Woohoo first post :P
はじめまして、ミマです～
Watching Welcome to the N.H.K. made me realize the apparent and bitter truth that everyone, particularly those living in urban areas, experience and carry out everyday: the competition to stay valuable as a citizen. Every year, hundreds and thousands of people move inwards to the place that never sleeps--the big 'ol city where just about anything takes place. The ever-becoming densely populated area makes living in the city not just to run about, you have to actually earn it.
We need to take notice that the city can be a good place to have leisure--one might even find heaven--for all the big and beautiful buildings, bridges, parks, transportations, people--not to mention historical cities like London, New York or Tokyo--but as I've heard a Parisian once said, "It is a very nice place to visit, not to live." The privileges and sophistication of living in the city are the very things that bound you, "charge" you to compete, to do extra work, to make extra effort, to earn yourself the genuine status of a citizen.
Competition means win for one and lose for the other; people in the city compete by earning "capitals" in the form power, fame and fortune, and the more you have the more valuable you are considered as a citizen. Individual capacities might play into part here, but the most important thing is how you can share those capitals with society--how you can render and contribute to your surroundings as compensation for your "letter of acceptance". This is the main problem for our main protagonist in Welcome to the N.H.K., Tatsuhiro Satou, for his experiences with people were only mournful and exhausting ones.
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| Tatsuhiro Satou from Welcome to the N.H.K. |
Judging from how Satou was portrayed in high school, he wasn't exactly what you say anti-social; he was just an ordinary, lazy, skeptical, 'keep-his-cool' kind of person (normal traits of a teenager), who accidentally got dragged into Literature Club by his senior and decided to stay so until graduation. School at that time was his obligation, his "pursuit of capital", and he didn't seem to have any significant problems then. Joining the Club was also his "compensation" for being a student there. True he didn't have many friends, but he was doing his part as a citizen, and he did just fine.
Then, just like any normal people would do after graduating high school, he had to choose either to start working or continue school, and he chose the latter. But it is after he had decided to drop out that his value as a citizen began to be tested. The matter is, he's no longer a student; he didn't have an obligation or "capital pursuit" as I mentioned earlier, and the longer he waited before starting another pursuit, the harder it is for him to "continue playing" in the competition. When one has finished or withdrawn from one's pursuit, one's individual capacity is put into test, and I believe time (in the anime, he has withdrawn from doing anything for 4 years) has made his already complicated personality more difficult, and the lack of "grip" to keep him in the competition worsened the situation even more. The result:
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| Satou being a hikikomori |
He becomes even more withdrawn. Hikikomori is a unique social withdrawal and isolation syndrome that describes young adults not engaged in work or study, not in the process of finding a job, and who have had no relationships with others (except family members) for more than 6 months (Saito, 1998 in Yong and Kaneko, 2016). What I find most interesting in the definition is that behavior in hikikomori is not related to psychiatric problems (idem). I strongly agree with this, although one's personality may indirectly affect as well (timidity/shyness, reluctant/afraid, egoistic etc). The underlying reason why Satou chose to become a hikikomori, in my opinion, is because he has failed to stay in the competition.
You can say he's already a lazy person himself, not putting enough effort to change; at some cases he may be shy, afraid or "difficult to cope", but I believe it is profound; it is of the social pressure to stay valuable, to be considered accepted as a citizen, and evidently, Satou failed to compete. His track was fine until that fateful moment of his life, dropping out of college, and took too much time (or not at all) to find another pursuit to keep him in the competition. Consequently, society curses his existence, while at the same time he curses society for not accepting him. His value as a citizen is wearing out and he's realized that, society has also realized that, and it'd be better if he just pack his bags and leave (or so to say), for the norm to stay in the city, to keep being a citizen, is to stay valuable; by taking part in the competition of pursuing and sharing capitals as I've explained earlier.
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| Hitomi Kashiwa (Satou's senior in high school) as a civil servant |
If only he didn't take too much time goofing around after dropping out, or, rather, if only he didn't drop out, he would've retained his valuable status of a citizen, even for the tiniest bit. His complicated personalities come later, or maybe don't really matter at all as long as he stays in the competition (in itself is a critic to the argument).
Going back to the definition of competition, though, I've mentioned that it means win for one and lose for the other. This means that there will always be someone prevailing and some other succumbing, and one succumb may mean prevail over someone lower, and one prevail may mean succumb to someone higher, and this dynamic goes on and on throughout people's life as a citizen. Stratification will never cease to exist, but this contradicts the assumption that the existence of hikikomori is invaluable. As a matter of fact, they are needed, as a means or even "inspiration" for other people to compete--to NOT become them. The existence of hikikomori in the city maintains the competition being played out, and perhaps becomes a "salvation" for those who are at the far edge of the pack.
In conclusion, my opinion is that, living in the city is a privilege, and it brought forth the assumption of having to stay valuable among the citizens. To achieve said value, people have to compete with each other by pursuing capitals while also sharing them. Fail to do so, their value as a citizen will be questioned and they may experience rejection from society, while they themselves may commit the same by becoming, what can called as, a hikikomori. Meanwhile, their existence in the city may be very much needed for maintaining the process of the competition.
また
References:
-Welcome to the N.H.K. (2006). Animation produced by NHK and Victor Entertainment. More info here
-Yong, R. K. F. and Kaneko, Y. (2016). Hikikomori, a Phenomenon of Social Withdrawal and Isolation in Young Adults Marked by an Anomic Response to Coping Difficulties: A Qualitative Study Exploring Individual Experiences from First- and Second-Person Perspectives. Open Journal of Preventive Medicine, 6, 1-20. Downloaded on March 31, 2017 from here
