more about this topic: Butlers Cafe
Famous quotes containing the word concept:
“Modern man, if he dared to be articulate about his concept of heaven, would describe a vision which would look like the biggest department store in the world, showing new things and gadgets, and himself having plenty of money with which to buy them. He would wander around open-mouthed in this heaven of gadgets and commodities, provided only that there were ever more and newer things to buy, and perhaps that his neighbors were just a little less privileged than he.”
—Erich Fromm (1900–1980)
“The new concept of the child as equal and the new integration of children into adult life has helped bring about a gradual but certain erosion of these boundaries that once separated the world of children from the word of adults, boundaries that allowed adults to treat children differently than they treated other adults because they understood that children are different.”
—Marie Winn (20th century)
“It is impossible to dissociate language from science or science from language, because every natural science always involves three things: the sequence of phenomena on which the science is based; the abstract concepts which call these phenomena to mind; and the words in which the concepts are expressed. To call forth a concept, a word is needed; to portray a phenomenon, a concept is needed. All three mirror one and the same reality.”
—Antoine Lavoisier (1743–1794)