It’s Like Trainspotting, But More Perverted

We’ve seen the maid cafes. We’ve recently seen the schoolboy cafes. So I have no idea why I’m surprised in the tiniest degree by this.

Little TGV is a newly opened restaurant in Akihabara that catering to trainspotters’ every delight. Customers enter the establishment by paying 500 yen for an old-style train ticket, which a waitress?wearing a uniform modeled on those actually worn by railroad company employees?uses a hole punch to permit entry, just as station attendants once did at ticket gates across Japan.

Yep?a train stewardess cafe. Mainichi has the article, which surprisingly focuses on how normal anime nerds are reacting to the sudden appearance of train nerds in their neighborhood.

But what’s making people sit up and take notice of the restaurant is its location in the heart of the otaku capital of the world. And though superficially they share much in common, Japan’s otaku geeks and trainspotters, who call themselves “tetsu”?an abbreviation for tetsudo mania (literally, “train freaks”)?have traditionally considered each other to be world’s apart.

Harutomo Sataka, the man behind the concept of Little TGV has been pleasantly surprised by the initial response to the establishment some may say is in “enemy territory.”

“I never dreamed people would be so into this place,” he tells Sunday Mainichi. “I totally understand why people who like trains feel a little uneasy about coming into Akihabara. But we don’t want the restaurant to be a place just for trainspotters. We also want to create a talking point for otaku and ordinary salarymen, too. That’s why we deliberately set up a place so openly dedicated to trainspotters right in the middle of Akihabara.”

I’m genuinely worried what’s next here. I mean, what’s to stop Japan from creating a restaurant devoted solely to women with large breasts? The horror! (Via Tokyomango)