Welcome to the NHK! ep.6

August 25, 2006 | 7 Comments

I am starting to feel the crunch now as my backlog grows longer and my real life gets busier. I think some backlog trimming needs to be done and I'm going to decide what series I won't cover anymore over the weekend. I'll most likely continue series that I'm up to date with and a few others which I will select over the next few days. Also, if you're looking for the next episode of Honey and Clover, I'll put up the screenshots as soon as I can get the raw. For some reasons, getting a raw for this week's episode is really hard. There is only one provider and the person's connection is unreliable. Anyway, enough talking about other series. This is actually a really good episode which places its focus on various reasons that turns people to withdraw from society. This is actually the point where I start to like the series because it stops making jokes about Satou's condition and starts addressing the issues that caused him to become a Hikikomori.

The episode begins with a female character inside a galge telling her 'brother' that she knows she is not related to him by blood but despite this she's....cut to Satou typing said scenario on his computer but decided to delete it because he finds it ridiculous. He finally realises that writing scenario for galge is not as simple as it seems. Although Satou has been following the guidebook, he can't seem to come up with one decent scenario. Satou then tries to write scenarios after scenarios only to delete them again because he can't bear having to write embarassing dialogues. Satou then notices the time is close to 9PM and remembers that he has an appointment with Misaki so he rushes off to the park. Misaki is not happy that Satou is late and reminds him that it's stated in the contract that he must come after dinner. When Satou claims that he just had his dinner, Misato tells him that in her house, she normally have dinner around 7PM.

After warning Satou that he'll be fine if he's late again, Misaki begins her lecture. She tells him that today she wants to tell him a good conversational technique since normally a Hikikomori can't speak to other people that well. She then points out that when Satou speaks to other people, he becomes nervous and this is why he stutters and becomes uncomfortable. As a result of this, his mental state becomes more unstable and this simply makes his conversational skill even worse. Misaki believes that people are nervous because they have no confidence in themselves and afraid of being ridiculed by others. Misaki then informs Satou of a technique which can improve his confidence. The technique is called "Copernican conversion" in which you need to make someone around you a more miserable person than you. In other words, she suggests that Satou looks down on those that he speaks to if it makes him feel more relax in the conversation.

Misaki then tells Satou that the reason she can speak this well is because she always uses this technique. However, she reminds Satou that he should never tell the person you're speaking to that you're using this technique. Satou is obviously livid to hear this since it means that Misaki actually looks down on him. He decides to ask her if deep down she sees him as a trash and a failure but Misaki denies this flat out. Satou decides to get his revenge by asking Misaki about the meaning of his dream again. Unfortunately for him, Misaki is prepared this time around and asks him if he's a virgin. She thinks it can't be helped that he's like this since he has no girlfriend. To rub salt into the wound, she then points out that even his next door neighbour and junior, Yamazaki, has a girlfriend. Satou is shocked to hear this but Misaki tells him that on the same day when she accompanied her aunt, they knocked on Yamazaki's door as well.

Apparently Yamazaki then went on and on about his girlfriend even though neither her or her aunt was asking about it. Satou finds it hard to believe that Yamazaki actually has interest in real girl but Misaki tells him that Yamazaki's girlfriend is called Nanako. She's apparently a girl from the voice acting class in Yamazaki's school. After finding out about her details from Misaki, Satou decides to ask Yamazaki about it but he wonders if Yamazaki will tell him the truth. After all, humans have the tendency to lie and even if Yamazaki tells the truth, will Satou be able to believe him? Before Satou can knock on the door, however, Yamazaki opens it from inside, hitting Satou's forehead in the process. After apologising, Yamazaki tells Satou that he's going to combini and wonders if he'd like to come as well. Satou refuses and pretends that he's going to write scenario. Later on, however, Satou regrets that he didn't get the chance to ask Yamazaki.

The next day, Satou decides to stalk Yamazaki so he can find out for himself if Yamazaki has a girlfriend or not. He thinks if Yamazaki doesn't have any girlfriend then it's okay but if he has one and she's a cute Shimokitazawa (1, 2) type of girl, he's going to kill Yamazaki. The Yamanote line eventually arrives in Yoyogi station so Satou follows Yamazaki and enters an anime school. Once inside, Satou tries to figure out where Yamazaki's game creator class is located but unfortunately he can't figure it out from the signage. A teacher then comes out and asks Satou if he's a trial student. Before Satou can answer the question, the teacher already tells him that trial students are supposed to come on Saturday and wants to know which area Satou is interested in. When the teacher finds out that Satou is interested in game scenario, he tells Satou that today is his lucky day since he's about to start his game writing class.

In the end, Satou has no choice but to join this teacher's writing class. The teacher then tells the class that today they are going to write a proposal based on material covered in yesterday's lecture. He tells the students that he wants the objective, its target audience, and the genre to be clearly defined. Satou thinks the entire thing sounds like a normal lecture and reminisces about the time when he was still in college. Apparently back then he wasn't interested in his subjects and ended up getting expulsion letter from his university. Satou's thought, however, is interrupted when the writing teacher tells everyone that he wants his students to write the proposal as if they are actually submitting it to a production company. Because of this, Satou begins writing a proposal for an ambient galge which can soothe people's soul. His protagonist is a craftsman who is living in the mountain and the heroine is the moutain's spirit.

Satou writes down that the two don't have to converse with each other because they already know each other's feelings. The mountain's spirit is kind and never calls the protagonist a Hikikomori or ridicules him. Satou also adds that neither characters need to worry about money or have any insecurities about the future. Their lives are peaceful and lovely. Satou then points out that the game doesn't require difficult installation either and an industry's first, hands-off system. All the players need to do is to look at the screen as the CG and text automatically appears. Upon reading Satou's proposal, the writing teacher can't help himself from laughing. Satou is offended about this and immediately covers up his writing. The teacher, however, tells him that Satou won't be able to be a creator if he's afraid of showing his proposal to other people. The teacher apologises for laughing but he actually admires his proposal for originality.

Satou, however, calls the teacher a liar and thinks that the guy was actually mocking him. He thinks because he's an amateur, the teacher arrogantly looks down on him. The teacher is surprised to hear this and tells Satou that everyone is an amateur when they first start anything. Everyone gets laughed at by teacher and upperclassman while on the path of becoming creators. Because of this, he wonders if Satou rejects everyone who's not equal or inferior to him. If that's the case, he thinks it's Satou who looks down on others. Satou then remembers what Misaki said about looking down on others while talking to them and starts becoming nervous. He imagines that everyone in the class is making fun of him. He also believes that his reaction exposed him as a Hikikomori and wonders what he's doing in a place like this. Eventually Satou can't handle the pressure anymore and starts blaming the entire thing on conspiracy.

Satou then runs out of the class screaming that he's been targeted by the conspiracy of an evil organisation called Nihon Hikikomori Kyoukai. He eventually stops running and tries to calm himself inside the escape stairwell area. While wondering how he'll be able to go back home, he overhears Yamazaki talking to a girl called Nanako. Satou decides to take a look at the pair as Yamazaki tries to convince Nanako to play a game he's just tried. Satou is pissed off upon seeing Nanako because she's a lot cuter than he imagines her to be. He resents Yamazaki for dragging him to the 2D world while Yamazaki himself has a real girlfriend. He swears that tonight their apartment, Mita House, will be soaked with blood. Not long after this, however, Nanako's friends call her up so they can go home together. After Nanako bids goodbye to Yamazaki, her friends proceed to tease Nanako for being so close to Yamazaki to the point of looking like a couple.

Satou, however, is shocked when Nanako tells her friends that there's no way Yamazaki could be her boyfriend. One of her friends then tell Nanako that although Yamazaki is not bad-looking, he's a disgusting otaku while the other compares him to a half-Hikikomori. As they left the area, Nanako tells the others that she's in love with another guy called Kazuo. Satou decides to find Yamazaki and tells him that he saw Nanako. However, he decides not to tell Yamazaki about the conversation between Nanako and her friends. That night, Satou informs Misaki about his finding. Misaki is not surprised since she had a feeling Nanako is not really Yamazaki's girlfriend. Satou is annoyed that Misaki had gave him a misleading clue, which brought him to a public place. Misaki, however, points out that this is a good progress for someone like Satou. Upon hearing this Satou momentarily sees Misaki as an angel but changes his mind when she fell on her butt trying to balance herself.

Impression:

Misaki seems to be a lot more 'evil' in this version. I mean, she's not exactly an angel to begin with but in the manga version, she makes a very good attempt to cover up this fact. She basically looks innocent most of the time so it's hard to tell if she's being genuine or just playing with Satou. On the other hand, the anime makes it a bit more obvious that Misaki has ulterior motives. In addition to this, Satou is far more aware that Misaki can't be trusted. But if this is the case, then I don't understand why he wants to hang around her for a long time, especially since he has the tendency to become upset when other people ridicule him. Misaki is a lousy counsellor to begin with anyway. Her advice on how not to be nervous when talking to other people is just cruel and not the kind of thing one should say to anyone. Satou actually resents being looked down by others, so it's rather stupid of her to ask Satou to look down on others while talking to them.

This brings me to the point of the story, which is the fact that humans often lie and look down on others. Satou wants to know if Yamazaki has a girlfriend but hesitates to ask because he's well aware that humans have the tendency to lie on occasions. Nanako acts nice in front of Yamazaki but she then acts as if she doesn't care about him in front of her friends. This is why Satou ends up not trusting the writing teacher when he told Satou that he is not making fun of Satou. One of Satou's problems is that he has generally lost faith in humanity. He can talk easily to a few people that he knows very well (ie. Kashiwa-sempai). But when he's confronted by a stranger, he can no longer believe that the person won't lie, look down, or insult him. The sad thing about this is that, Satou has a rather good reason to feel this way. As proven by Nanako and her friends, sometimes people can be downright cruel and ignorant towards those who are different from them.

Satou himself is not a good person either. When he hears that Yamazaki possibly has a real girlfriend, he wasn't actually happy for his friend. In reality, he was jealous and doesn't like the fact that someone is doing better than him. The writing teacher was right when he said that maybe Satou is the one who looks down on others because he only accepts people who are on the same level or worse than him. Because by accepting these kind of people, he can make himself feel better. He can convince himself that he's not the only one who's doing badly. There are others who are in similar position to him and there are those who are in even worse condition than him. It makes me wonder what Satou feels towards the end after he overhears the conversation between Nanako and her friends. Did he feel sorry for Yamazaki or did he actually feel remorse for thinking this way to begin with. Oh well, at least he made a little progress in combating his fear of strangers.

© memento 2003