Staff at Affleck’s Animaid cafe have hit out in its defense after a Greater Manchester councillor branded the business ‘disgusting’.
Urmston councillor Joanne Harding has caused something of an uproar after tweeting that the Japanese-themed Animad cafe made her ‘fresh crawl [sic]’
Asking “What fresh hell is this in Manchester?”, her tweet continued: “A ‘maid cafe’ – No touching or asking to touch the maids. We have a gender based violence strategy and ask ‘is this ok?’ – this makes my fresh [sic] crawl.”
After one person replied by describing the cafe as ‘Hooters for incels’, she responded by calling the business ‘disgusting’ before adding: ‘If you’ve got to have a sign up saying don’t touch the maids, there might be an issue. Women dressing in skimpy clothes, acting subserviently – what’s not to love.’
The councillor has now set her Twitter profile to private, but her bio describes her as having ‘ovaries of steel’.
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She has represented Urmston on Trafford Council for more than twelve years and has previously spoken out against the harrassment of women in public life, most recently after receiving a sexually explicit card at her town hall office.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that Mrs Harding took the time to understand the bubble tea and cartoon-themed cafe’s concept before going online to denounce the young women who work there.
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Image: The Manc Group
Image: The Manc Group
Vick Littley, a manager at the Animaid cafe, told the Manchester Evening News: “It was out of the blue and just felt derogatory. Most of the staff are young women – the post has been done with no grasp of what we actually are.
“We are a themed café where people can play board games, watch anime, sit and talk, study. We are not like how they are trying to portray us, we’re a bubble tea anime-themed café.”
On a visit to the popular Japanese-inspired cafe, The Manc spoke with a couple of the maids on the misconceptions that customers sometimes bring in with them.
They were keen to stress that, whilst the cafe does draw its inspiration from Japan’s maid cafe culture, in no way are the staff wanting to be fetishised themselves.
Whilst in Japanese maid cafes customers commonly call the maid’s “Princess” and vice versa are called “master”, they explain that in their cafe at Affleck’s the focus is all on having fun – not on sexualising the intimacy between customer and maid.
“In their cafes, […] master and princess is like kind of like fetishist names […] we don’t want any aspect of fetishising anything, we don’t want any Asian fishing or anything like that because it’s just disgusting.”
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“We just want to have fun and dress like maids and sell Japanese merch without hurting anyone.”
Image: The Manc Group
Image: The Manc Group
First opened in 2019, the cafe is the only one of its kind in the UK and has had various different iterations over the years – first starting life off as a shop downstairs before moving onto the second floor.
Inside you’ll find rare anime dolls, imported Japanese snacks, milkshakes named after famous characters and stacks of comics which you can read for free.
Based inside its current unit for three years now, over time owners have expanded the space to add on a proper Japanese-style sakura cafe behind the shop – complete with upside-down umbrellas hanging from the ceiling and its very own sakura tree.
Designed for like-minded people with a shared interest in anime, the cafe has been set up to be suitable for all ages where fans can socialise and initiate new friendships.
All of its maids are anime fanatics and experts too, and with their help owner Rio has created a safe space for anime fans where guests can watch anime, play video games, and transport themselves to cosplaying heaven.
Feature image – The Manc Group
News
NHS rolls out new ‘life-extending’ ovarian cancer drug for first time in 20 years
Emily Sergeant
The NHS has approved a new ovarian cancer treatment for the first time in two decades.
From today, hundreds of women with ‘hard-to-treat’ ovarian cancer could benefit from a new life-extending drug on the NHS called mirvetuximab soravtansine, and it will be offered to patients living with whose disease has unfortunately stopped responding to standard chemotherapy treatments, providing them with new hope of extra time to live.
The rollout of the drug on the NHS follows a major global clinical trial involving eight NHS hospitals, which showed that the treatment delayed cancer progression and prolonged survival – with patients living 16.5 months on average compared to 12.8 months with chemotherapy.
One patient said the treatment enabled her to get on with life ‘rather than spending it in bed recovering from the side effects of chemotherapy’.
So, how does it work then?
The NHS has rolled out a new ‘life-extending’ ovarian cancer drug for the first time in 20 years / Credit: rawpixel
Well, the drug combines a ‘homing’ antibody with a cancer-killing medicine – often described by scientists as a ‘biological missile’ or ‘trojan horse’ therapy – and it works by attaching to ovarian cancer cells that have a protein called folate receptor alpha (FRα) on their surface, before releasing a cancer-killing molecule which destroys the cell from within.
The treatment is given intravenously, via a drip, over two to four hours, once every three weeks.
The drug may also have ‘more tolerable’ side effects than traditional chemotherapy, with the treatment aimed more precisely at cancer cells than chemotherapy.
The NHS estimates up to 400 patients in England each year could benefit.
“This represents the most significant breakthrough in NHS treatment for these hard-to-treat ovarian cancers in over two decades, commented Professor Ruth Plummer, who is the NHS’s national clinical lead for cancer drugs.
“We’re delighted it will now offer hundreds of women much-needed hope of precious extra time with their loved ones.
“It is part of a growing wave of more targeted cancer therapies which, by homing in on specific features of cancer cells, are helping us improve patients’ lives.”
Featured Image – Stephen Andrews (via Unsplash)
News
Count Binface says he’ll put a £2 price cap on Wigan kebabs if he wins the Makerfield by-election
Emily Sergeant
Count Binface is officially running in the Makerfield by-election and has now shared his hilarious manifesto with the public.
Price-capped Wigan kebabs and 99p ice creams, cyclists being forced to ride unicycles if they break the Highway Code, and the renaming of HS2 to ‘FFS1’ are just some of the declarations being made by Makerfield by-election candidate, Count Binface.
In case you’re not up-to-speed on the Makerfield by-election coming up on 18 June – which was called after Labour’s Josh Simons announced he was standing down – there are now a total of 14 hopefuls set to contest the parliamentary seat.
Greater Manchester Mayor, Andy Burnham, is by far the most well-known candidate in the running, alongside other names like Conservative’s Michael Winstanley, Liberal Democrats’ Jake Austin, the Green Party’s Sarah Wakefield, and Reform UK’s Michael Kenyon.
But Burnham is not the only big name… there’s also Count Binface too, of course.
Count Binface – previously known as Lord Buckethead – is the alias of comedian and perennial candidate, Jonathan David Harvey.
He announced his intentions to run for the Makerfield seat last month, before officially publishing his manifesto today (3 June), which includes 20 pledges – some serious, others less so… we presume.
On a more local level to the Makerfield area, if Count Binface wins the by-election, he has pledged to re-phase the traffic lights on Liverpool Road to ease congestion, increase the free parking limit at the Gerard Centre to three hours, and to make Galloways’ Full Monty Bin Lid breakfast the country’s new national dish.
And then on a more comical level – yes, even more comical than a new national dish – this is where you’ll find pledges like making sure there’s WiFi on trains that works and also ‘trains that work’ too, as well as the bringing back of Ceefax teletext for all Greater Manchester residents, and the increasing of points for tries in Rugby League from four to five ‘in line with inflation’.
Oh yeah, and there’s the promise that Count Binface will be the UK’s entrant to Eurovision in 2027, let’s not forget that.
Anyway, like we said, the Makerfield by-election is coming up on 18 June, and you can find out more information about all the candidates on the Wigan Council website here.
Georgina Pellant -
1st February 2023 
