*Looks left* .... *Looks right* ... Listen, I know it has been a long time, but it can be pretty hard to write when they are watching you all the time, you know? It is all this big conspiracy, you can't even imagine the scope. They don't want you to know, and all this time, I have been silenced. BUT NO MORE!! You, loyal fans, have the right to know the truth. What truth, you ask? We are all under the blanket of a worldwide conspiracy perpetrated by the evil N.H.K. organization. The goal? to bring us down, and keep us there, keep us locked away in our homes so that we don't find out the truth. They are everywhere. Watching.
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| Everyone sees you. |
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Welcome to the N.H.K.
Episodes: 24
Age Rating: Teen 17+ ( Mild Nudity, Adult Language, Adult Themes)
Tags: Comedy, Romance, Slice of Life, Psychological
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Turns out that even in a world where anything can happen, from witches, to dragons, to magical girls who come from other dimensions to uh...be nude and stuff...There are STILL crazies. Are you excited? Me too! In this conspiracy, we get to learn all about what life is like as a hikikomori. What is a hikikomori? Well, think of them as otaku like us, but..without an unhealthy addiction to anime.
Apparently living a life like that is pretty difficult, as it requires an allowance from your parents, or someone to take care of you, unless you wanna starve to death in your apartment and die. That is an option too. Apparently though, the sort of person that might become a hikikomori is more than likely a bit...off, so they are likely to start coming up with crazy theories about themselves and the world around them, and well, when you are secluded for four years? Things go from a little crazy......To a little more than insane.
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| I know, I know.. I see them surrounding you as well. |
Eventually, the only option is to try and escape such a lifestyle, but how? How can one person overthrow a worldwide organization that exists only for the purpose of keeping you locked away from the world as a miserable, pathetic, loser of a hikikomori? What? Intense therapy and counseling? That is just what the N.H.K wants. Trust me, they run those places too.
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Despite all of this bad news, I do not want you to worry. We aren't in this alone. No, we have each other. We also have:
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| Yup, Welcome to my awesome room. Sit. Somewhere. |
Satou Tatsuhiro: (Protagonist)
Likes: Drinking, smoking, eating, hentai
Dislikes: People, going outside, the NHK
Skills/Hobbies: thinking up conspiracies, being a genuinely creepy guy. Being a pro status hikikomori
Misc: for his age, Tatsuhiro is quite childish. He has a tendency to lie, but is a terrible liar. He also has a fear of accepting his feelings, due to a fear of being hurt. Unlike in a lot of anime, few people refer to him using his first name. so from here we shall refer to him as Satou.
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| Yeah, pretty much this. |
Satou wasn't always the way he is now, when he was in high school, he was a normal boy. He showed up to class daily, and in his second year, he was invited to join the literature club, despite not being one to enjoy reading. As a result he made friends with the club leader, Hitomi. Rather than read, they would spend their time in the club playing cards, and on a frequent basis, Hitomi would talk about various worldwide conspiracies, which is likely the basis for Satou's current condition. Now in his early twenties, Satou lives a life as a hikikomori, blaming all of his problems on those very same conspiracies, and so terrified of the outside that the only time he will leave is apartment is on Sunday nights, to go to a park nearby his home. Just as he is brooding over the conspiracy behind his condition, for the first time in ages, Satou hears a fateful knock on his door. Is this a conspiracy too? Who could it be?
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| Shhhh..... |
Nakahara Misaki: (Leading lady)
Likes: psychology, manga, stuffed animals, cats, dogs.
Dislikes: tardiness
Skills: Pro friend, being secretive, sass, very observant, good at catching liars, cooking (tuna)
Misc: Meow.
Misaki is a kindhearted young girl who from a very young age did not have it all that great. Cast into a world where bad things just tend to happen around her all the time, she tends to blame herself for all of the misfortune felt by those around her. She feels like she is a burden on everyone, and as a result grows to hate herself. Despite this, Misaki is very skilled at keeping those feelings locked away, and is a very sweet girl to everyone around her.
In her quest to feel like she is a useful person, Misaki undertakes a project with the primary goal being to help someone even lower than herself. She quickly takes notice of a certain hikikomori, deciding he is the perfect candidate for the job, and decides that at all costs, she will be useful to him.
Satou denies being a hikikomori, instead claiming to be a creator. A creator of what, you ask? Gal games (Hentai). Unfortunately, Satou is very much not a creator... of anything, So he must seek some help. Who would help a worthless hikikomori??
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| You know, pururin pururin pururin. So cool. |
Yamazaki Kaoru (All around weird dude)
Likes: Otaku culture, game design, drinking, Pururin (an anime within the..anime) Hentai, Lolicon (Animated little girls. Primarily for their "cute" factor.)
Dislikes: Laziness, being told what to do, girls (on and off) fireworks, stupidity.
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| Pururin. |
Skills: Game design, drawing/painting
Misc: Referred to as Yamazaki in the show, so again, we will go with that. Grr grr grr.
Yamazaki is a guy who holds a lot of grudges in his heart. He is very bitter towards women, due to
being hurt in the past. Most of the time, he is very friendly, and very helpful to his friends, however it can be rather easy to get on his bad side, and when he is angry, he kind of goes from calm...to belonging in the ward. Luckily it doesn't take long for him to revert back to his normal self, but still.
After Satou tells his big lie, the pair must now create a gal game to prove he isn't a liar. Yamazaki's prowess in art and computers luckily lends a lot to Satou, who is terrible at everything. What a pair. Let's make a game, shall we?
I bet you wonder about that Hitomi character, huh? Too bad. Watch the anime.
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| Pay attention please! |
Now all this time, I have been peddling something to you guys. Bragging about it, hinting about it, talking about it. Change. You who have stuck around have probably noticed little things here and there, such as adding a bit more to the age rating, changing the character bios up just a little, but none of that is really worthy of all of this talk, right? Well you would be correct. That is because my focus for change is right here, in the review. Make sure to comment with what you think about the changes!
A little note before we begin. As a reviewer, it is my goal to provide you with very detailed, thorough reviews, which is the reason for this change in the first place, however I simply don't have the time to watch the anime both fully subbed, and fully dubbed, I simply cannot. I understand that to a degree, this will skew my review results slightly. However, as in most anime, the important people are introduced in the first episode (usually) I watch both versions of episode 1, and go with whichever I prefer. You can get a pretty good sense of the voice acting that way, and since the people who matter are the ones you will hear the most, I feel like it is a good way of doing things. Anyways, on to the review.
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Plot: 9/10
I am a sucker for a love story, simple as that. Throughout the series, there is a strong connection between Satou and Misaki that you can just feel, and if you are like me, you will wind up rooting for them. This anime is as much a drama as it is a comedy, and I feel like the creators took a very real, very serious issue, and presented it in a way that is easy to enjoy. Throughout the anime I found myself feeling a very wide array of emotions, and I found that once the ball got rolling (episode 2 for me) I was constantly interested in finding out what would happen next. the ending was pretty good, but not quite perfect (to me) and so I can't give it a perfect 10
Music: 4/10
Listen, the music isn't exactly bad, per say, it's just so repetitive that it may make you wanna take a bat to your viewing device. The intro song comes in two flavors, one of which is just a remix of the same song (starting halfway through) and the most prominent song used is the Pururin theme song, which even our main character agrees is really irritating after a while. This song shows up as the ringtone to Yamazaki, and if I recall right, also the ringtone for Satou. I found that to be kind of confusing. There are a few unique songs throughout the series that play at random times, and I feel like those deserve some merit, but it's simply not enough.
Voices (Subbed): 6/10
I am almost always a fan of subs over dubs, that is just me, however in this instance, I felt like the voices for the subbed version were...A little plain. Sure, Magical Girl Pururin sounds better subbed, and I am not saying the subs are bad per say, I just feel like in this case, they didn't quite win out to the dub
Voices (Dubbed): 8/10
Right off the bat, we hear Satou speak, and oh my god, his voice is perfect for his character. I knew I would be watching the dub from there. In comes Misaki. Same thing, perfect, cute voice for her. In comes Yamazaki, yup, perfect fit there too. You know what doesn't fit? Any and all of the gal game girls Satou fantasizes about, all of the other crazy, non main character related things Satou fantasizes about. (I'm looking at you, chair)and a specific girl, Nanako. Listen, girls with retainers/lisps. I don't particularly have anything against you, but I can't bring myself to believe that a character who is a "beautiful girl, with an amazingly cute voice" who is going to school to be a voice actress, and is offered a leading role as such, would have such a prominent lisp. I don't know if the lisp is particularly real or fake, and I am sure that either way, a lisp isn't always a deal breaker, but for me, it just doesn't "fit"
Art: 10/10
HOLY CRAP, A 10 on day 1 of the new format!? WHAT!? Character design is freaking brilliant. Right off, we will start with Satou. God this guy is animated. He has so many facial expressions that you can pretty much pinpoint his mood even if you were watching the anime with no sound. The art is clean, and looks good even when not in HD. Misaki is freaking adorable. Yamazaki is just the perfect example of a nerd, they nailed everything, absolutely everything.
Characters: 8.5/10
I basically covered this, but let me get a little more in depth. With a combination of perfect voices and art, the main characters are visually/audibly perfect. Every single main character has depth, they have things that make them imperfect, they are believable as "real" people, they react to real situations realistically, and they all have well written back stories that don't need to be drawn out in length, but instead learned through bits and pieces of information you pick up as you watch. With a lot of the sub-characters however, I can't help but feel like less work went into them. Not all of them mind you, some are actually almost as well hashed out as the main characters, but then you have characters that just seem absolutely terrible. I hate you pururin.
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| "LOVE ME! pururin~" |
Crazy: A lot/10
Woohoo!! Crazy time!! Let's see. talking appliances, check. Talking furniture, check. Got it? everything talks. Everything is watching. Everything is out to get you. Forever. Forever. Forever. You can run if you'd like. Run away, but you won't escape.
Overall: 8/10
I did the math and it came out to a respectable 7.9, but I decided to round it off to an 8 because I'm running the show here, damnit. I loved this anime, like, a lot. Sadly, only in a perfect world does even some of the best anime get a 10, because I want to reserve a 10 for something special, you show me an anime that gets 10's across the board in my eyes and I will absolutely promote the living hell out of it for you. That aside, besides all of the little gripes I had, I feel like this anime is one you absolutely must watch. That is, unless you don't want to know about the ones who are hacking into your brain right now.
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I totally forgot to put this in, sorry guys!
The anime:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xu1Rp0L4rYU (Dub)
http://www.animefreak.tv/watch/welcome-nhk-english-dubbed-online-free (despite what it says there is a sub available here. My issue is that the player is one of those ones where if you move the seek bar it will start over from the beginning, so try not to miss anything if you use this one.)
Did you notice i am not using asterisks anymore? That is because it is pointless and stupid when I can just use these () No more digging for you guys to have your answers! YAY!!
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| Meow! |
I must go, I have already said too much. Leave a comment, or Catch me on the facebooks at https://www.facebook.com/Discover2d, or twitter @discover2d. You can even email me at discover2d@gmail.com.
Be quick, or my brain may be scrambled when you get there! But in case you decide to stay, here is Misaki as a cat.
Thanks to Katie, who is ever confident that she will always remain one step ahead of the N.H.K.
