Tatsuhiko Takimoto - Welcome to the NHK!

In this world, conspiracies exist.

However, there is a more than a ninety-nine percent chance that the plausible-sounding conspiracies that you hear about from others are simple delusions or even intentional lies. When you visit a bookstore, the books with titles like The Great Jewish Conspiracy to Ruin the Japanese Economy! or The Super Conspiracy of the CIA That Hides Their Secret Pact with Aliens! are all just trivial delusions.

Even so … people love conspiracies.

Conspiracies. We are hopelessly fascinated by the sound of that word and its bittersweet echo.

Consider, for example, the process by which The Jewish Conspiracy theory comes to be: The author has multiple, terrible complexes and feelings, such as, “Why am I poor?”; “Why is my life not more comfortable?”; “Why can I not find a girlfriend?” His mind and body constantly are pressured, from both within and without.

Those pent-up grudges become endless feelings of hatred toward society. They become rage.

However, the largest source of rage is his own personal cowardice.

He is poor because he lacks the skill with which to earn money. He has no girlfriend because he lacks charisma. But the process of seeing this truth and acknowledging his own incompetence requires quite a bit of courage. No human beings, regardless of who they might be, want to look directly at their own shortcomings.

At this point, the conspiracy theorist projects his cowardice onto the outside world.

He creates a fictitious “enemy” outside of himself.

Enemy. My enemy. Society’s enemy.

“Because an enemy conspires to do evil, I cannot find happiness. Because of this conspiracy, I cannot find a girlfriend. That’s right! This is all because of the Jews. Because the Jews are scheming away out there, I can’t find happiness. Damn you, Jews! I won’t forgive you!”

Truthfully, this kind of thinking also inconveniences Jewish people.

All conspiracy theorists need to look a little more closely at reality.

“Enemies” don’t exist externally. “Evil” does not exist externally. One has to assume blame oneself for being a worthless person.

It’s definitely not a Jewish conspiracy, nor a CIA conspiracy, and — obvious as this may be—it’s not an alien conspiracy. Before all else, one needs to keep this fact firmly in mind while living one’s life.

Even so…

A tiny percentage of people actually have stumbled upon a real conspiracy. There is, in fact, one person who witnessed with his own eyes a conspiracy that exists, at this very moment, in the most extreme secrecy.

Who is this person?

It’s me.

On a cold, cold January night, I learned about the existence of a conspiracy.

In my tiny six-mat [1] One measure of Japanese room size uses the number of tatami (straw mats) needed to cover the floor. , one-room apartment, I had ensconced myself next to my kotatsu stove. [2] Heated tables used in the winter for warmth, as most apartments do not have central heating. It was a painfully dreary night.

Despite it being a new millennium, there was no hope in sight. I even cried while eating my New Year's soup [3] New Year’s celebrations often include o-zouni, a special soup of rice dumplings and vegetables. Although New Year should be happy, the narrator remains depressed. .

For an unemployed, twenty-two-year-old, male college dropout, the winter chill was piercing. In the middle of my filthy room, where thrown-off clothing littered the floor and the smell of cigarette smoke had soaked into the walls, I sighed over and over.

How could things have come to this?

It was all I could think about.

“Ah”, I moaned.

If I didn't break out of my present condition soon, I would fall behind completely and disappear from normal society. Even worse, I was a college dropout already. I needed to find work fast and return to society.

I just… couldn't do it.

Why? What was the reason?

The answer is simple: Because I am a hikikomori. [4] The Japanese Ministry of Health defines hikikomori as individuals who refuse to leave their house and isolate themselves from society and family in a single room for a period exceeding six months; typically, it's a young person or a “nerd” who feels cut off from society.

Currently, the hottest, most popular new social phenomenon— hikikomori. That's me. A recluse.

They say that there are now approximately two million hikikomori living in Japan. Two million is a tremendous number. If someone threw a rock on the street, they would hit a hikikomori…. Of course, that wouldn't really happen. Hikikomori don't go outside, after all.

Anyway, I was one of the hikikomori currently so popular here in Japan. Not to mention that I was somewhat of a veteran hikikomori. I left my apartment only once a week, and then I'd just to go to a convenience store for food and cigarettes. My friends numbered zero, and I slept sixteen hours a day.

This year would mark four full years of living as a hikikomori. My lifestyle had caused me to drop out of college.

Seriously, I was such a frightful hikikomori that I should have been approaching professional status. No matter whom I might be up against, I really doubted I'd lose easily to other hikikomori.

In fact, I was confident that if an “International Hikikomori Olympics” were to take place, I would score pretty well. I was certain I would beat out other hikikomori regardless of country, whether it was a Russian hikikomori who escaped through vodka, an English hikikomori whose escape was through drugs, or an American hikikomori who found escape by randomly shooting guns indoors.

Right! The famous founder of kyokushin karate [5] Kyokushin (ultimate truth) karate is a full-contact style of martial arts, founded in 1964 by Masutatsu Ohyama (1923-1994), a Korean-born master reputed to have trained alone for years on Mt. Minoubu and Mt. Kiyosumi. , Mr. Masutatsu Ohyama, also known as the “Godhand”, supposedly holed up in the mountains during his youth in order to hone his spirit before going on to become the world's strongest karate master. If you think about it from that standpoint, then I—who have been holed up continuously in this apartment for a number of years—must be, at this very moment, incredibly close to becoming the strongest man in the world.

Well, it was worth a try. I decided to set up a beer bottle and try to break it with a chop of the hand.

“Hiii-ya!”

While wrapping my bloodied right hand in a bandage, I sat back down at the kotatsu.

Any way you looked at it, my mind hadn't been working properly of late. Could it be because I get sixteen hours of sleep per day? Or was it because I'd avoided contact with other people for more than half a year?

All day long, my brain remained in a fog. Even when I walked to the bathroom, my gait was unsteady.

But I didn't care about all that.

The more immediate problem was how to break out of this helpless hikikomori lifestyle.

Yes! I have to escape this festering hikikomori life as fast as possible. A return to human society! A rebound from dropping out! I'll work, find a girlfriend, and lead a normal life!

If I continue this way, I will become a trauma victim. If I continue like this, I will be disqualified as a human being. I need a resolution right now!

Resolutions, however—such as “Today is the day I go outside and make myself find a part-time job!”—just faded away like mist, in fewer than ten minutes.