Eunish Shrestha

ISDT 101 Humanities

Foundation instructor:Tim Maxwell

Course Instructor: Sarah

Final Draft

HIkikomoris: Parasites or Sufferers

Hide is someone living in one small room. The room is a mess, and there is no

place to even take a step. There is a bag of garbage to the right, followed by multiple

empty boxes scattered everywhere. It almost resembles a room that just experienced

an explosion of some sort that disarrayed it. He sees people walking outside, and feels

a surge of jealousy, but he also feels afraid and scared to go outside. As a result he sits

in agony, loathing himself. This person is one of the millions of hikikomori, a person who

withdrew from society and isolated themselves. They don't work, and rely on social

welfare programs and their families to survive. As a result many people have developed

a negative attitude towards them.

On a public questionnaire about how to help the hikikomori, Gorramcowboy

argued that hikikomoris are spoiled brat, and “a swift kick in the a**” would solve the

issue. Similarly Vince Black agrees that although the problem may be caused by the

Japanese culture and their parents a “good a¥¥ whooping” (Japan Today)might be the
only thing needed to solve the issue. This may be seen as a solution by many if they

see the hikikomoris as spoiled brat, however there are also those who believe that they

genuinely need some kind of support. According to Shipwrecker there may be some

spoiled brat, but most of the hikikomori population consist of people who have been

victims of bullying and harassment, and need help from professionals to get better

(Japan Today). Also Makiko, a journalist, mentions hikikomoris have been given

nicknames such as single parasites, etc (Brasor). While some argue that the

hikikomoris are parasites who are leaching resources from society , we should see them

as the outcome of a society that lacks empathy.

As Jamil Zaki argues, our society has started to separate and research has

shown that there is a decrease in empathy over the last few decades, and we need to

change that. “War For Kindness” is a book by Jamil Zaki that explains the need for

empathy in our world. Zaki claims that empathy is one of human’s greatest strengths,

and the average empathy in America has gone down on average over the last

decades. In the book Zaki introduces the idea that there are many parts to empathy.

Sharing empathy is when you share their experience, and understand the other

person’s pain. Thinking empathy is when you try to understand the pain someone else

went through, this is also known as cognitive empathy. Caring empathy is when you

show concern for the other person. In this book Zaki explores multiple different ways.

For example, in the chapter hatred vs contact, Zaki argues that people empathize with

people they are in contact with. Zaki explores the idea by following Tony, a former white

supremacist, and exploring what he felt during his activities as a white supremacist.

According to Tony, he felt and “saw this pain among other young white-power
enthusiasts,” however hearing screams of a Jew who was getting beaten, “he felt

nothing.”(Zaki 52-53). In this example it is clearly visible that Tony is capable of

empathizing, but he only does so with some people. Zaki explains this is caused by

contact because as he spent more time with the other white supremacist who were part

of his circle, they became part of his circle which allowed him to empathize with them

more. On the other hand, the Jew man was an outsider for him and since Jews were

hated and feared in his circle, Tony felt no empathy towards him. Zaki adds that Tony

felt no empathy because hatred led to dehumanization of the Jews in Tony’s group and

“dehumanization silences empathy,”(Zaki 57). As a result the lack of contact, hatred,

and fear toward Jews led to Tony feeling no empathy toward them. By illustrating Tony’s

experience, Zaki suggests some way to increase empathy is to meet people from

different groups. Along with this, Zaki also argues that reading literature and other

personal anecdotes would help grow people’s empathy.

The ultimate cause of the hikikomori phenomenon is also this lack of empathy in

the society. As we look into why people become hikikomori we see many causes, such

as bullying, harassment, trauma, pressure, etc.

William Kremer from BBC news argues that sekentei or a person’s public

reputation plays an important role in someone becoming a hikikomori. Kremer argues

that in Japan a person’s public reputation, and social standing holds a lot of value. As a

result there is a lot of pressure from the outer society. This is also talked about in the by

Kyoko,former hikikomori, when she talked about her reason to become a hikikomori.

According to Kyoko, she felt a huge shock when she got into high school and life was

different from how she imagined it would be. She also said didn't feel a sense of
belonging. Then when she started working and got pressure from her mother, she “hit

her limit.” Kyoko also talks about how the feeling of shame is always present in their

mind. This is talked about by Researcher Kato, who talks about hajj or shame as one of

the biggest causes of the hikikomori phenomenon. Kato explains how in Japanese

culture, if one is “in situations where one is shamed, the idea of ‘making oneself

disappear’ has long been considered a kind of virtue.” Kato suggests that people

become hikikomori once they feel shamed, or if their reputation goes down. However

there seems to be a loop that prevents hikikomoris from recovering on their own.

According to Kremer, “The longer hikikomori remain apart from society, the more aware

they become of their social failure. They lose whatever self-esteem and confidence they

had and the prospect of leaving home becomes ever more terrifying.” This means that

onces someone becomes hikikomori, they will not be able to rejoin society unless they

receive some kind of support from outside because by the time they are classified as

hikikomori, it has already been half a year and there is a lot of pressure on them. Along

with the pressure and shame, their public reputation is really bad because of all the

stigmas surrounding hikikomoris.

For cases such as the one Kyoko went through, we see a clear lack of thinking

about empathy from people close to her. For Kyoko, her mother did not try to

understand the shock Kyoko was going through, instead she further pushed her past

the limit. Since people like Kyoko have no one that shows thinking empathy toward,

they feel alone. Similar to how Kyoko felt, they feel lonely and lose the sense of

belonging.
 According to Kremer “amae” or Over Dependence is also a cause of the problem.

In Japanese culture parents are expected to take care of their children until they grow

up and start working, and then the children are supposed to take care of their parents.

Because of this, “for most families it would be unthinkable to throw them out.”(Kremer).

However it also means that children end up relying on their parents for everything when

they are young. Kremer argues that this is one of the biggest reasons hikikomori is such

a big problem in Japan. Since the parents cannot stop taking care of their children,

when their children become a hikikomori, the parents keep them hidden from society.

This is explained using reputation. Since public reputation is of such importance in

Japan, parents tend to hide their children’s condition to protect their and their family’s

reputation because of all the negative stigmas about hikikomoris. Similar to Kyoko's

case, cases of overdependence is also an example of lack of thinking empathy. The

parents of such hikikomoris are failing to understand what their children are

experiencing because of the worries they have such as their reputation. As a result

instead of getting professional help to prevent such withdrawal they keep supporting

them.

Another major Cause would be harassment at school and workplace. According

to Masaki Ikegami, some hikikomori withdrew because “they suffered harassment or

bad treatment in the workplace”( McKirdy). The harassment, and bullying caused these

people to suffer trauma and be too scared to go outside. Unlike the previous cause,

there is a lack of all three types of empathy in cases of people who go through these

harassment. They harassers show no form of empathy toward the victims, and

traumatize them which results in a social withdrawal of the victim.

 As we look into the causes of why people become hikikomori, we see a clear

representation of a society that lacks empathy. As Zaki argued people have less

empathy and sometimes even aggressive towards people who are not part of their

group. This can be used to explain cases such as bullying and harassments that many

of the victims have faced. Using otakus as an example people who do not watch anime

or do not like anime end up acting aggressive towards otakus because otakus are part

of a different group. As a result victims go into withdrawal and isolate themselves from

the society. However we see that there are times when people fail to empathize with

others in their group such as in the case of Kyoko. There are many reasons why this

might happen, however the most common one is stress. According to Zaki, research

has shown that too much stress reduces empathy. Stress caused by financial issues,

reputation or some sort of personal problem might have been the cause for Kyoko and

the others.

Victims of such cases tend to experience many forms of negative emotions.

According to Zaki, victims tend to take out the anger in themselves most of the time or

sometimes on others, and this is similar in the case of hikikomori as well. For Kyoko,

she “spent all my waking hours criticising myself... All I did was get up in the afternoon,

eat, excrete, and breathe. I was like a living corpse. I couldn't find the tiniest bit of worth

in myself. I thought my life was meaningless”(Ma). Multiple other sources also add that

they feel a surge of negative emotions such as hatred, shame, disgust towards

themselves. These emotions are shared by most hikikomoris, as they all hate

themselves for their struggles.

 Negative rumors and stigma prevent hikikomoris from coming back to society.

Once the hikikomoris isolate themselves, they have an incredibly hard time to come

back to society. One of the causes for that is the negative reputation surrounding the

hikikomoris. The longer they stay away from society “The longer hikikomori remain apart

from society, the more aware they become of their social failure. They lose whatever

self-esteem and confidence they had and the prospect of leaving home becomes ever

more terrifying”(Kremer). Multiple other sources also add that the longer hikikomori

isolate themselves the harder it becomes for them to join back into society. If people

listened to the stories of some of the hikikomoris the misconceptions would be easy to

change, however according to Mckirdy “ with so many stereotypes and misconceptions

having taken hold throughout the years, getting people to listen can be tough.”

To make matters worse, these outliers often commit actions that negatively

impact the reputation of hikikomori which can lead to a vicious cycle. The vicious cycle

in the people does not know or do not interact with people of a certain group, they end

up lacking empathy toward them and make judgement on them based on what they

hear. Since the media covers cases of murders and negativity of the society actively,

people who do not know the hikikomoris well end up misunderstanding them as a group

of psychopaths. This can be seen in the cases of hikikomoris as well who stabbed

people to death. According to BBC because of the 2 stabbing cases in Japan recently.

Although these cases of criminal hikikomoris are outliers in the data, as there as only

been 43 cases of hikikomori committing crime in the last 2 decades (Brasor) negative

rumors of hikikomoris have started to circulate which has caused many civilians to act

against the hikikomori. One such civilian is an ex governor who feared his son after the
stabbing incident and ended up murdering his son. And as these negative rumors are

created, hikikomoris struggle even more to join back the society again. As a result there

is a loop that forces hikikomoris to stay isolated and increases a lack of empathy toward

the hikikomoris, which then leads to a more negative perspective of the group.

This has become a serious problem for Japan because over 2 million of the

population have become hikikomoris. This has given rise to many economical problems

in Japan because of the lack of workforce, and well as the need for supporting all the

welfare programs. This isolation has also significantly dropped the birth rates in Japan

which has become a big issue for the Japanese government. Most importantly, this also

brings up a lot of health issues because research has shown that many of these

hikikomoris suffer from some kind of mental illness. In many cases it is believed that the

lack of communication due to isolation causes hikikomoris to get mentally ill which

means that the hikikomori phenomenon is a socio-psychological problem.

Some common forms of mental illness are psychiatric disorders, including

schizophrenia, mood disorders, anxiety disorders, personality disorders, and pervasive

developmental disorder. As mentioned before, one form of cause for the hikikomori

phenomenon is the pressure, and stress of being part of the society. This pressure can

make people feel anxious, and concerned. According to former hikikomori Yamase,

when locked in the room, “I would feel anxious, but I hated the thought of going back

into society and working again” (McKirdy). These anxiety build up the longer they stay

locked in, and end up mentally harming them. Similarly the cases of harassment, and

going through trauma could also lead to some hikikomori going through depression.

However since the issue is growing so big and the cases are so unique, doctors have
even brought up ideas to consider hikikomori as a form of mental illness with a new

diagnosis specifically for them. As we learn more about the hikikomoris, and try different

ways to help them from different counseling we learn more to create a new diagnosis

that would be more effective (Teo).

So, what can be done to help the hikikomoris? For people who are already

hikikomori, home counseling seems to be the best way to help. Home visits from

counselors increase their contact with people and help them get over their fear slowly.

Following this helps them come outside for short periods of time in the beginning, and

helping them get used to coming outside is one of the best ways. In general the first

thing that is needed is an establishment of contact with the hikikomori (preventing…).

However the counseling will only help those who are already suffering, to help

deal with the hikikomori phenomenon we need to change the root cause, which is the

lack of empathy. Following Zaki’s instructions, there are many ways we can go about

this. Having hikikomoris meet with multiple people over the course of years would help

grow the empathy of other groups towards them over time. This is because of the

increase in contact which will make hikikomoris less of an outsider. Another solution,

more likely to succeed, is to share the stories of hikikomoris through different mediums.

For example having them share personal stories in an article, or in a blog can help

generate empathy toward the group. Zaki explains that reading about other people or

reading stories help you connect with the character or the protagonist. He uses the idea

of tethering and untethering to explain why stories help bolster empathy. Reader

untether themselves from themselves and tether to the protagonist which allows them to

empathize with them, and understand them better. Furthermore, doing this not only
helps increase empathy towards a certain group, it helps increase a person’s level of

empathy in general.

Fortunately such practices have started recently, and people have been sharing

stories of hikikomoris online. Some commonly used practice is blog, and articles where

they share the stories of hikikomoris. For example the article from BBC News by Kremer

shares the Matsu who was a former hikikomori. Furthermore the stories representing

the struggles of hikikomoris have started to appear in mangas and animes as well. For

example “Welcome to NHK” is a novel following a life of a hikikomori, and his struggle.

From my personal experience, there are also anime such as “Outbreak Company”

which follows the story of a former hikikomori, and talks about the idea that the longer

they stay inside their room, the harder it gets to come outside. Although these practices

have not dealt with the hikikomori phenomenon, it has shed some light on the darkness

of society.
 Citation

Brasor, Philip. “Combating an Unfounded Fear of Japan's Recluses.” The Japan

Times, 15 June 2019, www.Japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/06/15/national/media-
national/combating-unfounded-fear-Japans-recluses/.

Japan Today. “What Can Be Done to Help Japan's 'Hikikomori' (Recluses)?”

Japan Today, Japantoday.com/category/have-your-say/What-can-be-done-to-
help-Japan's-'hikikomori'-(recluses)-.

Kato, Takahiro A., et al. “Hikikomori : Multidimensional Understanding,

Assessment, and Future International Perspectives.” Wiley Online Library, John
Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 24 June 2019,
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/pcn.12895.

Kremer, William, and Claudia Hammond. “Hikikomori: Why Are so Many Japanese
Men Refusing to Leave Their Rooms?” BBC News, BBC, 5 July 2013,
www.bbc.com/news/magazine-23182523.

Ma, Alexandra. “A Psychological Ailment Called 'Hikikomori' Is Imprisoning

500,000 Japanese People in Their Homes - and It's More of a Threat than Ever.”
Business Insider, Business Insider, 14 Jan. 2018,
www.businessinsider.com/hikikomori-worrying-mental-health-problem-traps-
Japanese-at-home-2018-1.

McKirdy, Andrew. “The Prison inside: Japan's Hikikomori Lack Relationships, Not

Physical Spaces.” The Japan Times,

www.Japantimes.co.jp/life/2019/06/01/lifestyle/prison-inside-Japans-Hikikomori-

lack-relationships-not-physical-spaces/#.Xeh6wC-ZPX9.

“Preventing and Treating School Refusal and Severe Social Withdrawal.”

Psychiatric Times, www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/preventing-and-treating-school-

refusal-and-severe-social-withdrawal.

Teo, Alan R, and Albert C Gaw. “Hikikomori, a Japanese Culture-Bound Syndrome

of Social Withdrawal?: A Proposal for DSM-5.” The Journal of Nervous and Mental
Disease, U.S. National Library of Medicine, June 2010,

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4912003/.

Todd, Kathleen Hunter Lea. "Hikikomania: existential horror or national malaise?"

Southeast Review of Asian Studies, vol. 33, 2011, p. 135+. Gale Academic
OneFile, https://link-gale-
com.ezproxy.collegeofsanmateo.edu/apps/doc/A293544467/AONE?
u=plan_csm&sid=AONE&xid=a4b9c196. Accessed 4 Sept. 2020.