-Kazu's Blog

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I'm sure every knows one or two people who like to stay in doors a lot, right? Well the Hikikomori and the NEETs are an extreme version of these people. Though both are similar there are some differences. First i'll begin by explain the Hikikomori..

A Hikikomori is bacially a Shut-In an individual who, for some psychological reason or other, has given up on the outside world and now lives in-doors and refuses to make contact with anyone. Although only Japan has given this problem a specific name there are reports of this phenomenon occuring all over the world. People shut themselves in their homes and refuse to make human contact with anyone. Occasionally a Hikikomori may be into anime and video games but the two are not completely linked.



Now then, a NEET is a person who is Not in Employement Education or Training to put it bluntly, a dead beat. In the past 20 years there has been an alarming rise in NEET population people refuse to participate in the system and just do nothing. Now an interesting thing is that a NEET can only exist when his or her situation is guaranteed, i.e. parents pay for food expenses, rent etc. so once that is gone a NEET has to either assimilate or perish. In addition, most NEETs tend to be between the ages of 15 and 30.(On a side note, a certain anime series deals with both of these.)



The government in Japan is attempting various different manners of fighting both the Hikikmori and NEETs one of the most interesting ways i found was the "Moe Industries'" approach to the problem. Hikikomoris and NEETs can go online and recieve assistance from a fictional anime character known as "Miruku" (romanized 'Milk') she has her own blog and can provide assistance to the Otaku Hikikomoris and NEETs. One flaw i see is that they're trying to get people out..but the help can only be gotten through the internet..



Anywho! Thats all i got for now I'll be reporting on more interesting stuff later!

Kazu, Out!

Late Update:

There are some businesses attempting to counter the "problem" by producing DvDs that simulate human interaction, perhaps in the hopes of encouraging human interaction? I could only locate one small clip of such a DvD, enjoy!