The Swallowtail is a new Tokyo cafe in which subservient men dressed like butlers wait on the clientele of women in their 20s and 30s. This is an inversion of the Tokyo "maid cafes" where young geeky men go to be waited on by lavishly attentive women in maid costumes. Men in butler costumes is a theme in women's "Boys' Love" manga, which features attractive young men's homoerotic relationships:
The Swallowtail coffee house in Tokyo's Ikebukuro district is decked out like an English manor house, with customers subserviently greeted with a "Welcome home, Madam." A concept that may seem a little odd, but it's one that appears to have a ready-made audience, Emiko Sakamaki, the woman behind the eatery, explaining, "When I visited a 'maid cafe' last year, I thought there should be a cafe with a similar concept for women. And I saw people post some messages on the Internet that they wanted such a butler cafe. I thought the cafe could be accepted." And accepted it has been, with tables being fully booked until May 12, the management asking customers to make reservations online to guarantee themselves a table.
(via Fark)
