The story feels rather episodic with the main character coming up with different schemes to solve his isolation every few episodes with most of the schemes failing in one way or another. Even though this can make the anime feel purposeless and meandering at times, it serves to emphasise the shows greater themes of futility and the suffering of life which overall give the anime a deeper sense of meaning. However, where this purposeless becomes somewhat inexcusable is when it comes to the main character and his relationship with Misaki. The anime has what feels like a story crescendo right around the middle, with huge reveals about some of the character's relationships. However, afterwards we see our main character take actions that completely contradict his beliefs beforehand. *Spoilers* Tatsuhiro's neglectful attitude towards Misaki afterwards wasn't explained thoroughly enough leading to me becoming frustrated with Tatsuhiro who seemed to be willfully ignoring his chances of happiness without good reason, like he was purposefully torturing himself until the shows finale. However, near the end of the show, this suspicion and general aloofness towards Misaki is explored in a more satisfying way; leaving me wishing that it was explored like that in the first place. As for other character arcs, the show prides itself in kicking you in the gut. All the characters except one fail to get what they want. There's a scene in particular which I found quite gut wrenchingly hard to watch. In it we see another character have the love of his life confess she still has feelings for him, even after he shows her his grotesque and perverted side. Most other animes would stop here, using this scene as an appeal to the average otakus viewer's fantasies of having his own crush confess her love despite the viewers deplorable nature. But NHK doesn't stop there because just after she confesses, our character goes even further out of his way to purposefully jeopardise his relationship by suggesting she gets "turned on" by his perverted antics. Watching this character destroy his own chances of happiness for a cheap and selfish gag was simultaneously one of the funniest and saddest moments in the entire anime. This scene really encapsulated the shows emphasis on how human nature and its unreasonableness and irrationality often leads to us throwing away true longterm fulfilment in service of cheap thrills.
As for the art, it's good. The show isn't action packed so it's hard to comment on the technicalities or faults of the animation when most scenes consist of two characters walking and talking or sitting and talking. However, I noticed that when it needs to be fast paced and frantic it reverts to a slightly more simplistic art style which I personally enjoy but I can see how it might come off as cheap and low-effort to others.
In terms of sound, the ost is great! In particular there's an acoustic track which I personally love. However, I prefer many of the songs instrumental versions as I feel that the lyrics can get in the way and even remove some of the impact of the song itself. Voice acting is good and to be expected from the modern anime. The sound effects are fine as well, nothing out of place or noticable like a recognisable royalty free sound (Id like to add that the Purrurin ringtone in particular was really bloody catchy and had me humming it even when I wasn't watching NHK).
Overall, I believe that NHK is a must watch anime, not because it's a masterpiece but because it subverts so many common anime storytelling tropes to tell such a human story that I believe will leave an impact on every viewer.
