Product Description

Twenty-something-year-old Satou, a college dropout and aficionado of anime porn, knows a little secret--or at least he thinks he does! Believe it or not, he has stumbled upon an incredible conspiracy created by the Japanese Broadcasting Company N.H.K. But despite fighting the good fight, Satou has become an unemployed Hikikomori--a shut in who has withdrawn from the world...One day, he meets Misaki, a mysterious young girl who invites him to join her special "project." Slowly Satou comes out of his reclusive shell, and his hilarious journey begins, filled with mistaken identity, panty shots, Lolita complexes--and an ultimate quest to create the greatest hentai game ever!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #313615 in Books
• Published on: 2006-10-10
• Released on: 2006-10-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 192 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781598166781
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Customer Reviews

This is about all those fans who go too far... and those afraid they might.
WARNING:This manga deals with sensitive subjects concerning mental health, drug abuse, and sexuality. Most certainly, this is not a title for kids.

Welcome to the NHK tells the story of a Hikikomori, a japanese shut-in with no job, income, or prospects. At the beginning of the story, he is spending his time obsessing over his financial/social situation, getting high, and feeling persecuted... not only by his neighbor (who won't stop playing the same song over and over again, driving him insane... as if he weren't already), but by the dreaded japanese broadcasting company, NHK.

*conspiratorial whispering* See... what it is, is... they're demoralizing modern man by getting them hooked on anime, porn, and instant ramen */conspiratorial whispering*

Sato, the main character, is conspicuously a NEET (Not engaged in Employment, Education, or Training), an archetype on the rise in modern Japan (and the world). He's dropped out of college and his parents have stopped sending him money to support himself... it's at that last straw, where he's down to his last 69 yen (about 50 cents) that Misaki enters his life.

Misaki is a mysterious young girl who may or may not be apart of the NHK conspiracy. She can see right through all of Sato's lies and seems to want to help him overcome his NEET-ness. As a character, she is the catalyst that jump starts the series and gets Sato moving on some track... ANY track other than the one he was on in the initial chapters.

Once Misaki makes contact, new characters are introduced left and right... an old Kohai (junior student) is his annoying neighbor while an old Senpai (senior student) provides him with energy boosters to get him in gear. And so on...


Phew...

NHK is complex, despite the relatively small cast. It comes from the inherent roundness to each character. They are all extremely flawed in some manner... some more obviously than others (like in the case of Sato), some whose flaws are given to the reader to judge (such as with the pill popping Hitomi), and some whose problems are barely even hinted at (like with the mysteriously philanthropic Misaki). But, even despite their flaws (and believe me, there are many), they carry on and try to grow, try to meet their goals or recapture something that they have lost... The question becomes, can they?

The art sets the mood, more often than not, with facial expressions and use of tone being used effectively to relay emotion (and, more often than not, it's despair). It also sets a fairly surreal tone for the entire piece, as I imagine, it's hard for people to digest what it really means of have this mental/social disease... lending dark humor to make it more palatable.

The pacing can throw you off, here and there, since the story sometimes goes off into hallucinations without telling you until it's already over (another recent manga tile that does this as well is I"s), which can be confusing for the uninitiated.

The lolicon content is muted, thankfully. You know it's there, you know what it is (and it creeps you out, as it's supposed to), but it's presentation as an object in the manga is toned way down to avoid titillating. Still, I wouldn't want my kids reading it until they were older and could understand the context (just like I don't want them reading Jean Auel until they hit puberty).


All in all, I do enjoy this book... the story is painfully sad with only a sliver of hope (early on) for it's characters to change and become happy (and gainfully employed XD), so I can see where that would be a turn off for most people. I have a hard time watching the anime for just that reason (it began airing in Japan in July of 2006).

I recommend it, but only for fans of the Slice of Life or Otaku genre who don't need life to be shiny and happy. If you like Genshiken, you'll probably like this... it's just a HELLUVA lot darker, so be warned.

For geeks, by geeks
Since the success of Densha Otoko, Japan has experienced a bit of an "Otaku boom," where this once-marginalized segment of society is coming forward to tell their side of the story. "Welcome to the N.H.K." tackles one of the most controversial aspects of the otaku, that of the hikikomori. Hikikomori are a bizarre social disease unique to Japan, where the sufferers fully retreat from society, living in their rooms for years without any interaction with regular society, yet often maintaining a vivid fantasy life via the internet.

Author Tatsuhiko Takimoto was himself a hikikomori for four years, during which he published a few light novels usually using otaku culture as a background. One of these light novels, "Welcome to the N.H.K.," was then licensed for publication as a manga, with the story extensively expanded. Tatsuhiko Takimoto himself authored the expanded story.

This first volume of the series sets the stage and introduces the characters. Tatsuhiro Sato is a classic hikikomori, but one who is just on the verge of surrendering fully to the life of a recluse. His fantasy world is slowly taking over reality, and he has become convinced that the national broadcasting network N.H.K., similar to Britain's BBC, is purposely creating a nation of hikikomori for some sinister purpose. Enter Misaki Nakahara, a mysterious girl who wants to enlist Sato into her project, supposed studying the hikikomori phenomenon but with a different purpose in mind. Another friend, Kaoru Yamazaki, wants to drag Sato further into the otaku world, so that they can create the ultimate porno video game together and become rich.

This is hardly a straightforward comic, and the non-sequitor nature and dark subject matter can be a little discerning at first. There are definitely some things here to challenge the most liberal boundaries, such as Sato's obsession with Jr. models and his quest to photograph elementary school girls underwear. But if you hang in there, the story starts to unfold and makes it worth while.

CURING A SHUT IN
It's been two years since 22 year-old Satou Tatsuhiro dropped out of college and 4 years since he's become a "Hikikomori". Hikikomori is a term used in Japan to describe the millions, mostly male, of people that shut themselves in their home and hardly even step out of their doors to interact with the outside world. In effect, they become hermits even though they might be living in a big city surrounded by hive-like apartments. Satou has been living this lifestyle but his parents have now threatened to cut off his money and make him return home, so Satou has to think fast about getting a job. But it's been so long since he's talked with other living human people that any social interaction will be pretty awkward. Plus, he thinks the Japanese Broadcasting Company, known as "NHK", is involved in a conspiracy to keep him trapped in his room as a Hikikomori. Just about this time, a Christian missionary comes knocking on his door, along with her beautiful young neice named Misaki. Misaki has been watching Satou for a long time and has decided to take it upon herself to cure Satou of being a Hikikomori. Of course, Satou is in denial and tells her that he doesn't leave his room that much because he is a software designer. But once he tells this lie, he realizes that he's going to have to at least go through the motions of designing a game. Fortunately, his next door neighbor, a former schoolmate named Yamazaki, warms to the idea of creating a computer game, but he wants it to be an "Ero" or porn game involving underage girls!

Some of the content in Welcome to the NHK is highly objectionable and borders on what I would call child pornagraphy. For example, when Satou begins researching Lolita pictures on the Internet, artistic representations, such as young underage girls are shown without shirts. Satou becomes so obssessed with these types of images that he even sneaks behind some hedges at a middle school to peep at young girls leaving school, hoping that a passing wind will blow up their skirts. This whole part of the book really turned my stomach and almost made me put down the book. Because I couldn't tell whether the writer was making fun of the otaku that have this particularly disturbing fetish or whether he was glorifying them. Honestly, it makes me wonder how this book got printed. If you can get past those moments in the book, the rest of the volume gets into some pretty deep, if somewhat dark, psychological territory along with its comedy. Not much is revealed about Satou and Misaki but there is enough to make you want to know more about their lives and how they have ended up in their respective situations. Satou's isolation and disconnect from society, Misaki's feeling that she has to atone for the trouble she has caused her family by helping others. A good read but may disturb some readers, especially if you have a very moral view of the world.