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]