Maid cafe manager who dated one of his maids says he was kidnapped and beaten by the yakuza

Quitting your job can be hard when your bosses are gangsters.

All the pretty faces and friendly personalities you’ll find at a Japanese maid cafe are there to keep customers coming back, but it’s not like management is always blind to the charms of their female employees. At some point last year, the 28-year-old male manager of a maid cafe in Tokyo’s Akihabara neighborhood, where the maid cafe industry was born, became involved in a romantic relationship with one of the restaurant’s most popular maids.

However, although the man was the cafe’s manager, he wasn’t the owner. At some point he decided he didn’t want to work there anymore, and so he quit, even though the cafe’s owners didn’t want him to, and they weren’t any happier when they found out he’d been dating one of the maids. But hey, a less-than-amicable end to a working relationship isn’t all that uncommon, right?

Sure, but what is uncommon is your bosses being members of the yakuza, Japan’s version of the mafia. The maid cafe, which media reports have alluded to as being Akihabara’s Idol Cafe @Neo, is apparently owned by members of an organized crime syndicate, and the ex-manager says that when some of the owners spotted him outside Tokyo’s Nishi Nippori Station last August, they forced him into a car and drove him to a condominium in the city’s Edogawa Ward, where he was confined for three days.

During that time, according to the police, six members of the yakuza beat the ex-manager, with their methods including hitting him with a hammer, breaking his ribs, and causing other severe injuries. On two separate occasions, the ex-manager’s captors took him to the hospital to receive medical treatment for the wounds they’d inflicted upon him, and on the third day of the ordeal he was able to make his escape and subsequently report the incident to the police.

The six men accused of the kidnapping and assault have denied the charges, but have now been placed under arrest by the Tokyo Metropolitan Police.

Sources: Tele Asa News via Hachima Kiko, YouTube/ANNnewsCH, TBS News
Top image: Pakutaso
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