NHK ni Youkoso!
Welcome to the N.H.K.

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this is a good manga that gets very close to greatness but falls flat on its face near the end where it just becomes kind of a word soup that you're not sure you even understand TOO well- however, it does a good job of representing how insane each character is in its own way, especially in the conversations between satou & misaki and yamazaki's speeches, so i'll give it that (lol).
ignoring the missed potential of this manga, where it could have been used to maybe expand a bit more into the depths of japanese society and worked a bit more with it's characters, ... i think it's genuinely funny and the characters are so delusional it makes it interesting to see how they interact with each other and what happens to them. at the same time, it's genuinely depressing and embarassing to read at some points, so be prepared.

ART 10/10: no complaints about this. the art style fits this very well, both in the comical and serious moments, and the lineart is so satisfying on the panels where you can clearly see each pen stroke (this makes me sound crazy)

CHARACTERS 8/10: i get it, they're mentally insane and quitting an addiction/changing your lifestyle is not done in the blink of an eye. but the repetitive arguing between the characters with no clear resolution still gets kind of tedious! it's like they're always dealing with the same conflict and never ever decide on anything.

CONCLUSION: i reccomend it! it was funny and actually very thought-provoking for me. but as i said, be mentally prepared for mentions of suicide, pedo & rape jokes, and delusional people making bad life decisions.

*CONTENT DISCLAIMER -- this manga depicts sensitive topics like suicide, self harm, bullying, incest & child abuse*

TL;DR: the story talks of a neet whos trying to better himself. the story is funny, looks amazing, has some solid characters and the concept has legs BUT the plot doesnt really DO much with them. the story loses steam halfway through and has a rushed ending. what would be a great manga to talk about real issues like self isolation & mental health, japanese working culture, and otaku culture where not expanded upon and thats a darn shame

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SYNOPSIS: Tatsuhiro is your run of the mill NEET, down on ... his luck because his parents threaten to cut off his allowance until he gets a job. in an attempt to distract himself from his miserable existence he takes drugs and has a psychotic break where he comes to the conclusion that the reason why he is a shut in is because the japanese entertainment companies have a complex conspiracy to create otakus & keep them in that social status forever. he reunites with his friend from high school and meets a girl name Misaki in an attempt to "defeat" the entities keeping him a NEET.

ART (9/10): the art was very good! each character looked unique and super expressive. there were quite a few scenes that were beautifully composed and was able to evoke a lot of feeling just with visuals alone. the mangas quite funny and i think the visual gags really sold a lot of the jokes.

CHARACTERS (6.5/10): both main and secondary characters have deep and complex backstories that really impact the main plotline. each character has their own issues and obstacles that they need to overcome and you are able to watch all of them evolve in an attempt to do so.

STORY (5/10): a major positive is that the characters are introduced in a really clever way where initially they appear to be random but all of their stories and subplots intersect at some point. whats cooler is that they will reference characters at the very beginning and then you are formally introduced to them later in the story and it isnt until the end that you realize who's who and i really enjoyed that. another major positive is how funny it is! i had some pretty good laughs (some that made me actually LOL) i think the concept is great and the beginning started off strong BUT it definitely lost some steam midway through. i REALLY liked the initial idea the manga had where they talked about this consumer conspiracy to keep people complacent and dependent on vapid media but i felt like they didnt finish that thought. it seemed like that took a back seat to their second message about self-forgiveness, the idea of being "normal" or "one with society" and what the looks like, and about finding your way but that too didnt feel complete at the end. the ending seems rushed and forced -- cobbled together to give some faux sense of satisfaction that everything ended up "ok" but really nothing was shown. we got a super quick "im doing slightly better and everyones doing ok! THE END". there was potential to make a bigger statement on NEET culture, or japanese working culture & expectations, or mental health and personal resilience and we got................. nothing! nothing but a bunch of toxic characters being kinda awful to each other for 8 volumes.

OVERALL (6/10): the manga looks beautiful and the characters are really rich and diverse, but the story seems underdeveloped. there is a point the manga wants to make but its muddied by all of the other themes and how the characters behave with each other towards the end of the story. it fell kinda flat at the end and theres an extra layer of disappointment knowing how much potential there was here.

An excelent premise, good firsts volumes, but sadly, a poorly executed work and lots of wasted potential.

Welcome to the NHK is one of my favorite anime of all time, so i checked out the manga to see what it was like and... it was VERY dissapointing.
Leaving my expectations besides, the story and character arcs in this Manga are very poor. Both the Story and the Characters go in circles for WAY too long. You get angry at them because you don't feel any sort of progression in the story whatsoever.
None of them has any sort of real resolution or redeemable qualities at all! They end ... up being very annoying to read. Characters keep showing up, but they have nothing to say, and end up being pointless to the plot and message.
The fact that they don't progress or go in circles is used in the anime in a more meaningful way of "Don't give up, keep up on trying", but it's not the case in this manga. So it ends up just being repetitive and stretched out

The message and main point of the story gets completely lost, and by half of the manga you keep asking yourself "Where is this going for? What's the point to all of this?". And none of that gets resolved in a satisfactory way.
Not only because it's not well focused and executed, but also because the pacing is very bad. Super rushed or super slow, both in the wrong places.

In general, this manga keeps going in circles, offers no clear resolution to any character arc, and ends up feeling empty and wasted. I would suggest just checking out the Anime adaptation instead, which fixes and upgrades every single aspect of this Work. Very dissapointing work.