Talk:Hikikomori

Linking to sites which aren't much help

I've been a member on a few Hikikomori and recluse forums and websites for a while now. "HikiCulture" keeps being linked to here, but it generally is not a good place for information and help. It's still fairly new and the administrator has no idea on how to run a forum correctly and generally doesn't understand that the site is for people who need help and information. He overreacts and abuses control without thinking about his actions, and he has Asperger's Sydrome which hinders his decisive abilities, causing harsh and uncalled-for actions which may offend. He also bans people for things which are petty and do not require action. It's generally a place to avoid due to this. The community itself is great, but the administrator known to some as "Chair" isn't good for the community. I've heard of other Hikikomori sites opening soon for giving advice and help and they'll be linked to here once they have been created.

Also, I am not meaning to cause offense, I have been asked to write this comment by a lot of members of the community at "HikiCulture". The way it's ran is unfair and the staff do not care about us with mental conditions, reclusiveness, depression and social anxiety. It's not wise to link to "HikiCulture" any further. 86.129.19.117 (talk) 17:41, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Cite your sources. 86.41.86.97 (talk) 23:04, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

My apologies if this comes off as blogspamming but one of the HikiCulture admins commented on this post; here: [1] instead of this page.

The post: Now let me point out some flaws from that Wikipedia page.

First quote:

"HikiCulture keeps being linked to here, but it generally is not a good place for information and help."

If you read ahead, the person who typed that up later says "The community itself is great". A little bit contradictory to what he initially said, don't you think?

Second quote:

"It's still fairly new and the administrator has no idea on how to run a forum correctly and generally doesn't understand that the site is for people who need help and information."

I personally find that I've done a great job of running the forum. I've implemented lots of great features, have given many members staff positions, have listened to inquiries and have generally been friendly to users who deserved to be treated in a friendly manner. Also, I have banned members when it was appropriate to ban them.

Third quote:

"He overreacts and abuses control without thinking about his actions, and he has Asperger's Sydrome which hinders his decisive abilities, causing harsh and uncalled-for actions which may offend."

To be honest with you, I find the above quoted text to be highly offensive. The above pretty much translates to "the administrator shouldn't be allowed to administrate a site because he has an autism spectrum disorder." Asperger's doesn't affect one's decisive abilities, and people with Asperger's should have the same freedoms as non-aspies, including being able to run a forum. --Foolness (talk) 15:16, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Hikiculture should not be linked, nor should any discussion forum on the topic because of WP:ELNO #10. "Except for a link to an official page of the article's subject, one should avoid...Links to...chat or discussion forums/groups". If someone wants to find a forum on just about anything, Google is not terribly difficult to use. -Verdatum (talk) 21:54, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

HikiCulture Admin Strongly Suspected of Spamming

This is only slightly related to the article but I'm posting this here as to alert the Wikipedians monitoring this article of the possible strong suggestion that the HikiCulture admin might be a spammer.

My links are only my blog article though so I'll leave it up to you to decide whether it is still notable to have the HikiCulture link remain here:

Blog post here: http://hiki.posterous.com/hikiculture-admin-strongly-suspected-of-spamm

or here:

Tumblr link (same content) if you prefer a white background and Disqus commenting (although as of this post, there have been some problems with Disqus comments getting through): (Link has been blacklisted) --Foolness (talk) 06:00, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

On Hikkikomori

Welcome to the NHK and this video portray only half the story. There are two types of hikikomori: hardcore (Satou and the man in this video) and borderline (Nishijou Takumi from Chaos:Head). The difference is borderline hikkis go out to go to school or work and at night to buy food because although they cannot fully go outside they are willing to stay out for as long as necessary because they have enough confidence to, hardcore hikikomori NEVER go outside. The main reason for people becoming hikikomori is they have PDDs (Asperger's Syndrome etc.) and thus are socially inept and as a result get bullied. Then the person who has the PDD becomes afraid of other humans because they are intelligent people anyway and can list humanity's many faults. Basically, people are not friendly if you are socially inept and so hikkis are afraid to go outside because there are many people outside. The majority (who as usual are wrong) are the problem and not the hiki. If you want people not to be hik kikomori you must give them a reason to come outside. Why do "normal" people go outside? To talk to PEOPLE. Why don't hikis go outside? To avoid PEOPLE. Nobody is a hikki for the fun of it, it's because the choice a PDD sufferer faces is go outside and be ridiculed by everyone or stay inside. Admit it, hikis and non-hikis alike, if people are nice to you would you go outside? Of course you would! Hikkis want girlfriends too but they limit themselves to anime girlfriends because real girls don't want them because they're socially inept and the anime girls can't refuse them to their faces. The worst level of hikikomori is Satou (no job and is not an otaku so won't easily be amused), in the middle we have Nishijou Takumi (borderline and because he is an otaku he can easily be amused) and the least stressful level of hikki is otaku hikki with a job. I am an otaku hikki with a job and I love it! Although Satou has too much time to do nothing I have too little time to do many things! I'm no t saying you should become an otaku hikki with a job I'm just saying I'm happy with my situation. It is a common stereotype of hikki that they shut out the sun (Satou, the man in this video are two examples). A reason is not given in either case so I ask why? I do shut out the sun because it looks so beautiful to a boy from a wet country that I can't concentrate on my writing (which requires a lot of concentration).

Sources:

• 9 years of being a hikki (still am), 2 of those years as a hardcore and 7 as a borderline.
• Welcome to the NHK (all episodes)
• Chaos:Head (all episodes)
• I've completed the game Hikikomori Quest.
• The HF at getphpbb.com

I'm not sure if the above is any help but I can't let 9 years go to waste. Sioraf (talk) 18:16, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Your classification of hikkikomoris sounds very interesting. If it's possible to add some reliable surveys or accounts on the broad spectrum of hikkikomoris, as opposed to the blunt designation of 'hikki' for few observable behaviors, the article would be more insightful. Protez (talk) 14:48, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. I had forgottten to reword it into prose (I am busy working on a novel and videogame) so I'm surprised it was of any use. I'll see what I can find, not much that is of any use with the way things currently are I think. By the way, in case anyone is wondering, Welcome to the NHK is inaccurate because it is more about Satou being a NEET rather than a hikikomori while Chaos;Head is accurate because Taku being an otaku is secondary to the fact that he is a hikikomori. Sioraf (talk) 01:51, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

You're not a Hikikomori unless you live in Japan. This really can't be stressed enough. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.1.246.73 (talk) 13:07, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

I've yet to see any authoritative source that has stated this. As a loanword, it is still quite new, and doesn't have a widely agreed upon meaning. -Verdatum (talk) 14:58, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, it came from Japan, it's a Japanese word etc. I'm not saying the symptoms don't exist elsewhere, and that there aren't people pretty much exactly like this throughout the West. But for an English speaking caucasian to call themselves "hikikomori" is just stupid. It's clearly only the Japanophiles doing it. If you want to reference the phenomenon in a more general context for comparative purposes, that's great. But I think forums like Hikiculture full of self-appointed "hikkis" are just going to confuse people who are new to the subject, filtering it as they do through a Western idolation of Japanese culture. The predominating ignorance is going to muddle up an already dubious sociological proposition (I mean, we're talking about something that was built on hype to begin with - I'm looking at you, Mr. "Oh, there aren't really one million shut-ins in our country" Saito). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.221.151.119 (talk) 12:24, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

In popular culture

Section moved here. Items could be integrated:

• In the visual novel (and anime adaptation) Chaos;Head, the male protagonist, Takumi Nishijō, is described as a hikikomori.
• The novel (and manga/anime adaptation) Welcome to the N.H.K by Tatsuhiko Takimoto is a first person account of the hikikomori lifestyle.
• In the manga/anime Rozen Maiden, the male lead, Jun Sakurada, is a hikikomori.
• In the anime, Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, a recurring character, Kiri Komori, is a hikikomori.
• In the manga/anime series Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge, Sunako Nakahara, the main character, lives a hikikomori lifestyle.
• Hideo Aiba, protagonist of Sundome, pretends to be a hikikomori in front of his gym coach to avoid being caught ditching class.
• World War Z contains a story about a hikikomori survivor, although the word itself is not used, favoring the word "otaku" to describe the lifestyle.
• In the anime Hayate the Combat Butler, the female lead Sanzenin Nagi is a hikikomori.
• In the 2002 film Moon Overflowing the character (Koboreru Tsuki) is a hikikomori.
• In the drama Ikebukuro West Gate Park, the minor character Kazunori gradually loses his hikikomori status.
• In the dorama Seito Shokun!, one of the students in class 2–3, Shirai Naoki, became a hikikomori after a mountain climbing accident.
• Ultraklystron's 2007 CD, Opensource Lyricist, features a track entitled "Hikokomori," revolving around the lives of hikikomori.
• In the video game .hack, the character Endrance is a hikikomori.
• In the drama Dicey Business, Bosco Wong plays a hikikomori in modern day Hong Kong.
• The 2008 South Korean horror film Loner is about a girl who is a hikikomori
• In the 2008 three-part film Tokyo!, Teruyuki Kagawa plays a hikikomori, in the third part of the film entitled Shaking Tokyo.
• In Cat Street, a girl becomes a hikikomori after a traumatic incident.
• In the 2007 New Yorker short story "Sweetheart Sorrow" by David Hoon Kim, the main character has a Japanese girlfriend who is a hikikomori.
• The American Philidelphia based band Conservative Man released an album entitled Mirabel and the Hikikomori in 2006.
• In the anime/manga series Gin Tama, the character Tsu Terakado writes a pop single entitled "Your Brother is a Hikikomori".
• In the Nintento DS game "Tokimeki Memorial Girl's Side Second Season", Komori Taku is a Hikikomori who refuses to go to school and stays in his house. As the heroine, he is a dateable choice in the game. You can help him get back to school after long periods of going to his house.
• Madotsuki, the female protagonist of the computer game Yume Nikki, is a hikikomori who spends all possible time sleeping and roaming through her dream world.
• There is a freeware video game entitled "Hikikomori Quest" (a near-farcical parody of the Pokemon Game Boy games) in which the protagonist is flamed on the Internet then goes to the shop to prove to himself that he can go outside and come back home in one piece.
• In the webcomic Hetalia Axis Powers, the nation of Japan is portrayed as a hikikomori for approximately two hundred years, leading up to the arrival of the Black Ships. -- Whatever404 (talk) 02:02, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

I didn't know there was this section previously. I think the best way to do this is organize it by timeline. I'll begin to do so! Y12J (talk) 07:28, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Regarding external links

I'm restating the situation here in case anyone is missing the post above. No discussion forum related to Hikikomori should be linked. This is per WP:ELNO #10. "Except for a link to an official page of the article's subject, one should avoid...Links to...chat or discussion forums/groups". It is not Wikipedia's job to pick a favorite. If someone wants to find a forum on just about anything, they can Google it quite easily. If you don't like the guideline, you may want to discuss it at the guideline page. If you think there's a valid exception to the rule here, please justify your reasoning. Otherwise, I'll continue to remove them, thanks! -Verdatum (talk) 20:20, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Actual prevalence

The "Prevalence" section mentions an important estimate (20% of male adolescents), but also that that estimate was probably inaccurate. It doesn't mention any more accurate estimates. Do they exist? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.227.165.106 (talk) 17:09, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

correct kanji

I consulted a few dictionaries because I wanted to know the etymology of the word hikikomori. In the article, the kanji read as the "ko" in "komori" is a kanji for "basket",籠, vs. komori as a form of komoru 篭る, to seclude or confine; neither kanji is found in my beginners dictionary. The kanji for hiki, 引き, or pull, is correct. Perhaps a few Japanese sources should be consulted to find the correct kanji for komori, and use hiragana to write it phonetically for the time being, 引きこもり. Diggnity (talk) 05:14, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

引き籠り　is correct (although 引き篭もり isn't necessarily incorrect). 籠 can = basket, but it also means to cage, coop or seclude oneself. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.192.95.96 (talk) 14:05, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

recovery?

Some 引き籠もり recover and go on to lead normal lives. What is known about this? How many recover, and what can be done to help? Uucp (talk) 04:08, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

SPD

SPD (Schizoid personality disorder) could or should be added in Theories on cause. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.55.214.207 (talk) 00:49, 24 September 2011 (UTC)