Okay, so I was bored last week and there weren’t any particular new episodes/series I wanted to watch at the moment. But then I remembered, “oh yeah, I never finished watching NHK, even though I have the whole season”. So I popped it in and let the conspiracy unravel.

Spoilers follow.

NHK ni Youkoso! (Welcome to the NHK!) is about a 22 year-old college drop-out named Tatsuhiro Satou who has become a hikikomori and a NEET (Not currently engaged in Employment, Education, or Training). From this he believes that there is a conspiracy around him that deals with the NHK (Nippon Hikikomori Kyoukai) in which they aim to turn society into hikikomori. He battles with the desire to break free from the conspiracy, but is troubled as he is afraid of going outside. But this all begins to change when a chance encounter with 17 year-old Nakahara Misaki who chooses him to become part of her “project” and cure him of being a hikikomori.

Ok, so this isn’t the most unique storyline out there, what with Mr. Densha having been publicized in all sorts of forms of media (the novel, 3 manga adaptations, a movie, a TV drama series + special, numerous talk show appearances, must I go on?), not that I’m saying that this story is like Densha Otoko in it’s entirety, it’s just compared to Densha often. However, in this story the girl is saving the guy, and towards the end, visa versa. I pretty much managed to get past the first few eps (which weren’t that gripping) just so I could get closer to ep. 13 where the ED theme changes (what is up with that 1st ED anyway…) to Makino Yui’s “Modokashii Sekai no Ue de”. But I actually got into the story when Satou’s sempai, Kashiwa Hitomi, got into the picture. Even if she added more drama to the show, I can’t help but be interested in her; I guess I have a thing for slightly the crazy ones.

The romance between Satou and Misaki came off as awkward at first. It just seemed too forced that she would be interested or lured by someone with hardly any redeeming qualities like Satou. But as the story moves on towards Misaki’s dark past with her abusive father and such, it starts to make sense a bit that she’d want to feel needed. You end up wanting more at the end of the series, which didn’t have a solid finale in my opinion.

As for the other characters… well, Yamazaki (the resident otaku/aspiring galge designer and Satou’s neighbor, not to mention past school/club mate) didn’t really strike a chord with me all that much. His impatience and elitist attitude annoyed me at times; I couldn’t really get into his character. But he had some wise words for Satou and is truly a good friend, so I’ll give him that.
Kobayashi Megumi a.k.a. Iinchou (Satou’s class president in high school) was meant to be despised. I’ll just leave it at that.
Hitomi-sempai’s carefree attitude was kinda cool. Too bad she had such a rough love life and work place to make her emo. Somehow I wanted to see more of her and Satou’s relationship develop, but that wouldn’t feel right in the end, would it?
I liked the fact that Yamazaki’s friend/crush, an aspiring seiyuu, voiced Pururin, the main anime character obsession in the series. The theme song for it became pretty catchy, too (I found myself humming it a few times).

Round Table + Nino = love. The OP is nice and fluid, especially towards the end. Very fun to watch again, and again.. and again… BGM is nothing special, but I like how they placed the acoustic guitar numbers when Satou was having his moments of despair. Insert songs fitted the scenes, as well.

Overall, I give the show a 4.5/5. The level of drama in this series can be a little silly at times, but I guess the anime is not much compared to the manga (licensed by Tokyopop), from what I heard. For example, Satou was actually under the influence of drugs and was hallucinating when the furniture and stuff in the room talked to him, which was barely explained in the anime. Nevertheless, the seiyuu performed very well, and I’m happy to say that I admire Makino even more from her portrayal of Misaki. A nice story of second chances and determination, with a little romance just for fun. I’d recommend everyone watch at least 5-6 episodes of this before deciding whether or not you’d want to continue. I’d like to say I’m glad I did continue it afterall. Who knows, you might even start changing your own lifestyle a bit for the better.

Be sure to pick up/rent the DVD from ADV!

Screenshots taken by Random Curiosity.