I came in Welcome to the NHK rather skeptical, thinking that it would be nothing super special, yet I walked out as a completely different person.
Before I watched Welcome to the NHK, I was suffering from depression and lack of motivation. I was also on the verge of dropping out of college and dealing with substance abuse. I felt as if life had no meaning and was closeting myself increasingly and not leaving the room. I was in the slow process of becoming a hikikomori, something I had no idea of what it meant before I watched this anime.
In the beginning, I was not so impressed mainly because of its rather subpar animation, but then again Welcome to the NHK was made in 2006 and didn't have a high budget. However, despite the low quality animation, the art had this old classic feeling toward it and I quickly became accustomed to it and overlooked its flaws due to all the other aspects of the show being simply outstanding.
The characters of this anime are amazingly realistic as well. Throughout this anime, we get to see them develop. Satou is basically a hikikomori or in other words a shut in who chain-smokes cigarettes and gets drunk often. Because of his reluctance to see the sunlight, this in result caused hallucinations as well, something clearly realistically depicted in the anime. Despite all this, Satou tried to be a good person to the people he late become close to. He meets this girl named Misaki, who is extremely mysterious but very vulnerable deep down inside but wants to aid Satou by forcing him to sign a contract to meet every night. Satou also met his apartment neighbor Yamazaki, who is at school learning video game developing and is a huge hardcore otaku, and together they focused on making a erotic game. There is also Satou's childhood friend Hitomi who is Satou's long time crush. All of the characters including the side characters in Welcome to the NHK are very useful in the development of the story and none of them are unneeded as we see these characters develop and change attitudes throughout the story. The relationships in Welcome to the NHK are also very realistic, none of them are idealized as every character has their own range of problems. Finally, every episode in the anime serves a purpose and none of them were just specifically fillers. Combined with amazing voice acting especially on Satou's part and a purposeful and well fitting soundtrack, every episode became very enjoyable to watch.
As the story of Welome to the NHK transgresses, we get to understand how Satou overcomes his fear of society. Each and every of his sessions with meeting sessions with Misaki was purposeful and filled with deep questions. Each and every incident and obstacle Satou comes across are not usually huge, but successfully depicts the hikikomori problem. As I watched Welcome to the NHK, I saw Satou as the future me if I have continued down the path I was taking.Through seeing myself in the main character's shoes, I took in innumerable lessons and ideas that made me understand my own problem. One crucial lesson I took is how we should see our own shortcomings instead of blaming everything on others. We should understand that we need to fix ourselves before blaming society as always blaming others is not salvation. We don't have a obligation to help society but at least we should understand that we are not perfect and stop being a drag to society. Throughout the end, we get to see many of the characters not taking the most ideal paths they thought but a path that nevertheless made them happy also showing that there are many paths of life throughout life and not achieving your ideal dream is not the end of the world. This also changed my attitude toward life as I realized that dreams are not the end goal. One can always adjust them, and one could always find happiness no matter where life leads as long as one changes his/her attitudes.
Thanks to watching Welcome to the NHK, I made a life changing decision to pull myself together instead of falling to complete ruins. The impact of Welcome to the NHK on my life cannot be underestimated and I am forever grateful that I suddenly decided to pick up the anime so if you are depressed or just want something to keep you back on track, Welcome to the NHK is the anime to watch.
