I may have gotten a job first, but as an older brother whose younger brother got married and had a kid first while I'm still single... yeah this one strikes a bit close to home.
I may have gotten a job first, but as an older brother whose younger brother got married and had a kid first while I'm still single... yeah this one strikes a bit close to home.
I have 2 younger sisters: The one in the middle has a well-payed job secured when she graduates next year. She's 21 and me 26, and I'm struggling with my bussiness. My younger sister (15 years old) has probably twice the social life at her age that I actually have at my age.
All the girls are quite attractive. "Imoko" has the "energetic" and "optimistic" visual traits, like the somewhat spiky quasi-bob-cut, contrasted against Neeko's "lethargic" traits of paleness and long, unstyled hair. (Barring the mascot hairclip.) Their mother, too, is basically between the two, but with a more prim barrette-based haircut.
Also, this whole family is rather well-endowed and thin and all those normal standards of beauty...
Wonder if there will ever be a background story on how Neeko becomes a shut-in, they did mention that she(Neeko) actually went to 'Royal Mast' for an interview but failed...so what had transpired during that time?
Wonder if there will ever be a background story on how Neeko becomes a shut-in, they did mention that she(Neeko) actually went to 'Royal Mast' for an interview but failed...so what had transpired during that time?
As near as I can tell, Japanese culture relies heavily upon shame, guilt, and social pressure. For example, if you do something that authority figures (I.E. teachers) don't like, the response is to have them take you into the hall and scream insults in your face until you cry. There were similar things like with "Stress Interviews" where the point was to have the interviewee come in and get screamed at to see how long it took to make them cry. It's also a culture where bullying can often be ignored because, hey, those bullied kids are reclusive nerds, so they really deserve it, right? The end result is to pile significant amounts of shame and guilt upon anyone who isn't seen as succeeding until they break down and withdraw from society.
When this happens, their family will take them in, because Japanese social custom places such heavy importance upon the unity of family. That said, their "worthless dropout" child is still a tremendous source of shame and guilt for the family, and if they want to correct that behavior, well, they try to do so by shaming and guilting someone who's already paralyzed by being overloaded by shame and guilt, which tends to have the opposite effect of what they want. (You can see this in what Neeko's mother has been doing in the last couple sets of strips...)
At the same time, families won't reach out to anyone like a psychiatrist because, hey, that's admitting your shame and guilt of badly raising a child who's now a failure and a source of shame to the family! Oh, and be sure to let the hikikomori know this, so that they get even more shame and guilt to bear down on them until they're desperately spending all their time looking for some form of escapism just to forget their shame and guilt for a while... and you wind up with someone so crushed by fear of the outside world that they'll literally never leave their house for years.
Any time she thinks about it, Neeko gets depressed, and so goes onto the Internet until she forgets all about it instead of doing anything, because that instinct to protect the psyche overwhelms the rational desire to act.
i don't usually flat out bookmark things on Danbooru, but i'm making an exception here because of the post above - you don't really see a whole lot of people nowadays talk about how shitty Japanese society is.
unfortunately, a lot of things i find on the topic are probably anecdotal at best, like the TV Tropes Value Dissonance page or the Shame society article on Wikipedia (it's Wikipedia, if [citation needed] shows up it might as well be anecdotal). i think the "best" part of the former is the one passage that claims accepting any sort of compliment makes you a huge asshole braggart in Japanese society (even if the compliment is wholly deserved). no wonder suicide is "popular" over there.
i guess it's an Asian thing in general, what with the similar concept of "face" in Chinese culture, and being Filipino i've seen a lot of shaming going on too (in my family and other barely known Filipino acquaintances), but for even more ridiculous reasons like "not being materialistic enough" or "being anything less than devoutly Catholic".
To my part time job interview!Where, exactly?...I see....Yeah.If it's Imoko, you'll surely get the job!...Thank you, nee-chan!I'll be off now.Have a safe trip~Do your best!Yoop...Where are you going, Imoko?Hmm? The Royal Mast in front of the station!
Brand name imitation of Royal Host.Their uniform looks pretty good, dunnit?hm? huum~