WELCOME TO THE N.H.K. DVD Review

(According to this series I'm sometimes uncomfortably close to counting as a hikikomori...)

Due to it recently being released on DVD by Siren Visual in Australia I watched "Welcome to the NHK" and was very impressed by it. Word of Mouth was already strongly in favor of this anime series from 2006 (just read Kwenton's review for a nice example: link) and in this case the Word of Mouth is certainly justified.

"Welcome to the NHK" follows the (mis)adventures of a college drop-out who never leaves his room, a so-called "hikikomori", who is prompted, pushed and cajoled into getting his life somewhat more in order. It is not a "noitaminA" series but it oh so easily could have been with its adult focus and quirky handling of some very dark subjects.
On top of that it's often also hilarious. I will go into detail, so read on...


The Story:

Sato is a college drop-out who lives secluded in his student room, never venturing outside. A hikikomori, he lives from his parents' allowance and does not see any other people. This changes when he meets the younger and seemingly bubbly Misaki, who challenges him to follow her course on "How To Stop Being A Hikikomori".

To prove to her he's not a hikikomori, Sato starts working on a dating video game together with his somewhat creepy otaku neighbor. But this work exposes Sato to several outside influences he was previously totally unaware of, like hentai anime, porn, the Internet, real dating, suicide pacts, and this shakes him up considerably.

On top of that he still has to follow Misaki's course anyway. Can his attraction to her win from his all-consuming belief that the world is a conspiracy against him, led by an evil organization called the N.H.K.?


The Series:

Some proclaim "Welcome to the NHK" to be an accurate insight into the strange phenomenon of the hikikomori, but I have doubts about that. Its main character suffers from two mental afflictions which cause him to act like a hikikomori, but his case is so peculiar that he can hardly be seen as a posterboy for the whole group. Sato is a paranoid schizophrenic (albeit a rather mild one) and cannot handle any form of rejection, which leads to him hiding in his room. If you think that mental health problems are what causes hikikomori you might as well just say "all hikikomori are crazy" and be done with it. Later on the series even poses several times over that hikikomori is a luxury disease, and sliding far enough down the Maslov pyramid will surely cure it. That's hardly an insight at all, so illumination on this subject is not what "Welcome to the NHK" provides.

Instead, the series uses Sato's hikikomori state so he can act like a fish out of the water when confronted with several of the weirder aspects of society. When seen in this regard "Welcome to the NHK" is wildly successful and very, VERY funny indeed. Sato is not entirely bereft of wit or logical thinking, yet his naivety and lack of backbone gets him far deeper into trouble than necessary and seeing him cope with these situations is absolutely hilarious.

Aside from the funny stuff there is a lot of slice-of-life soap in this series, and this can on occasion make for pretty uncomfortable viewing as some of the situations got rather familiar, at least to me. Believe it or not, I was contacted a few years back by a girl I fancied in high school, and I was happy (flattered like hell actually) that she remembered me and wanted to meet me so we could "catch up". As it turned out she needed me as a lower-rung follower in a pyramid scheme she had gotten involved in. OUCH... Talk about a sobering experience! A similar event happens around Sato and I was watching this unfold with clenched fists.

There are several other examples where the story stops being funny and turns quite tragic. Anyone who has gotten obsessively addicted to his hobby at some point in life (and who, reading this website, hasn't?) will find plenty to identify with. Sato may be passive, lazy and slightly deranged, but there are many aspects of him which are easily recognizable. This is maybe the series' most impressive feature: the way its cast start to live more and more as real characters after a while is truly great. It would have been easy to make everything as zany as possible and keep the situation static, but that is not what happens here. The dark outside world steamrolls on around (and sometimes over) Sato and his friends and there is no escaping it, no matter how hard they try.

On occasion the series dips a bit too deep in melodramatics. There is the tired plot-device that suicide attempts apparently do solve everything (provided they fail), and one plotline strives too hard to find happy endings for the supporting characters, unfortunately turning saccharine. But these are small blemishes on an overall story which is quite focused, keeps commendably realistic (well... most of the time) and manages not to end exactly as I had predicted in advance.

The animation is fine, especially during hallucinations and dream sequences, although it will never be the main reason for watching this series. The soundtrack contains some nice tunes especially whenever Sato has some darker trains of thought.
It makes the whole series look and sound refined, but it never takes the limelight away from the story and characters. All in all this is a mighty fine and grown-up series.


Conclusion:

"Welcome to the N.H.K." is an intelligent adult-oriented story about being forced to cope with your surroundings, including the people who inhabit it. At times it is a tad too melodramatic but mostly Sato's coming-of-age journey is impressively straight, and laugh-out-loud funny. No explosions are necessary here to make this series a spectacular one.

In short: this is very highly recommended.


About the DVDs:

Siren Visual (yes, them AGAIN) has released all 24 episodes of "Welcome to the N.H.K." as a single 4-disc boxset. As usual their release is perfectly good on video and audio, but is quite barebones. The extras are a few trailers and textless credits.

The discs are PAL encoded for region 4 (Australia - New Zealand), and like all Siren Visual's releases this set defaults to the Japanese stereo soundtrack with English subtitles although the English 5.1 dub is also available. Both tracks are of pretty high quality. Sometimes I wonder if the folks at Siren Visual get a constant barrage of phone-calls, emails and tweets from angry fans, clamoring for them to make the English soundtrack the default on their sets. The rest of the English-language distributors keep claiming that English is the necessary way to release anime, so... But it's nice to have at least one publisher who shares my preference of the original soundtrack.

Thankfully the folks at Siren Visual also share my taste for adult-oriented anime and their release of "Welcome to the N.H.K." certainly hit the spot.

"Welcome to the N.H.K." can be ordered worldwide through Siren Visual's website.