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If I were to describe this manga in one word I’d say it’s illogical. Let me explain.
Welcome to the N.H.K. centers around the life of an unemployed and socially withdrawn young man named Satou Tatsuhiro – a hikikomori. A hiki-what? For those of you who don’t know, a hikikomori is a NEET (Not in Employment, Education or Training) who is afraid to go forth in the society and is not able to interact with people. Now one day, Satou meets a mysterious young girl named Misaki who claims that she can cure him of his social withdrawn syndrome and make him a normal person. They ... both enter into a contract whereby they meet every night at a park and Misaki carries out her “project” to cure Satou. Sounds good, doesn’t it? Yes, the plot is attractive but that’s it. The execution is bland, over stretched and senseless. First off, the story is directionless and things happen without reason. There are countless unnecessary plot lines that start off absurdly and end up inconclusively. For instance, in the last volume, Yamazaki starts rambling something about a “revolution”. I don’t know where the heck did it come from but he continuously urges that he has to start a revolution. Then he goes out with Satou and Misaki, plants some flowers and that’s it. We never hear of his revolution again. Now who in the world can figure out a connection between these two things? I must have missed something, you might say. Maybe. And if I did, I can say it for sure that most of you will be missing a whole lot of things throughout the manga.
On the bright side, what I liked the most about Welcome to the N.H.K. was its humor. There will come many scenes where Satou will create a situation of embarrassment for himself in front of other people and you’ll laugh your head off. The art complements these scenes with screwed-up faces of Satou – all sweaty with eyes and mouth wide open, sometimes completely rotten with cheeks and eyes sunken in. I still remember the scene where Misaki was about to kiss Satou but he became so nervous and stressed-out that his eyes shrunk and his face turned black, just like a zombie’s. Misaki quietly turned away. Unfortunately, comedy became scarce in the later volumes and was replaced by romance. It would not have been a problem if, as I said earlier, the story were not so illogical. Moreover, there was no chemistry between any of the characters. Because of this, many scenes which were supposed to be serious and emotional just went over my head.
Coming to the art, I must say that it was surprisingly good. The characters were just fine and the background was very well detailed. There were few and clean strokes, just what was required.
Besides manga, Welcome to the N.H.K. spanned two other art forms – a one volume light novel which started it all and a 24 episode anime. I’d read the novel before reading the manga, so a little bit of comparison is inevitable. The manga followed the novel closely in the beginning but ended on a completely different note. The novel was short and compact but the manga was over-stretched. The humor element was more in the manga than in the novel. One of the main theme of the novel was of a conspiracy. The protagonist Satou believed that the broadcasting company N.H.K. was in a conspiracy to create hikikomories and otakus by airing anime. But in the idea is not given much weight in the manga. Overall, I think the novel was a little bit better than the manga.
For me, Welcome to the N.H.K. was a mixed bag of good humor and some memorable characters but at the cost of a very crappy story. Read it at your own risk. Which reminds me to warn you of the mature nature of the manga. It revolver around a lot of urban subcultures like lolicon, internet suicides, drugs and erotic games and thus is not suitable for younger audiences.