Penny and Eve arrived at the Mister Donut on Akihabara’s perpetually-busy main street. Maaya was standing out front with her back to the shop’s large windows and idly checking her phone. She was dressed largely in black, with pastel pink and blue paint strokes on her black t-shirt, which she wore under a black jacket that had several underground band pins on it.

“Good morning!” Eve greeted her enthusiastically.

Penny gave Maaya a small wave with a friendly smile as Maaya looked up from her phone. Maaya returned the smile as she put her phone away.

“Hungry?” Maaya asked them.

The Mister Donut was a two-floor coffee-and-donut place that reminded Penny and Eve of a certain ubiquitous chain in Canada, only better in every conceivable way, from the inventive assortment of donuts on offer (including matcha and cherry blossom-inspired donuts) to the cleanliness of the location.

Penny was more into savory foods than sweets, but that didn’t stop her from ordering the most chocolatey donut they had, and Eve picked out a pink-frosting-glazed donut shaped like a string of pearls. They didn’t want to overdo it on the caffeine, so Penny ordered a bright green watermelon soda and Eve just went with water.

Maaya ordered a limited edition “misdo meets” matcha donut and a black coffee. The trio then took the stairs up to the second floor, where they were lucky enough to find three available stools at the counter set against the window.

Happy New Year by Let’s Eat Grandma was playing over the PA.

The girls sat and enjoyed their donuts and drinks while watching the buildings and signs across from them and the movement of the people below.

“We were at Mandarake earlier and saw a maid outfit in the street,” Eve brought up to Maaya, as if just remembering it.

“Oh!” Maaya exclaimed. “That’s part of an ad campaign for an underground idol club. They’re running a Battle of the Maid Bands tonight.”

“‘Battle of the Maid Bands’?” Eve asked, concerned about a physical brawl involving maids.

“Four maid-themed groups are going to perform, and whichever receives the loudest cheers wins.”

Eve stared at Maaya in shock while slowly chewing a large bite of her donut. Maaya patiently waited for her to finish.

“That sounds amazing!” Eve said as soon as she was able to.

Maaya smiled knowingly.

“Are you interested in seeing it? I can get us in without tickets.”

“Through your maid connections?” Eve asked, intrigued.

“That’s right. In fact, some of the band members were working at the café yesterday.”

Penny continued looking out the window while finishing her donut. She looked down at the four flyer girls widely-spaced out on the sidewalk below, and wondered if any of them could be band members as well.

“Including you?” Eve asked Maaya with widened eyes.

“No,” Maaya answered, smiling. “I’m happy enough to be part of the scene, and to help my friends choreograph their dance routines. They’re also happy when I bring in audience members to cheer them on.”

“We’ll cheer,” Eve readily offered. “We’ll cheer for all the acts, but we’ll make sure we cheer loudest for your friends.”

“It starts at 7,” Maaya said, pulling out her phone to text Eve the event info. “Is that okay with you?”

Eve looked at Penny, who gave Eve a thumbs-up.

“I sent you the info for the event, in case you want to learn more,” Maaya said. “It’s in Japanese, but you can auto-translate it. It might help in case you do a video about it.”

“Thanks,” Penny said, finally speaking up. “We wouldn’t know stuff like this was happening without you appearing out of nowhere to tell us.”

“You’re the angel of Akiba,” Eve added.

Maaya laughed.

“It’s heaven, isn’t it?”

* * *

The middle of the day was spent popping into different stores, including a multilevel doujinshi shop and a toy store devoted to a single manufacturer, as well as eating a ramen dinner. With Maaya assisting on camera duties, Penny and Eve also recorded a walking tour of the streets of Akihabara for Girls Mode.

That took them to 7PM, and the line to get into Club Badman, the venue for the Battle of the Maid Bands. There were already fifteen people ahead of them, some carrying the day’s purchases from Akihabara’s shops, and a few wearing shirts, jackets and buttons of the bands they were about to see. Many already had their tickets out, which the maid with light pink hair at the door inspected as she let them in.

When Maaya, Penny and Eve reached the maid, she looked at Maaya with instant recognition, and the two briefly spoke together in Japanese before Maaya gestured for Penny and Eve to enter.

“Have a good time!” the maid said to Penny and Eve in English as she waved to them with a friendly but clearly practiced smile.

The Club Badman interior was dark, with a black floor, ceiling, walls and stage. The light in the club mainly came from the constellation of small purple, blue and green spotlights set up high on the stage’s walls and ceiling, and which were slowly rotating in different directions.

It was much less of the bright and frilly aesthetic that Eve had been expecting, and more of the type of punk-ish, atmospheric environment that Maaya’s brand of maid had stemmed from.

Ballet Mécanique by Etsuko Yakushimaru and Yoshinori Sunahara was playing loudly over the PA.

Penny and Eve looked around the club as they waited for Maaya to rejoin them. They noticed that the stage had some sound equipment with tiny levers and small flashing lights, as well as microphone stands off to the side, but no musical instruments.

The other attendees seemed to have mainly arrived solo, and several of them were either posting about the event or searching up other posts about it. Mutual fans then recognized each by the merchandise they wore, and teamed up to cheer on their favourite groups.

The more this happened, the more the club buzzed with anticipatory chatter, and Maaya finally rejoined Penny and Eve as the night’s MC – the same pink-haired maid from the door – took to the stage with a microphone in hand.

“Good evening, everyone!” the maid said to the decently-sized crowd in English, before going through the rest of the preamble in Japanese.

Maaya translated for Penny and Eve: “There are four groups tonight: No Time for Butlers, Hello Emeralds, Plus Seven, and the Eternal Blues (these are my friends, the maids from the café you went to). Whichever band receives the most cheers wins, but, in case of a draw, the judges will determine the winner.

“The judges are the club owner, a former underground idol, and a record label representative. The prize is 50,000 yen and a CD release with a small record label.

“The groups will be selling merchandise after the show. Drinks are available at the bar.”

“Now, let’s get started, shall we?” the maid MC announced in English, glancing at Penny and Eve with a big smile.

The maid skipped and then hopped offstage as No Time for Butlers began shyly filtering onstage from the back, the group members flicking nervous glances at the audience. The audience encouraged the group members with expectant applause.

No Time for Butlers were styled in Harajuku-inspired anything-goes fashion with bright, bold colours and accessories, including plastic pastel frogs attached to their outfits. The group members were all holding their own microphones.

“We are No Time for Butlers,” the frontmaid said once she had taken her spot in the middle, closer to the front of the stage. She did a short laugh, then counted up to their first number: “1, 2, 3, 4.”

No Time for Butlers performed to a pre-recorded backing track, as all the groups would, but with live singing and choreographed dancing.

The crowd cheered during the entire performance, even those who were there to support another group. The joyous vibe was enough for Eve to cheer and clap as well, and Penny managed a smile, which was her own way of cheering.

Their third song was their last, and afterwards the group members took turns thanking the crowd and politely asking them to cheer for them during the judgment phase.

No Time for Butlers left, and, after a short preparation period, Hello Emeralds came onstage. Hello Emeralds had outfits decked with costume jewelry, which caused them to sparkle whenever the spotlights hit them just right.

The group leader, who had slightly long and pointy ears, held the microphone with both hands.

“Thank you for coming,” she said to the crowd. “This song is a cover. It’s called ‘Summoning a Portal’”

She then dropped the microphone, and a red monolith rose up from beneath the stage, the monolith bleeding as Hello Emeralds performed an energetic J-pop number.

Penny’s nose started bleeding as well, and then she blacked out.

* * *

Penny was still standing when she came to. The sound of the audience cheering came to her ears as a rush of indistinct white noise, and it took several seconds for her to realise what was happening. Up onstage were two representatives from each group, the pairs standing together in different spots, with the pink-haired maid MC off to the right as she gestured to the Eternal Blues. According to her, the Eternal Blues were the recipients of the loudest cheers in Battle of the Maid Bands history.

“That was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen in my life!” Eve exclaimed, clapping and hopping up and down, her eyes on the winning group members.

She then looked at Penny, who looked back at Eve with widened eyes, dried blood running from her nostrils to her chin.

Eve stopped smiling and looked over her friend in concern, her eyes inspecting the details of Penny’s face as if she were an emergency responder. Eve’s hands were holding Penny’s cheeks, squishing her face slightly.

“Are you okay?” Eve asked.

Penny nodded. But Eve knew Penny usually nodded in this type of situation.

“What’s wrong?” Maaya asked, taking notice of Eve’s squeezing of Penny’s blood-stained face.

“I just zoned out,” Penny said. Her eyes were somewhat teary and bloodshot from not having blinked for 40 minutes. “I think I missed most of the show.”

Eve and Maaya helped Penny out of Club Badman as some of the other audience members watched them leave in confusion. The trio exited the club just as the Eternal Blues received their cash prize, the cheering even louder than before.

There were just as many pedestrians as ever on the street, but it seemed strangely quiet to Penny, to the extent that the only sounds she could hear were coming from Eve and Maaya. The black of the night sky was visible past a sea of wispy black clouds.

“Want something to drink?” Eve asked.

Eve held Penny’s hand and led her to a vending machine serving cold drinks.

“Which one do you want? Wanna try another orange one?”

Eve opened up her coin purse and sifted through it, readying a 100-yen coin for the machine. She then smiled at Penny patiently while waiting for her to select a drink.

Penny pointed at an orange drink from a brand she had yet to sample. Eve paid for it and pulled the bottle out from the dispenser, handing it to Penny.

“Are you sure this will help? Wouldn’t water be better?” Maaya asked Eve, slightly confused.

“This is the best thing for her,” Eve responded. “Carbonated drinks are like healing potions, at least for Penny.”

The bottle made a satisfying kssht sound as Penny turned the lid, and she proceeded to drink down half of it in one go.

“Ahh,” Penny exhaled. “Okay, I’m better now.”

“See?” Eve said to Maaya proudly.

Penny pulled out her phone to check how much time she had lost.

“9:30 . . . We should go back to the hotel soon.”

“I’ll walk you back,” Maaya offered. “In case something else happens.”

The girls headed back in the direction of the hotel, stopping to watch a green commuter train cut through the sky as it barrelled across a bridge high above the street. The lights within were bright, and Penny and Eve could make out all the many people sitting and standing, the passengers shooting towards wherever the night was taking them.

“Let’s go somewhere else tomorrow,” Penny suggested.