“The cafes fulfil a woman’s underlying desire to be rich and lavish by providing a special atmosphere and offering a realistic but temporal relationship with butlers.”


Quite how realistic or indeed temporal the experience at a butler cafe may be is unclear, but with a simple cup of tea costing 1,050 yen (4.5 pound), the rich and lavish aspect is clearly indisputable.
Yet what Shinano-san fails to mention is the underlying theme of ‘boy love’ said to pervade such places — albeit in a refined and butler-like manner.
Swallowtail’s vast majority of visitors it seems are women in their 20s and 30s, with Ayako Abe of K-Books — which runs the cafe and has several shops that sell manga depicting love between beautiful youths — explaining the market for such establishments by saying, “Our shops’ prime target customers are not women in their teens and 20s, but those in their 30s and 40s who got used to ‘boys’ love’ comics while they were young, and come to the stores with their daughters.”
For the rest of the article* just click here.
*Includes a bonus maid picture for those a little bashful about the ‘boy love’ business.
