Forum - View topicINTEREST: Japanese Prefecture Creates Mascot Girl to Help Introverts
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Apollo-kun
 Posts: 1213 Location: City 7, Macross 7 |
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Personally, I thought an awesome girl like Misaki from "Welcome to the NHK" would be enough motivation to GTFO of your apartment. I guess real shut-ins needed a blandly happy, docile girl with oversized breasts.
Big shocker. 
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CareyGrant
Posts: 453 |
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An anime mascot girl for shut-ins... Brilliant. What's next, free booze for alcoholics or pizzas for life for the morbidly obese? Imaginary anime girls are part of the reason/problem they're shut-ins to begin with, and they give them two more to drool over.
*slow clap* |
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JuicyB
Posts: 278 |
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kufirst
 Posts: 86 Location: Kansas |
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*claps furiously* Well at least they're appealing to them in some way but yeah, it's only adding to the problem. |
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Vulcannis
Posts: 41 |
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Though I don't have a reference link handy, it is often claimed that 1 in 4 people are introverts. I think the headline is, at best, misleading.
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dandelion_rose
 Posts: 657 Location: Kuala Lumpur |
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Fellow Welcome to the NHK fan chiming in Misaki love. Honestly, the answer in Welcome to the NHK is the best answer. People vulnerable to this shut-in because they don't need to; there's enough sustenance to support them. If I didn't need to work, I'd be shut in my apartment for ages, too. (For what it's worth, I identified a lot with Satou -- being a slob, being a perfectionist, being socially anxious, prone to addictions, can live by just going out at night to the convenience store.) Edit for typo. |
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Cutiebunny
 Posts: 1767 |
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Is this really such a threat in Japan?
Yes, there are introverts everywhere, and every developed society has people that, for whatever reason, decide to shut themselves in their own world with the object(s) of their choice. But the way Kanagawa treats it, it's as if its an epidemic threatening to eradicate all life as we know it. Yes, I understand that hikkomori likely aren't going to be popping out kids due to their nature, but just encourage your already reproducing couples to have more kids by supplementing their income. It's hard to find babysitting for little kids in Japan - many parents sign up for preschools as soon as they conceive. Maybe some more resources in this area could easily encourage more couples to have children, and thus make up for any lack of gene pool contributions the hikkomori might make. |
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dandelion_rose
Posts: 657 Location: Kuala Lumpur |
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Japan has an estimate of 3,600,000 hikikomori according to that source of great reliability, Sankaku Complex: http://www.sankakucomplex.com/2010/02/06/japan-has-3600000-hikikomori/. Last I checked Wikipedia it was 1 million.
It's a small country that's very reliant on human resource and afraid of economic competition from rival Asian countries. I can understand why the Japanese government is worried about it. |
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rabrek
 Posts: 188 |
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 Seconded. If it's to help hikikomori, just say it's to help hikikomori. Anyone around here who isn't familiar with the term can remedy that by reading the article. Introversion is normal, not a condition you need to "get over" or "recover from", with or without the assistance of a website mascot.
<MontyPythonMode>Oh! Come and see the prejudice inherent in the Jungian system! Help, help! I'm being repressed by the under-stimulated extravert majority!</MontyPythonMode> |
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kgw
 Posts: 1189 Location: Spain, EU |
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I wonder what do they understand for "helping hikikomoris" with this idea. I mean, they don't want to help them to stay in, do they?
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Banden
 Posts: 140 |
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Oh, I don't know about that. 1 in 4 people very well could be introverts. I rate as an introvert on the Meyers-Briggs scale. But I thought hikikomori were more accurately described as shutins, which I am not, and most introverts would not be. I think it's the headline that's misleading. (Again?) |
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dandelion_rose
Posts: 657 Location: Kuala Lumpur |
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It's called a sensational headline!
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Shiroi Hane
Encyclopedia Editor
 Posts: 7584 Location: Wales |
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Here's a BBC article on the "Missing Million" from 2002: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/correspondent/2334893.stm |
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Anymouse
 Posts: 685 |
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Yeah, this sounds like a joke.
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Juno016
 Posts: 2428 |
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"Anime girls" do not create shut-ins in Japan. The standards of Japanese society, combined with the individual's fears and failures, combined with the temporary solace of a stable income or safe food and shelter provided by their parents... These are closer to the cause. "Anime girls" pander to otaku and hikikomori and take advantage of their mindsets (such is business), but they do not create them. Of course, this may or may not help, depending on how they use it and what kind of hikikomori they are targeting with it. Not all hikikomori are otaku and will drool over "anime girls," so they better have done their research to see who this could help best, and they better take these hikikomori and their situation seriously. Really, the hikikomori "shut-in" problem is commonly misconceived as just a problem of the individual. But that is exactly why many hikikomori shut themselves in. They KNOW they're messed up because society keeps telling them it's their fault. If the reason they shut themselves in was because they couldn't live up to society's standards and what others expected of them, do you think telling them to "man up and go out into the real world" is going to help them? To their minds, all that does is tell them, "There's something wrong with you unless you go out into the real world, and since you haven't yet, that means there's something wrong with YOU." The reason Welcome to the NHK works so well as a "message" is because it takes the issues seriously. Neither Sato nor any of the other hikikomori in the book/anime/manga were brought into their status by anime or eroge or anything. They simply realized that because they couldn't pass the biggest tests of their lives, or simply because they were different from those around them, that they wouldn't fit in. And so they shut themselves in. The route Welcome to the NHK took is a common, but somewhat accurate idea. The reason they go on to exist is because they have something stable to support them. Take that away and they have no other choice but to go out into the real world. Unfortunately, that mindset doesn't work for everyone, as some horrible instances of hikikomori committing murder out of fear or anger has suggested. This mascot girl idea takes a more conservative stance. "Slowly bring them back to real life, one step at a time." This is probably the most effective way to help them find their own place in society (when done right). It's just very slow and it depends on the hikikomori's initiative, so I hope they don't expect immediate results. |
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