Sept. 28 (Bloomberg) -- With her frilly green dress and white lace gloves, Naru Naruse looks the perfect French maid about to serve tea under the chandelier in a small Tokyo store.

Yet Candy Fruit, as the store is named, sells designer eyeglasses. Naruse is part of a mushrooming fantasy world in the city's Akihabara district, where make-believe maids are spilling out from their original novelty cafes to lure mostly male customers to reflexology centers and souvenir stalls.

``I always wanted to wear a cute costume,'' says Naruse, one of eight maids who work at Candy Fruit. ``Now I can wear this out in the open.'' She declines to reveal her age, saying all the maids in Akihabara are perpetually 17.

The widening popularity of the phenomenon is causing some researchers to warn about a growing pool of introverted faddists unable to engage with real people. Akihabara is home to about 60 stores where ``maids'' greet ``masters'' known as otaku -- Japanese for geeks.

The shops allow otaku obsessed with video games, animated films known as anime, manga comics and action figures to sidestep contact with mainstream society, says Keiichi Kashiwabara, a philosophy professor at University of the Air, a government- subsidized school open to all high school graduates.

``Many young people are wrapped up in their own fantasy worlds,'' says Kashiwabara, whose university broadcasts lectures to almost 90,000 students from its base in Chiba, east of Tokyo. ``The fact that maid shops are spreading means that people are becoming socially inept all over Japan.''

`Love Love Hot Cake'

Outside the capital, a backlash is taking shape. Last month officials in western Wakayama prefecture blocked a maid cafe that planned to serve 580-yen ($5) pancakes with saucy names from opening in a local government building.

``We thought some people might get offended,'' says Masaya Tajiri, a spokesman at Wakayama's cultural affairs department. ``We have lots of families visiting, so things like `Love Love Hot Cake' may be inappropriate.''

Maids don't perform sexual services, shop owners say. Most promotional fliers given out in Akihabara make that clear.

Instead, the role-players deliver massages, clean ears and serve snacks, sometimes on bended knees. This suits the ``socially awkward'' because maids are sweet and subservient, says Toshie Amemiya, a clinical psychologist and chief instructor at Japan's Academy of Counselors, which trains therapists.

``In the past, people used to go to pubs,'' Amemiya says. ``But people who grew up playing video games don't really know how to relate to others.''

Red-Headed Carrot

The trend began with Pia Carrot, a video game in which players seek companionship with cartoon waitresses dressed as maids. The first cafe was a temporary feature of an anime convention on the outskirts of Tokyo in 1998.

There, women dressed as the red-headed Carrot served tea in a booth set up by Broccoli Co., a Tokyo-based creator of video- game characters. Broccoli opened a Pia Carrot restaurant in Akihabara, known as the place to buy Japan's latest electronic gadgets, the next year.

``The idea of reenacting a video game and creating a cafe out of it was something totally new,'' says Ryosuke Hirako, a licensing manager at Broccoli. ``We are so proud that we started this trend.''

The 2005 movie ``Train Man,'' a love story about a geek engineer, was filmed partly in Akihabara, further raising its national profile as an otaku town.

`Nice People'

On Akihabara's main street, Yusuke Daito says he flew from the southwestern island of Shikoku just to see the maids at work.

``I love those costumes,'' says Daito, 24, as he watches maids pose for photographs and hand out fliers for 500-yen lunch specials. His friend, who declines to identify himself, nods in agreement.

Candy Fruit maid Sakura Arimiya says she loves to chat about anime movies over tea with her ``masters and madams.'' A sociology student, Arimiya says she wears maid costumes because she loves fantasy and making people happy.

``All our customers are nice people,'' she says, adding that she earns no more than in a normal part-time job -- about 750 yen an hour.

Maid Cut Center, a hairdresser on the southern island of Kyushu, is indicative of the trend's reach.

There, seven maids usher ``masters'' into private, partitioned areas. For an extra 1,000 yen, customers get a 10- minute massage that ``relaxes your body and soul when the maid's hand touches yours,'' according to the shop's Web site.

``We are very, very popular,'' the store owner, who identifies herself only as Momo, says in a telephone interview. Momo means peach in Japanese.

Never Get Old

Most customers are men, adds Momo, who says she is 20 because maids in Kyushu never get old.

As with geeks worldwide, otaku are often characterized by dressing carelessly and many wear glasses.

Candy Fruit glasses sell for 14,000 yen to 59,000 yen, compared with as little as 6,000 yen elsewhere in Tokyo. One of the pricier models comes with an action figure of Baltan Seijin, an alien beast that fights Ultraman on national television.

``Some of the customers may be what you might call otaku,'' says maid Naruse, whose horn-rimmed spectacles have heart-shaped sidepieces. ``But they look very fashionable with new glasses.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Tak Kumakura in Tokyo at tkumakura@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: September 27, 2007 21:12 EDT