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Japan has a long-standing and highly publicized infatuation with maid outfits. As such, it’s really not much of a surprise that you can find a video on YouTube that bears the English title 100 Sizzling Japanese Maids in Action.

The 100-second video isn’t a contribution to Japan’s highly specialized pornography industry though. Rather, it’s an ad for something altogether less prurient, as its true theme isn’t so much “hot girls” as “hotcakes.” It is, nevertheless, extremely compelling viewing.

While the commercial was filmed in Japan, it was produced at the behest of U.K.-based mail-order retailer Thane Direct. Among the products in Thane’s lineup you’ll find the FlavorStone series of cookware, which the company boasts retains its non-stick properties even without the use of cooking oil.

Thane’s U.S. website advertises five-piece FlavorStone sets for US$49.95, so the pots and pans aren’t strictly for the ultra-rich. That’s not to say wealthy plutocrats won’t also appreciate the benefits of their non-stick design, though, as shown in the ad, which takes place in a stately manor staffed by 100 maids.

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Since true luxury is having more servants than residents in the house, all 100 of these ladies, including employees of maid cafe Maidreamin, idol singer group Chu-Z, and former national gymnastics team members, are here to cook breakfast for one guy: the owner of the house.

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All that’s on the menu, though, is a pancake, which isn’t usually the sort of thing that requires 100 people to prepare. Unless, of course, it’s a long way from the kitchen to the table, and you like having your meals delivered like this.

Showing off how easy it is to slide food from their FlavorStone frying pans, the maids set up a huge relay, which gets all the more impressive when it heads to an upper floor of the house, followed by another trip back downstairs. The whole display would be impressive even without the handful of acrobatic passes mixed in. Maybe that’s why, after 99 flawless transfers, the owner doesn’t seem upset when the very last one doesn’t go quite like he’d expected.

If all of that looks like a lot of work to film, it was. The video below shows some of the cast’s numerous rehearsals, for which the production team had to whip up some 150 practice pancakes.

Honestly, we’d be worn out after just one round. Most people who have pancakes for breakfast don’t eat just one, though. We figure that relay’s got at least two or three more iterations to go through before the morning meal is finished.

Source: YouTube via AOL Japan
Images: YouTube