Welcome to the NHK is a great anime that tells the story of Tatsuhiro Sato, a social recluse. The story not only tells of his present predicament, but also why he became a recluse in the first place, as well as why he couldn’t accept the society around him. But the story just doesn’t stop there. It goes on into how a girl, about whom he didn’t know anything comes to him and offers to help him for nothing in return, and how he meets an old junior schoolmate, who also impacts on his life. Along with these, the story shows the different traps of society that’s just lying outside to snare people, and how Tatsuhiro manages to fall into almost each and every one of them and then be saved by his 2 friends.
Welcome to the NHK is not an anime which you can classify as a single genre. There are multiple types of anime, all rolled into one. The first and foremost would be the comedy. This anime has soon very good laughing moments that will force your funny bone. Sure the amount isn’t as much as other dedicated comedy, but there are enough to keep the sailing smooth and keep you interested in the story.
Then there’s the second type that showcases the various social traps and the vices of society that we can see people falling into regularly like pyramid schemes, online gaming addictions and suicide. Not only does Sato manage to get involved into all of these, but he also manages to experience them from the perspective of the addicts, that is why they do what they do. It really makes us think, having a perspective that is common with the society and the perspective that is of the people that are involved.
The third type of story that goes on in this anime is obviously the story of Sato. The anime develops his character very nicely, with his motivations of becoming a recluse, why he suddenly believes that the mysterious girl can help him, or why he can’t really bring himself up to lie to his mother easily. The story also deals with his view of the world, how it was influenced and how he manages to relate his senpai’s notion that the world really is a conspiracy to be true and everybody in this world is part of that conspiracy plotting behind his back, or how the society feeds off recluses like him and how they have measures ready to keep him a recluse. At the end his conclusion that he really is alone in this world seems to be perfectly right.
Lastly, there’s the story of the human nature. Like it was said in the anime, the human nature makes us think we are better than others. So, as a result, when we can’t accept something we blame it on others to make ourselves superior. In this case, Sato influenced by his Senpai, the conspiracy to keep Sato a Hikikomori. So, in a way Sato being a Hikikomori is actually following his human instincts of being superior. Since he was always afraid of what the people are thinking about him, he decides to cut him off from the society and think himself to be alone in the world, and thus automatically make himself superior.
Apart from the story, the animation is great. The characters animations are quite believable. The animation where Sato comes at Misaki with his fist raised and anger on his face, and how Misaki, like the little girl embraces herself and pleas, was great. The anger showed how angry Sato was, and Misaki reflex does show how really afraid she was at that point, even though spending all those time with Sato and thinking she had reached out to him.
In the sound department, the starting theme is good, while the first ending theme wasn’t to my liking, but that might be because I’m not into rock music. That being said, the second ending theme is very nice. The voice acting is also quite good, with Sato’s character having that reserved tone that really brings out his character. The other characters are also voiced just as good. But the special mention in this segment is definitely the background score that plays during the anime. This anime has one of the best and the most spot-on background score. The guitar riffs really sets up the mood for the different emotional scenes throughout the anime.
All in all, this is a great watch, for anyone that wants something serious. The characters develops properly, the story moves on at a great pace, and at the end of it, you have a great story that stays on your mind for quite a long time. Overall it is a fine example of an anime. As was said by the person that recommended me this, this anime really did manage to leave a mark on me!
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