Normally this is where I welcome everyone to this weeks episodes of Welcome to the NHK. I have this whole spiel about what happened this week, maybe try to hook you in, its a jovial and happy time. But not this week. Cause this week, after an entire cour of soft balls, NHK finally decided to start playing hardball. And I’m all about it. So lets dive in.
First and foremost, mostly because I want to save all my spoilers for after the break, NHK looked janky this week. It was never a good looking show to begin with, relying heavily on clever and engaging direction. But we didn’t really get that. Instead, this week in particular with these two episodes, the production quality felt like it dropped like a rock. From static cars sliding across the screen to incredibly low detail closeups, NHK did not look good this week. Now luckily NHK isn’t the kind of show where that really matters. It would be nice, I would love this to get the unique production it deserves. But there’s just enough there to not take away from the story *too much.
And what a story it is. To give you a bit of a teaser: Turns out I was wrong, Hitomi isn’t a prostitute. That would have been an easier pill to swallow.
That leads me into the episodes and boy, what a pair of episodes they are. They both, hell this entire arc, is all about Hitomi. We spend the first episode, “Welcome to the Conspiracy!”, learning a lot about her. How she works as Public Servant, how her coworkers rag on her, how unfulfilling her romance with her boyfriend Jougasaki is, etc. This is all pretty standard stuff, she’s living the 9-5 grind. What makes it so tragic though, what leads to her own brand of depression in NHK, is how much Hitomi herself seems to care. She wrote up a massive proposal on how to help people, only for her boss to throw it away. She set up a big vacation for summer break, only for her boyfriend to blow her off for work. Hitomi seems to truly try, something Sato can’t say, and still draws the short straw.
And as if to cope with all of this, to cope with her mental problems, her coworkers etc, she has her meds. But I have to wonder how much these are truly helping her. And whether or not they are making the problem worse. Because we can clearly see that she isn’t forgoing them, Hitomi takes her pills multiple times. However it’s only after she takes them while at work that she begins to hallucinate. Seeing the same characters, the same representations of “conspiracy”, that Sato does. Is she having an adverse reaction? Are they the wrong ones? I don’t know! Whatever the case though, I’m concerned for her mental health after this arc. Assuming she makes it through this arc… That’s right, there’s a distinct chance Hitomi isn’t around in the second cour, and thats terrifying. Lets talk about it.
So all of that, her coworkers, boss, boyfriend, is to say that Hitomi is having a bad time. In fact I would go so far as to say she’s having the worst time in NHK. Easily, without question, the most self-destructive form of depression we’ve seen so far. I can honestly say that I wasn’t expecting NHK to go this far, this dark, with the topic. Yet it’s true that you can’t have an in depth conversation about it without touching on the darker parts. And the worst part for Hitomi here is that she’s not even totally innocent in all of this. Lying about being abused online, getting absolutely blitzed, involving a kid, letting Sato come along on a suicide trip of all things. That last one is a bit of a misunderstanding, a darkly hilarious one I will get into, but still.
What I liked most about all of this though was the setup. NHK did an absolutely stellar job of slow-rolling this being a group suicide. I suspected it the moment I saw Minegishi and the Book Boy at the train station. But it was just a lingering doubt, a “No way they will go that far… right?”. And then slowly but surely, NHK reels it in. Step by step, everyone is disillusioned and not talking, the small lines about how they couldn’t do this if Minegishi was lying, etc. Keeping that small drop of hope that it wasn’t the case alive via Sato. All to rip the curtain away with the final line of the episode, dragging us and Sato down to earth. An absolutely incredible, well earned cliffhanger for the end of the first cour.
That brings me back to my mention of “darkly hilarious”. I don’t mean to imply suicide is a comedic topic, it’s not and NHK never presented it as such. In fact it did a fantastic job of showing how serious the issue is and how it can affect anyone. From a seeing highschool student to a university dropout. Even a man who has seemingly everything in the world, overflowing with enough material wealth to own a cabin boat and a private island, and is yet still unfulfilled. I expect as this arc goes on NHK will dive deeper into their individual stories, to really connect us to what is happening. For now though NHK used them to create an incredibly nuanced scenario for gallows humor. One that simultaneously seriously presents the issue while still managing to make me chuckle. Though maybe that just means I’m a bad person.
I’m of course talking about Sato here. Now maybe it’s just me, but the irony of a Hikikomori finally actively trying to come out of his shell and connect with people only to figure out its a literal suicide cult is just a tad hilarious. The way he went around trying to be “reborn”, talking with them and being the most outgoing person on the island. The one time he finally tries, where he pulls strength from Hitomi because he knows he’s safe with her, and it turns out this is the least safe he’s ever been. And now that he knows, Sato is the only person on this entire island who can try to pull them out of it. The absolutely worst person to have that job. I just… I’m sorry, I find it hilarious. This kind of gallows humor is right up my alley.
Finally lets talk about some side stuff, characters and their goings on outside of Hitomi and the island. For instance: What does all of this mean for Misaki? Because as the end of episode 11, I got really concerned for her. Misaki put a lot of her energy and time into reforming Sato. She even seemed to truly care for him by the end, she was invested, NHK made that clear. Yet she just saw him, not a few days after effectively breaking up with her, go outside with a girl and drive off. Basically he did the most un-Hikikomori thing imaginable right after she thought she had failed. And the alternative, that he joined a suicide pact, isn’t any better! I can’t imagine the damage this will do to Misaki’s confidence. I really fear that this is the beginning of her fall, and a whole other dark arc.
And what about Hitomi’s boyfriend, Jougasaki? If Hitomi actually dies, what happens to him? Will he join her? And if even if she doesn’t die, the knowledge she tried to kill herself will still be there. I can just imagine NHK making him the kind of person to hold that against her. A silly, hopeful part of me thinks that maybe he will be the one to truly save her and pull her out of the darkness. That Sato can convince everyone else but her, only for him to do so. The only problem with that is this: How the hell does he get to the island on time to do anything about it? I don’t know, but it isn’t looking good for him.
Lastly I have to wonder what’s going to happen to Yamazaki. Not only did he oversleep for his meetup with his friends, but now he’s stuck dealing with all this? Lets face it, he isn’t going to get to demo his game. And the inevitable fallout from that, of his classmates mocking or insulting him at school, is going to happen. Will Yamazaki get his own dark arc as well, pushing him to quit designer school? If so, what happens to him then? Like… the more I think about it, the more ramifications Hitomi’s little suicide pact is going to have on the story moving forward. All because these characters are missing a single day of their lives to deal with this. And of course the question at the end will be: Was it worth it? I really hope it is. I want them to have a happy ending damnit.
So yeah, all in all I think these were some really good episodes of NHK. I’m down for whatever this show is cooking, because so far it just hasn’t missed. Remember way back when it started and I compared it to Tatami Galaxy, my number 2 show ever made? Well every episode that passes I feel that more and more. And just like Tatami Galaxy, Welcome to the NHK has managed to come along at the perfect time in my life for its message. I’m honestly considering what NHK is saying, how its affecting my life, and just how touching it has the potential to be. If it can nail it’s ending like *Tatami did, well… This might end up in my top 10, kicking Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood off the pedestal. Won’t that be interesting. See you next week when we find out if that’s the case.
And a quick reminder at this halfway point, if there is a show you want me to cover on Throwback Thursday leave it in the comments! I’ll add it to the list and let everyone vote on it when NHK finishes.
