ＮＨＫにようこそ！

NHK NI YOUKOSO!

NOVEL

STATUS
COMPLETE
VOLUMES
1
RELEASE
January 28, 2002
CHAPTERS
12

DESCRIPTION

Tatsuhiro Satou, a university dropout entering his fourth year of unemployment. He leads a reclusive life as a hikikomori, ultimately coming to the bizarre conclusion that this happened due to some sort of conspiracy. One day just when his life seems entirely unchanging, he meets Misaki Nakahara, a mysterious girl who claims to be able to cure Tatsuhiro of his hikikomori ways. She presents him with a contract basically outlining that once a day they would meet in the evening in a local park where Misaki would lecture to Tatsuhiro in an effort to rid him of his lifestyle. During these outings, many subjects are discussed, though they almost always pertain in some way to psychology or psychoanalysis.

Note: Includes one extra chapter.

CAST

Misaki Nakahara
Tatsuhiro Satou
Kaoru Yamazaki
Hitomi Kashiwa

CHAPTERS

RELATED TO NHK NI YOUKOSO!

ANIME ComedyNHK ni Youkoso!

MANGA ComedyNHK ni Youkoso!

REVIEWS

hxie
95/100
A succinct, excellent novel about mental health struggles that has an excellent English language translation
Again, prefacing that this won't be one of those long, epic reviews that thoroughly breaks everything down. Noting some comments here and there when I have the time.

With some pretty popular manga and anime adaptations, the elevator pitch for the plot of Welcome to the NHK is pretty well-known at this point. Satou Tatsuhiro is a NEET/hikkikomori who has been mired in his lonely state for four years. He meets a missionary named Misaki Nakahara who interrupts the rhythms of his life. Satou becomes motivated by Misaki's presence to try his hand at game development and create something.

Welcome to The NHK is the finest single-volume light novel that I've read to date. Its power lies in its narrative efficiency, cleanly consistent characterization, and character development. One of my favorite things about this book is the treatment of Misaki Nakahara. She is not a manic-pixie dream girl or convenient foil for the protagonist Satou's development, and reveals herself to be similarly struggling under a weight of toxic, ruminating thoughts and mental health issues underneath a saintly exterior.

The narrative climaxes in this awesome, tight-knit conclusion that presents an optimistic view forward. This is frankly one of the better treatments of mental health that I've seen in a translated piece of Japanese fiction that dredges up how damn difficult it is to work through mental health ruts.

The English translation is impeccably done by Andrew Cunningham, who is one of the best translators in the business. As an aside, I recommend you hunt down the stuff he's translated and read it. He was trained as a screenwriter, but became a translator because he didn't like coming up with plots. He does remarkable job translating Japanese figures of speech into English equivalents.

The book is quite out of print in the U.S. The last edition was released by Tokyopop, which went out of business. Generally, it really sucks that light novels and manga go out of print so quickly, but it is understandable that these companies have to limit their print runs because light novels and manga are still a niche market in the U.S. (And for another tangent, this is why I highly recommend folks pre-order physical copies of light novels and manga from Rightstuf to make sure they secure a copy of something. I myself have missed out on stuff that was only easily available for one year.) Somebody needs to re-license Welcome to The NHK again, pronto. I would love to get a hardback copy of this. Holla at you, Yen Press.
Continue on AniList