Welcome to the NHK

   

Welcome to the NHK

     I recently finished watching “Welcome to the NHK”, a darkly humorous hard-hitting expose of the phenomenon of the Hikikomori (a kind of Japanese shut-in who alienates themselves from the world totally often through mental and emotional problems).  Personally, I found it hard to watch at times as I’ve had problems similar to Sato and Misaki’s myself in my life.  In fact, there was a period back in the 90s when I shut myself away and didn’t come out for a long time due to personal problems. 

     

     The anime isn’t syrupy heartwarming or uplifting, there’s no “he magically gets better” or big win at the end, although some of the story arcs are a little anvillicious almost to the point of being an “afterschool special” with their message.  The online gaming episodes are probably the worst offenders of this where, at the end, Yamazaki delivers a long lecture and riot-act speech to Sato about the dangers and pitfalls of getting addicted to online gaming.

     The characters are played straight and Sato does improve by the end, getting out of his apartment, getting a job, etc.  His friend Misaki who also has problems starts getting her life in order too but its not “Oh they become successful and take over the world.”  In this way, its a very good show. 

Sato’s delusions and conspiracy theories are shown for what they are, pitiful madness, and you get dragged through the grinder with the characters as they struggle to help themselves and each other through very dark problems, often falling back to square one after a trauma.  Lots of the time there’s a manic dark humor in the show which is done well.  The humor is dark but not nasty or “wrong” (you know, humor where there shouldn’t be any). 

I recommend this anime highly to all my fellow anime fans (of course if you’re a fan, you’ve probably at least heard of it! :-)

I also find it ironic that many shows about hikikomori which followed after (such as Rozen Maiden and Kagerou Project) chose not to play it straight and showed the hikikomori’s delusions and hallucinations as real or showed them becoming some sort of superhero.   If you saw those first and then saw NHK, you might think that this show was a deconstruction or a satire, showing the Hikikomori and his misfit friends as what they are, misfits and down-and-outers who need help with no aliens, no powers, no nothing.   But NKH was created in 2002 and appears to have been one of the first shows to show this phenomenon in all its gritty glory.  Perhaps it was a little too hard hitting for fans and creators after all.