In his mostly autobiographical comic Disappearance Diary, Azuma Hideo notes that in order to maintain an optimistic outlook on life, he’d removed as much realism as possible from his book. Azuma’s dry humour and cartoony art style make what should be a depressing story about a man running away from his responsibilities and living homeless seem rather light-hearted and funny.
Author Takimoto Tatsuhiko, in the afterword to his novel Welcome to the NHK, notes that his book also has a fair amount of autobiography. NHK also has a depressing subject, a twenty-two year old college drop out living as a shut-in (Japanese: hikikimori). Like Disappearance Diary, there’s a dry sense of humour, but here it serves to sharpen, rather than dull, the story’s edge, and though well-written, that edge makes it a sometimes difficult book to read. Our protagonist, Satou, meets a young woman named Misaki who decides to cure him, and he also spends a lot of time with his extremely nerdy neighbour and former high-school underclassman, Yamazaki. Takimoto pulls no punches in describing Satou’s life, from his social awkwardness, to his compulsive lying, to his drug trips, to his thankfully brief obsession with, um, pictures of little girls (if you’re thinking of Chris Hansen’s old show, yes, they’re those kinds of photos).
