Welcome to the N.H.K!

Back in around December, I just about ran out of anime to watch. I guess I get kind of stingy when the first episode of a series (or the opening animation) doesn’t grab my attention, and I end up putting it on the backburner. Naruto and Bleach were still in filler mode, and the only thing I really had was One Piece to keep my attention. So anyway, that’s when I decided to give “Welcome to the N.H.K!” a try.

What was noticable right away was that it was similar to Genshiken, in that the series was more reality-based rather than going with generic anime style of exaggerated hair and incredibly squeeky and cutesy voices. Also within the boundrary of realism is that no one is from outer space or has any magic powers.

It’s just a down-to-earth story about a bunch of miserable young adults and their lives after high school. Anyway, the show is about Tatsuhiro Sato, a hikikomori and NEET for 3 years, almost 4 years. Citing from wikipedia, a hikikomori is ” a Japanese term to refer to the phenomenon of reclusive adolescents and young adults who have chosen to withdraw from social life, often seeking extreme degrees of isolation and confinement due to various personal and social factors in their lives. The term “hikikomori” refers to both the sociological phenomenon in general as well as to individuals belonging to this societal group.”

Often running around the surreal world of his own head, he believes the reason he is a NEET and the reason why bad things happen to him is because of a conspiracy worked by a secret organization called the N.H.K, which stands for ‘Nihon HIkikomori Kyokai.’ It translates to “The Japanese Association for the Socially Withdrawn.” His theorizes that otaku, who tend to be very reclusive and have many sociological problems, become the way they are because of this organization. By airing funny anime, they mass produce the number of otaku and become resonsible for the increasing number of NEETs and hikikomori in the nation.

The NHK don’t actually exist in this story, but it serves as an interesting plot element to show the character’s mental instability and his rationalization for his social problems. After all, why do bad things happen to good people? It’s a rather common question since the glory days of Greek philosophy during late 400 BC. Some people blame God, while Sato blames the non-existant NHK organization.

NHK = God??

Getting back on track, Misaki Nakahara is introduced as the female love interest. The two characters first see each other when Misaki was soliciting along with her Aunt. After seeing that Sato is a lot more pathetic than she is, she asks Sato later that night to become the subject of project she’s conducting to cure him of his hikikomori-ness. And so every night they will come together for counciling sessions, in an attempt from Misaki to save Sato.

So there’s your ‘boy meets girl set-up.’ After that we’re introduced to two other main characters, Kaoru Yamazaki, an aspiring game creator who works with Sato to create the ultimate galge, and his high school senpai Hitomi Kashiwa, a conspiracy theorist whom Sato’s idea of the NHK came from.

What seperates this from other ‘guy meets girl’ anime is that has a pretty hefty theme of suicide. For the most part, the show is a down-to-earth funny and light-hearted series, but our main cast of characters are all depressed, lonely, and suicidal. The last anime I could remember that dealt that really dealt with suicide seriously was Serial Experiements Lain, which was in no way anything resembling a love comedy.

Fortunately “Welcome to the NHK” is, so you can expect feeling good after finishing this. ‘NHK’ deals with a some serious themes, but there are plenty of laughs and fun to be had throughout the series. The Sato looking through “reference” material to help create the galge and playing an online role-playing game (all animated from his in-game point of view!) are all fun stuff. And like all other shonen romance series, there’s the usual fan service and “oops, I fell on your boobs!” scenes, but they’re not overplayed at all if you’re worried about too much of it (yeah, I know). 

    

The female lead Misaki is a stand-out character for me. She’s too nice for her own good, yet flawed and insecure. She has a bit of mystery surrounding her throughout the series, which fits the the show’s conspiracy back-drop well and adds an interesting plot element into the series where Sato isn’t sure if he should fully trust her. And female anime characters with a sweet and non-annoying voice always seem to appeal to me, so extra points in that area.

Plus, she’s realistic in her relationship with Sato, in the way that most human beings treat others nicely only to make themselves feel better and to cover-up their own flaws. She openly admits that Sato is more pathetic then she is, and that she is a flawed person, so that’s why she wants to save him. This adds an interesting dynamic and complication to their relationship, especially considering that Misaki is so mysterious in the first place. I just really like how these two characters are portrayed, especially Misaki.

 The music and animation are very well done. The soundtracks are particulary worth getting. There’s an assortment of nice and mellow accoustic guitar tracks, a few great vocal tracks, jazzy music, orchestral, j-pop, and even a couple of hard rock tracks. For a series like this, they’ve really outdone themselves to give us some really good music.

With the animation being done by studio Gonzo, well known for their work on action-oriented ‘Hellsing’ and ‘Full Metal Panic,’ it’s definitely a great looking show.

So I definitely recommend seeing Welcome to the NHK. It’s a nice slice-of-life series, it’s very funny with its views on anime and video games, quite depressing as we see how each character deals with his or her lonliness, and brings it all together into a solid ‘feel good’ show.