A Day in the Life of a Japanese Hikikomori (Shut In)

[Music] this is neato a Japanese man living in Kobe for the last 10 years he has spent nearly 24/7 in his apartment in Japan he is known as a hikikomori a social phenomenon where an individual seeks extreme isolation and today he's allowed us to take an unfiltered look into his daily life unlike most Japanese people who are rushing to work around 6:30 a.m. his morning is quite relaxing but you might be surprised to learn that Neto is not lazy in fact for the past three years he has been developing a video game Neto starts his day off with breakfast - consists of cheese toast yogurt milk and some fruit this is the same breakfast he's had every day for the past ten years yeah I mean by me it was all wrong meeting me I can't let's eat it's the HUD or shooting under it's estimated that over 1 million people in Japan currently isolate themselves like nito and experts on this matter are projecting that this number will approach 10 million in the near future a whopping 10 percent of Japan's entire population it's not easy to understand why someone would choose to live this way but what better way to find out the NASA Nieto himself Nieto take us back about 10 years he graduated from the University of Tokyo what was the job searching process like I write documentaries so I applied to TV stations and productions I have generally distracted Japanese walking culture and relationships in the workplace I had a sense of anxiety while I was searching for the job so I didn't take it too seriously when I wasn't accepted by these companies do you feel like once you've passed that initial job search period that you've lost the opportunity to get a good job in Japan yeah I think so well by unison why couldn't you run the job she preferred so he stayed in school another year and got accepted by a good company and when you decided you were done job hunting what was your next step I believe that creative writing was my calling I was thinking like okay I felt to run a good job but instead I can experience a variety of work and can use it as my writing resource I was going to quit my job when I can leave all my writing with anyway I was a logger and stupid I was getting to realize that what I want to write was not what the market press wanted to read I try to expand myself to 15 the market demand but I was not saturated I wrote up a novel that I simply expressed with my taste there and ignore the market said finally I accepted I couldn't revoke my writings at least at the moment but I wanted to rip on my creation no matter what doesn't seem to be a reasonable choice from my eyes doji means independent distribution and comes in many varieties with people creating games animations and manga due to the low volume of production when these works become popular they can also become quite valuable in typical Japanese humility nito claims he is not good at drawing but looking at his work I think most people would feel differently after breakfast Neto sits at the computer where he will spend most of his day he starts off by reading the news picking up some tidbits from reddit's game development forum and checking emails and when you decided to be a dojin that's when you moved into your current apartment yes I started learning how to draw in my old room I had no friends in my hometown and felt rushed to become financially independent as soon as possible feeling ashamed to go outside so I became a story that's was ten years ago what kind of work were you creating as a dojin I'm a bit embarrassed to say this but 80% of professional dozing creators making porn in Japan on creators are relatively accepted or simply overlooked that's what I was doing as well is that due to high demand yes being insulted market drawing cuticles is a must and being able to draw cuticle skip sea wall put sweet teas in the market it's also a great way to train your drawing skill that makes sense did you have any success there I published two books online a distributor my first was in 2014 my second in 2015 combining pose I saw a total of 2,000 copies and an net revenue over nine hundred thirty thousand so far do you feel like if you kept going with drawing that you could have made a living from it maybe but simply put drawing pong is not fun for me I can't find the meaning of last year also my second book didn't sell as well so I didn't want to keep going around that time onion engine became free to use I decided game development may be the last chance for my life now yes Rita I am getting close to finishing my first commercial game first a neato begins work on his game in the afternoon he codes using the Unreal Engine one of the biggest game engines used to develop for triple-a game titles his game title POLST a is a literal translation of hikikomori the game is an old-school beat'em up brawler centered around a hikikomori named Susumu the enemies are other members of society who were worried about him want to mock him or just want to see a hikikomori in the wild and in my opinion looks pretty fun [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] after knocking out some work Neto takes a break for lunch not being much of a cook Neto usually sticks to frozen retort packaged or canned foods he boils vegetables every day and has half at lunch and half with dinner I'm not talking with BBC a Greek thing so I want to I'm watching the video how long have you been creating at the games now I started developing games about five years ago tell us about some of the challenges you faced along the way where my English was not great so I could write my game's story in English also ODL medica is written in English so I needed to improve my skill that's my biggest challenge to overcome developing games particularly with the 3d graphics has to be a lot more difficult than writing or drawing so what is it that kept you focused and motivated over the past five years yeah it's certainly difficult and challenging but I say it's a reading a lot you can talk with the new change and create your own artwork that's what I want to spend my lifetime on and also I have no escape anymore elsewhere okay development is a result mine [Music] looking at nito's day it's a bit hard to compare him to most hikikomori the stereotype is someone who doesn't work at all and their parents take care of them while they lay about consuming media while his life is not socially accepted I do admire the number of skills he's built up entirely on his own volition [Music] this is today's my snack sorry for eating not despite my memory this is this dip in water so it's soft and sweet you can try it under clear you know let's see if the game is successful what you wanna do next I trap to travel around the world and meet game tipster I have a couple game ideas I want to make these ideas requires support from other people such as a programmer and an artist so I want to make collections with talented people and build our little team not to drink you but what if it's not successful do you have a back-up plan I will use to stay as my portfolio and try to find a job we propriate be more free result can people play you a game right now yes you can download a demo on my side when are you planning to do a final release and how can people stay up to date with your game I'm for q1 2021 30 days plus take on PC if it sells well I will try to pause the game to consoles you can check my latest development on my Twitter Neto a more of a personal question but do you ever feel lonely it might sound odd but I don't feel don't be much I don't think I'm a misanthrope type but simply don't feel lonely much a lot is riding on the success of this game for Neto please consider checking out the social links in the description or the comments downloading his demo or even share this video as I think this is one of the best ways that he can get exposure and we will see you again soon thanks for watching

Channel: Sean and Oreo

Views: 13,438,630

Keywords: japanese hikikomori, hikikomori documentary, a day in the life of a hikikomori, a day in the life of a japanese hikikomori, japan vlog, japan documentary

Id: pu9Ty9fxTHE

Length: 14min 32sec (872 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 19 2020