Welcome to the NHK?

If you've never heard of it, Welcome to the NHK is an anime (based on a semi-autobiographical [?] novel) that centers on a young man who has withdrawn from society and lives with as little human contact as possible until a girl appears who says she can save him from his self-imposed exile.  Lots of adult content because adults can legally make their own stupid choices.  (NOTE: the first ending theme song may be one of the most disturbing I have ever seen.)

It's hard to watch Welcome to the NHK, especially after finishing Hurry Down Sunshine: A Father's Story of Love and Madness (Vintage), a memoir about mental illness as seen from the outside.  I recognize symptoms (paranoia, mania, depression), and the armchair sociologist in me starts flipping through scattered notes about hikikomori and increasing loneliness and social withdrawal as technology rises.

It's painful to watch Welcome to the NHK as a fan (who happens to be a somewhat shy, introverted person).  Sometimes, I feel the pull of being a hikkikomori.  I mean, seriously, if someone were paying your bills, and you didn't have to leave the comfort of your home, wouldn't you stay in? 


Especially if the alternative was working a crappy customer service job that puts you inescapably face-to-face with the decidedly less-fine aspects of humanity all the time?  Wouldn't you want to stay where you couldn't hurt and offend or be hurt and offended by others, where you wouldn't have to be angry or frustrated so frequently?  Where you wouldn't have to pick up after other people's inconsiderate leavings all the time?  Where you wouldn't have to smile while people are rude and dismissive and contemptuous to you, bully you, or hit on you (when they're not being infuriatingly slow, unhelpful, and forgetful, or assuming you have god-like powers)?  Where you wouldn't have to deal with an unqualified, incompetent boss immune to logic, reason, or any other method of discourse?  Where no one expected anything of you?  Where no one tried your patience?  Where the only person you could disappoint was you?  Where you were more in control of everything (everything having shrunk down to your apartment)?

Understanding that pull makes watching the show more difficult.

Tokyo Vice gave some good (and sad) examples of how mental illness is viewed and dealt with in Japan.  There's that whole wa concept (and fitting in and not standing out and the nail that sticks out getting hammered down and all that). 


Japan would be a painful place to withdraw from social contact, which makes me wonder how much more painful it is for those who do withdraw to maintain contact or try to reestablish it.  It gives me more sympathy for the seemingly hopeless, boneheaded protagonist of Welcome to the NHK.  He's still trying to re-connect even through that added pain.  He screws up so badly, but he's trying, so you can't help but pull for his eventual success.  You know his story is based on a real person's story (you think so, even if you might be wrong), and you want there to be a happy ending, to have been a happy ending.

I wonder if people in the U.S. who are writing all these books about the rise of loneliness and social withdrawal as technology makes living without people possible are looking to Japan to learn about what this kind of mass withdrawal can do to society.  I wonder if someone's written about it somewhere.  I wonder if all the anime fans who've seen the series or the manga fans who've read the manga adaptation or the original novel have thought about the sociological implications of this sort of thing in their lives in their countries in their fan communities.

I wonder if my sister would say I'm thinking too hard about this.  :)

Watching Welcome to the NHK is a struggle for many reasons.  I'll let you know if I think it was worth it in the end.