#nihon hikikomori kyoukai

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#serial experiments lain #nihon hikikomori kyoukai #haibane renmei #niea_7 #yoshitoshi abe #link

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Welcome to the NHK novel review

Welcome to the NHK, despite being published over twenty years ago at this point, is still as relevant as ever. In fact, it’s only become more relevant as time has gone on. Not just the phenomenon of being a hikikomori, more commonly known today as being a ‘NEET’ (Not in Education, Employment, or Training), has grown in the last twenty years, but conspiratorial thinking has as well. Especially ever since

the COVID lockdowns began, conspiracy theories have been thrown into the mainstream. The difficult part about conspiracy theories is that while most of them are bunk, there’s a tiny percentage of them that make sense, or even rarer, aren’t conspiracies and things that actually happened. The most common conspiracy theory right now that is nonsense is QAnon. Well, at least four-fifths of the population believes that. Compare that JFK was killed in a conspiracy, which more than half the population has believed ever since the CIA popped him. Conspiracy theories fill in the gap in the middle, which replaces the unknown with what you want to believe. With many things with unknown origins permanently affecting our lives, conspiracy theories have grown significantly. This makes Welcome to the NHK feel like a contemporary read, even though the book is old enough to drink alcohol now.

The conspiracy that Tatsuhiro Satou, the main character of Welcome to the NHK, believes in isn’t anything related to anything that’s a real-life conspiracy. He’s smart enough to acknowledge that most conspiracy theories come from people projecting their own insecurities onto others. Despite all of this, he still ‘stumbles’ upon a conspiracy. A conspiracy that only he knows about, and one that came to him while he was tripping on a hallucinogen (named ‘White Drug’). He comes to the ‘realization’ that the NHK, the Japanese equivalent of the BBC or NBC, doesn’t for “Nippon Housou Kyoukai (Japanese Broadcast Association)”, but actually stands for “Nihon Hikikomori Kyoukai (Japanese Hikikomori Association)”.

Basically, the gist of the conspiracy is that the NHK wants to increase the number of hikikomori in Japan. In the novel, there are stated to be already two million hikikomori in Japan alone, which means that the NHK has done a good job. They ‘maintain’ this amount, and increase it, by broadcasting content that caters to the hikikomori (stuff like anime). This is a conspiracy that Satou doesn’t bother spreading across the internet, but is honestly one that could take off if it was about, say, CNN.

One day, Satou is approached by an odd girl, named Misaki Nakahara, who claims that she can save him from his hikikomori lifestyle. She coerces him into signing a contract, which ‘binds’ him to meet her at the park behind his apartment every night after dinner. These meetings, which are meant to help Satou return to ‘normal life’, mostly are her reading beginner-level psychology and philosophy books that she rented from the library. It’s questionable if these meetings are helping Satou, but he can’t afford to not come–if he breaks the contract, he’ll have to pay a one million yen fine.

Satou’s neighbor, and a former junior in the Literature Club back in high school, Kaoru Yamazaki, is his partner in crime (quite literally). Being an otaku, he and Satou share a lot of the same feelings of insecurity and loneliness. Yamazaki, however, isn’t a hikikomori–he’s currently at university to become a game creator, against his family’s wishes of taking over his father’s business. Yamazaki and Satou, while being terrible influences on each other, are the closest things each one of them has to a support system.

For Satou to escape being a hikikomori, and for Yamazaki to make it big in the game industry (and avoid being forced to take over the family business), they decide to create an eroge game. As you would expect from someone who has been a hikikomori for four years and a hopeless otaku, their eroge game is half-baked, and might as well be dead on arrival. This is one of the things that make Welcome to the NHK so relatable–the feeling of having a great idea, and finally getting the courage to put the pen to paper, only to find out that it’s very hard to create games. Being an eroge game, the scenario Satou has to write doesn’t have to be the best, but even writing sex scenes is hard, or at the very least embarrassing to type. Part of this roleplay that Satou and Yamazaki are doing is escapism from what seems like their destiny. Satou and getting a job, and Yamazaki and taking over the family business. If Satou can prove that he’s busy, then his family won’t feel obliged to force him to move back. If Yamazaki can make something that sells, then he can afford not to go back home. 

If you’ve already seen the Welcome to the NHK anime, then you already know the general plot. The Welcome to the NHK anime adaption was different from most other novel adaptations, in the sense that this volume is the only entry into the series. The anime has original arcs that aren’t in the novel, and the drug use in the novel is way more noticeable. I appreciate this version since it’s the original version. While it’s rougher on the edges than the anime, it feels more real. Part of this is because we get to read into Satou’s thoughts more in the novel–another part is because the author of this novel, Tatsuhiko Takimoto, was a hikikomori at the time of writing Welcome to the NHK. Having first-hand experience of being a hikikomori, writing what is partially a story about himself had to be very tough to do. It does make me hope that the lolita part was conjecture–either way, it does show how depraved one can get after an extended period of no human contact. Satou, for better or worse, isn’t part of society. One part that binds pretty much all hikikomori and NEETs together is a lack of social skills–it’s hard to get ahead if you can’t associate with others. Satou nearly obtains a part-time job near the beginning of the novel, but freaks out and runs out of the establishment before even getting an interview.

I have to admit that part of my admiration for Welcome to the NHK is due to nostalgia. It was one of the first anime that I watched back when I first got into watching anime. I downloaded the novel back then but never read it. It’s a shame since the Welcome to the NHK novel has bits original to it. It’s also a change from most light novel series, which can potentially drag on forever due to sales. While the novel and anime were successful, there hasn’t been any new content since the manga ended in 2007. There easily could have been more novels written with the added content the anime had, but there weren’t. And that’s a good thing. Too often a series gets ruined by outstaying its welcome and not knowing how to end. Welcome to the NHK knows when to end, because really, there isn’t a way to ‘solve’ being a hikikomori. There’s not much inherently wrong with being one too, as long as you have your wits about you (which Satou fails at miserably). For all we know, Satou could still be a hikikomori today, twenty years later.

I call Welcome to the NHK a ‘novel’, and not a ‘light novel’, since it isn’t one. While it reads like one (it is a light read), there aren’t any illustrations in the book besides the cover (which was drawn by the same illustrator who did the character designs for Serial Experiments Lain), which is the biggest tell. Welcome to the NHK lacks the vapidness that light novels often have, willing to be disgusting. Welcome to the NHK has more in common with novels such as No Longer Human than its contemporaries that also got an anime adaptation. Satou is about as vile, if not more, than Oba (the main character of No Longer Human), and both novels are semi-autobiographical. Welcome to the NHK is more of an ‘I-novel’ than a ‘light novel’, or rather, an I-novel written in the style of a light novel.

The rather painful nature of this novel, which comes with the territory of writing about something that affects you, also means that it’s unlikely to ever be any new Welcome to the NHK novels. I’ve been proven wrong before, but the apparent psychological toll writing this took leaves me to believe that Tatsuhiko Takimoto won’t be bothered to do it again, even if it was a winning formula. In the second afterword of the novel, Takimoto states that he hasn’t written a single new story since he wrote Welcome to the NHK and that he ‘returned’ to being a NEET, “living as a parasite on the royalties from this book”. I argue that he in fact isn’t living as one, since he’s living off of his work, which sold quite rather well. Well enough to warrant an official English translation. There’s also the fact that being a writer isn’t a regular 9 to 5 job–meaning that authors who ONLY write for a living are as much as ‘parasites’ as Takimoto is. Writers aren’t in a constant state of writing. Well, some may think they are, but the point is that Takimoto sees this book as something agonizing to think about, not his crown jewel. Ever since writing that second afterword in 2005, Takimoto thankfully has been able to write some original stories. None of them have made it big like Welcome to the NHK has, however.

If you were a fan of the Welcome to the NHK anime, then I one thousand percent recommend you to read the novel. It’ll connect to you the same way the anime does, and maybe even more if you also participate in recreational drug use. Really, knowing that Satou is high during most of the novel makes his nonsensical actions make a lot more sense. The Welcome to the NHK novel is also different enough from the anime that you won’t feel like you’re reading a screenplay.

Normally, I would end the review here, but seeing as there’s no reputable place to buy the English edition of Welcome to the NHK at the current moment, the only way you’d be able to read this is by reading it here. Don’t worry, it’s legal. Here’s hoping that it gets reprinted one day.

80/100

#welcome to the nhk #novel #light novel review #nhk ni youkoso #review

[kuri-no-tani]

JVC Post #30

Welcome to the NHK

This was one of the first anime I watched on my own, and at the time I loved it. I thought it was one of the best anime I had seen. Now, after watching it again after so many years, I still think it's pretty good, but not as good as I thought at one point. It's part of a slew of important anime that came out in 2006, which was a huge year in anime. Some other big names from that year are The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya(<3), The Familiar of Zero, Death Note, Aria, and Code Geass. There were also some cool OVAs like the Hellsing Ultimate OVA and Dai Mahou Touge. Though this anime is way too pervy. I think there's a lot this series could have done if it didn't have so much perv humor (even if I get why it was included).

Satou is a pretty well written character as well. He feels like a realistic portrayal of a shut-in NEET. This is a common point that a lot of people bring up when they watch this show.

That being said, Satou is also pretty clearly mentally ill (he doesn't have schizophrenia) which is part of the depiction of hikikomori. It's easy to tell someone that you just have to go out and talk to people or whatever, but it's never that easy for that person. For someone like Satou, something that simple is an insurmountable hurdle. Though, it's not just presenting Satou's issues. It also shows you (and Satou) that everyone struggles in their own way. This is harder to see in the 4 episodes we watched but I think the way this show presents mental illness and the complex situation someone Satou is in is something worth noting.

But all of this is really slapped around by the presentation sometimes. Particularly the way it jumps around after episode 11. The anime is a lot different than the manga or light novel, which are more focused. I feel like this anime would be better if it had stuck to what it was building up in the first half of the show instead of going off on a tangent in the later half. It would have been great as a 13-14 episode anime, even if they did change a lot of it from the light novel/manga. While I love MMORPGs, we didn't need 8 episodes about it in the show.

Its hard to get everything out of this anime with just a few episodes. Some of the episodes are just stuffed with great moments. Despite a lot of it being gross and weird, not a lot of shows have this sort of presentation of otaku culture to my knowledge so it's neat to see. It makes me cringe and look away but it's neat.

What I think the main point of this series is, is to tell people who identify with Satou that no one can go it alone, and to get them to realize that people like Misaki don't exist. You can't hope that someone is gonna knock on your door and rip you out of what you're going through. You have to put in work to make progress on your own; No one can do it for you. It also uses the NHK (Nihon Hikikomori Kyoukai) as a metaphor for blaming the world around you rather than looking inward. It's easy to imagine that you're part of some conspiracy or are in your situation because somehow everything is out to get you, but that's not (usually) the case.

However, I think the "message" of the show might be kind of murky and not well defined. Even with it's realistic depiction of an otaku shut-in NEET, it doesn't say enough about it or offer anything for Satou in the end other than a bittersweet, unhealthy relationship with Misaki. People who relate heavily to Satou aren't going to come out of NHK with anything but a lasting impression of that realistic depiction and will have nothing to go off of. It's a bit disappointing.

Lastly I wanna point out a cultural reference I noticed that I hadn't before. Though we didn't watch it, you can see in episode 3 when Yamazaki hands Satou his top 10 gal-games he hands him "Toki-doki Memorian" which is an obvious reference to Tokimeki Memorial (which is a great game you should play it). Pururin is also pretty clearly inspired by Di Gi Charat's Dejiko.

#doing this for a class

[bullfrawgs]

It has taken me six years but I have finally finished Welcome to the NHK

That ending was wholly bananas, how was it allowed to go to the air like this???

I need to describe how bonkers this is. So uhhh extremely important content warnings for depression, psychosis, and depictions of suicide

Okay so the main character Satou has been partly cured of his long-standing Hikikomori symptoms. But they have a dramatic finale where the woman who helped him out of it feels like she is unwanted by the world and by him sos she goes to kill herself.

And this guy’s big brain idea to save her from this is to convince her of the existence of an evil conspiracy responsible for all of her suffering (The Nihon Hikikomori Kyoukai, NHK), further convince her that he has a way to fully stop them forever, and that he will do that by jumping off the exact same cliff she has been trying to jump off. Weaponizing psychosis to get her through her ideation.

The only reason he doesn’t also die is because they just finished installing nets to catch jumpers at this particular cliff. A fact he did not know, and he was just figuring he was gonna die.

After a bit of a timeskip, they’ve set up a system whereby they both say if that if they die the other has to also die. Leaving them in a nuclear stalemate because they each value the other too much to see them go.

It is so incredibly messy as ways to get through rough mental health patches go, both of them need therapy and not the kind administered by a high school dropout who skimmed a summary of Freud. Like, the series manages to play it as a reasonably solid and compelling conclusion, but it’s raising so many red flags. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry about this having gone to air, and I pray to God that nobody took the advice of this ending about how to get through rough mental health patches.

#welcome to the nhk #frog does critique