TwiddleGeek

Satou Tatsuhiro is a 22 year old NEET, Not Employed, in Education, or Training. He’s been a shut-in for 3 years now, living his life alone in his apartment with minimal outside contact. Every day his neighbor blasts the same annoying shoujo song repeatedly, endlessly, to the point where Tetsuhiro has memorized the lyrics despite the fact he hates the song. But he can’t work up the guts to go tell him to turn it off.

He grows increasingly paranoid that people know he’s a NEET, until he becomes convinced he must be involved in a conspiracy with a group known as the NHK. Nihon Hikkomori Kyokai - Japanese Association for the Socially Withdrawn. After a brief encounter with a shockingly beautiful girl and middle aged woman giving away religion pamphlets on NEETs, He decides he needs to take action, and goes out the next day to apply for a part time job.

As he walks into a manga shop, ready to deliver his heavily rehearsed lines, he finds the same girl behind the counter and bolts. Not before accidentally dropping his resume, however. He finds the resume pushed through his mail slot with a note: he’s been selected for her grand project. Meet her at the park at 9pm. There she tells him she knows how to cure his socially withdrawn status.

I have such a good feeling about this anime, I really can’t wait to see more. It’s funny, it’s cynical, it’s something different. It’s also something I think a lot of people can relate to at least to some degree, myself included. Yet, it’s self mocking rather than insulting. Tatsuhiro is highly amusing, yet believable in his actions, and Misaki is wonderfully mysterious so far. I really want to see where they go with this.

Determined to prove to the girl he’s not a hikkomori / shut-in, Satou lies and tells her he’s a creator. One thing leads to another and soon he’s promised to show her a game in one month. Oops. He may have a computer, but he has no programming, design, or musical talent. With all the mounting pressure he finally snaps and decides to tell the otaku neighbor off, but to his surprise it’s an old friend from school.

Learning of what happened, and of his former senpai’s NEET status, they join forces to create a game. But with such a strict time limit, no budget, and little experience only one genre presents itself: an H-Game. This show just keeps getting stranger and stranger, but I really like it so far. I about cracked up when Satou starts mindlessly singing along to the shoujo tune. Misaki is still a strange one, but she’s certainly very interesting.

After admitting to Kaoru he was uneasy about the H-Game idea, Satou quickly becomes convinced when told of the rapid success of unknown developers in the field. He also admits he has never played such a game before, prompting Kaoru to lend a “top 10″ series of titles. Well, Satou quickly becomes hooked on the H-Games and a pro. Kaoru also sends over some “reference material,” which turns out to be porn. Poor Satou is completely surprised and soon enough the dim boy makes the connection that there is porn on them thar Internets! He quickly fills his measly 20GB drive to the brim.

Satou was never exactly Mr. Charming, but these recent turns of events has put him lower than ever on the social ladder. He’s become something of a pervert as Kaoru points out, (Ouch, burned by an Otaku!) prompting him to realize what a loser he’s being and try to shock himself into normality once more. A even dimmer plan goes awry leading to Misaki getting the wrong idea about Satou, but she’s as committed to “saving him” as ever… if he’d only accept her help.

I hope Satou bounces back a bit soon. I liked him well enough when he was just a shut-in loser, but this whole porn system shock has been a bit too much for him. He doesn’t need to be a pervert as well, he had enough issues as it was. That said, this is definately working as a dark comedy about anti-social losers trying to find where they fit in the world. With all the charming, cute anime out there, it’s almost refreshing to see one where the characters are anything but.

Ok good, our anti-hero Satou is no longer a perv, just a regular shut-in. But he seems highly impressionable, as now he’s well on his way to becoming an otaku with Kaoru’s influence. In order to get Satou serious about their game, Kaoru drags poor Satou kicking and screaming (literally) into the daylight for a shopping trip. Before you know it he’s eating with meido waitresses and buying rare figurines. (Lucky.)

One thing I really have to mention is just how funny this show can be. It really keeps me laughing, despite how dim Satou really is. It’s almost like he was born yesterday sometimes. Regardless, the show is self mocking in that regard too. The whole thing is quickly approaching a parody of other shows in the genre. My favorite moment was when Satou discovers adult rated doujinshi in a store. Let us hope the resulting paradox doesn’t eventually cause the Internets and/or universe to implode.

In other news, when did moe become such a common use term in anime? Or rather, when did I start watching anime in which it is a common use term? I somehow blame this on starting an anime blog. There must be a connection. The NHK probably factors in there somewhere too, even if I’m not Japanese. All part of their plan…