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Japan Times
4 days ago
- Health
- Japan Times
How ‘hikikomori' shut-ins ‘start to have dreams for the future'
Yusuke Morishima is the vice president of Quietude, a company based in Nagano that provides services in everything from translation, interpretation, counseling and consulting to job recruiting. But as of 2019, he had been a hikikomori — a social recluse who rarely leaves their home or makes contact with others — for five years. 'Being in a large group was always exhausting to me,' says Morishima, 33. 'I was overly concerned about the people around me, and it really affected my mental health. Eventually, I stopped going to school, and then when I became even more tired, I stopped going out altogether and became a hikikomori.' But after attending Samurai Gakuen (Samugaku for short), a school based in Ueda, Nagano Prefecture, that has been providing specialized education for hikikomori and troubled youth for 20 years, Morishima managed to not only overcome his social anxiety but earn gainful employment at Quietude — and then move up the ranks to boot. He's not the only one to come out of the program with his life changed. Masahiro Minemura, 43, had been a hikikomori for 15 years and also served two years in prison. But after studying at Samugaku and eventually earning his high school diploma, he got a sales and delivery job at Yamato Transport. School founder and director Hidetaka Nagaoka remembers attending university to become a teacher, where he recalls being fed a certain narrative by his professors: that all students were the same. Samurai Gakuen accepts students ranging from teenagers to middle-age men and women who have withdrawn from the workforce and social activities. | SAMURAI GAKUEN 'I was shocked by this so-called fact, and my desire to resist it grew stronger and stronger,' he says. After touring over a hundred schools and educational facilities across Japan, he founded Samugaku and its unique approach to education, providing tailored programs to all ages (current students range from 14 to 46 years old). 'We believe that it is possible to learn and grow at any age,' Nagaoka says. 'And since most of our students are adults, our educational goals are focused on financial independence and psychological independence, which we call 'basic life skills.'' In essence, the goal of the school is for its graduates to be able to live ordinary, self-sufficient lives in terms of their financial situations, mental stability, social networks and support systems. Many students need assistance of the most basic level. Introductory-level classes help students wake up in the morning, eat three meals a day and adjust to a proper sleep schedule. Former student Tomoaki Ogawauchi, who now works full-time at Quietude, recalls that as a hikikomori, he ate and slept whenever he wanted, causing difficulties for his family. 'But coming here and living in the dorm, we have to follow the schedule and rules,' says Ogawauchi, 27. 'I had to learn the importance of following a routine to respect the staff and other students now that we were all together.' Teaching former "hikikomori" shut-ins actionable employment skills can help them more easily reintegrate back into an active role in society. | SAMURAI GAKUEN The school offers seven courses, ranging from basic physical self-care to cooking and eating; house hunting and cleaning; self-exploration through psychology and philosophy; understanding others; social studies and interacting in public; and enjoying life through hobbies and passions. The last stage of schooling prepares students for graduation by assisting them with job hunting and establishing independent living situations. Current student Yukiko Sasai says that special events such as a 15-kilometer walk have helped her with her determination. 'I used to think that school was purely something that I hated, but now I don't mind it nearly as much,' says Sasai, 28. 'Although at first I struggled to get along with other people, I've really improved those relationships.' 'Learning to think for myself was a big part of my experience at Samugaku,' reflects Minemura. 'I came to realize that I wanted to find something that I wanted to do for myself.' The phenomenon of hikikomori was first identified in the 1990s. The condition is characterized as a severe form of social withdrawal, where individuals stay at home and refrain from social participation such as schooling, work or socializing for more than six months. The number of hikikomori in Japan is estimated to be nearly 1.5 million in total and over 2% of 15- to 64-year-olds. In recent years, the malaise is now manifesting in other countries such as South Korea, China, the United States, Spain and France. Lessons at Samurai Gakuen encompass more than traditional classroom learning, broadening to outdoor activities that help students develop new interests. | SAMURAI GAKUEN Nagoya University professor Tadaaki Furuhashi, who researches hikikomori in Japan and France, says that modern science still hasn't identified the physiological cause of the syndrome or if it even is a pathological condition in the first place. 'This question will determine what kind of measures and responses are needed to help address it,' Furuhashi says. 'Hikikomori occurs in two stages,' he explains. 'The first stage is a 'trigger' stage that causes the individual to withdraw from normal life. Then, in the second stage, the individual finds the withdrawal comfortable and no longer wants to return to normal life.' According to Furuhashi, in France, hikikomori are not seen as having mental illnesses or as being a burden on society — in contrast to Japan, where the media and politicians lament these individuals and treat them as serious issues. 'So long as society views the hikikomori condition in a negative way, it will continue to be difficult for individuals to return to society,' Furuhashi says, adding that the role of the internet and video games should not be discounted in helping the second stage feel more comfortable. Lessons at Samurai Gakuen encompass more than traditional classroom learning, broadening to outdoor activities that help students develop new interests. | SAMURAI GAKUEN Students at Samugaku cited various 'triggers' for the start of their withdrawal: parental divorces, bullying at school, social anxiety, or simply the feeling of struggling to keep up with their peers. Momoka Taira, a 14-year-old who lost her mother two years ago, was receiving social support from her local government when she lost faith in adults. 'Grown-ups started to scare me and I thought I couldn't trust them,' Taira says. 'Then the whole outside world started to scare me.' Upon a recommendation, Taira joined Samugaku on a one-year trial period. Now she lives in the dorms and takes classes with the 10 other current students. 'After trying it out, I met a lot of interesting people,' she says. 'People have their own opinions, and we had all sorts of fun conversations. I've been able to reflect on my past mistakes and, even though I'm not really properly studying yet, I want to study for my high school examinations and try doing a part-time job, too. I've started to have dreams for the future.' Samugaku, as a nonprofit school funded by donations and partnerships, struggles with funding and maintaining a large student-body. Coronavirus severely reduced the number of students down from 30, but the school hopes to return this previous size. And though Samugaku has produced plenty of success stories, hikikomori face a challenging road. 'Developing communication skills is particularly tough for students who have spent years avoiding social interactions,' says Chaa Chaa Ogino, chief fundraiser and PTA head at Samugaku and CEO of Quietude. 'Reintegrating students into local companies and society is (also) a gradual process that requires consistent support. 'If we can maintain a relationship through at least 20 sessions, we build enough trust to help them grow,' Ogino says. For a long time, despite the invitations, Taira didn't want to go to Samugaku. When she did, her way of thinking changed. 'There's always going to be some place for you in society,' Taira says. 'But you have to go out there and find it.'
NHK
22-05-2025
- Climate
- NHK
Train collision with wind-blown shed leaves 1 dead in central Japan
A train collided with a shed with a metal pipe frame in Nagano Prefecture, central Japan, on Wednesday. One passenger was killed and two others injured. The shed was apparently blown by strong winds. The Nagano Electric Railway train was traveling through the city of Suzaka when the collision occurred shortly before 6 p.m., shattering train windows. The accident killed a 56-year-old company worker from Nagano City. Two other male civil servants, aged 65 and 56, suffered mild head injuries. Police say the man who died and the two injured men were all riding in the first carriage of the three-car train that was to terminate at Nagano Station. Police investigated the metal pipes they found at the site of the accident. They believe the train collided with the shed that was blown by strong winds from a nearby field. Atmospheric conditions were extremely unstable in Nagano Prefecture on Wednesday due to moist air and rising temperatures. In the evening, developed rain clouds were observed passing near Suzaka City. At the time of the accident, a tornado advisory was in place for northern Nagano Prefecture, which includes Suzaka City.
Japan Times
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Japan Times
‘Crosspoint' can't quite find its target
Japan isn't known for being friendly to foreign film productions: Even big-budget Hollywood projects with Japan-centric stories are often shot elsewhere due to red tape, among other reasons. Donie Ordiales, a Filipino director and long-time resident in Japan, nonetheless found the ways and means to film his patchily plotted thriller 'Crosspoint' here and release it in the Philippines late last year. The film was a box-office hit, with the casting of local TV star Carlo Aquino drawing fans. The story — a washed-up Filipino actor and a broke Japanese businessman team up to capture a creepy serial killer — would seem to lend itself to buddy-movie comedy, but everyone plays it totally straight to occasionally ludicrous effect. Aquino is Manuel Hidalgo, an actor who was once big in the 1990s but is now hard up for roles and in need of money for the medical bills of his pregnant wife. (Given his boyish looks, he must have been barely out of the cradle when he first rose to stardom a quarter century ago.) Arriving in Japan, Manuel finds employment as a singer in a Filipino club where his Japanese audience is unaware of his one-time fame. Facing deportation because he is not working with a proper visa, he journeys to a small pub in rural Nagano Prefecture but finds it locked and its Pinoy proprietor nowhere to be found. She is, we already know, dead inside the pub at the hands of a killer (Sho Ikushima), whom Manuel catches a glimpse of as he skulks away. The actor has no idea, however, that this stranger is responsible for the crime. Later that night, without money for a hotel, he seeks shelter in an izakaya (Japanese pub), where he strikes up a conversation with a businessman, Shigeru Yamaguchi ('Shogun' star Takehiro Hira). Fluent in English, Shigeru commiserates with Manuel's problems and confesses his own: His business is bankrupt and he is deep in debt. Then, Manuel catches a glimpse of a news broadcast about a local murder and realizes he has seen the suspect. Hearing this, Shigeru has a light bulb moment and suggests he and Manuel team up to catch the killer and claim the substantial reward. Seeing this, rightly, as a harebrained idea, Manuel suggests that they go to the cops instead. But Shigeru is both persistent and persuasive and they embark on their big adventure, the trembly Manuel armed with a baseball bat and the grimly determined Shigeru with a bow and arrows. We're told he's an expert archer, but seeing these two flailing through the woods in the dark, I couldn't help but think of Harry and Lloyd, the bumbling duo from the classic Farrelly brothers' comedy 'Dumb and Dumber.' When the heroes encounter the killer, the ensuing action scenes generate a dark, chaotic impact, if with the obvious assistance of stunt actors and quick cuts that blur who is doing what to whom. Action aside, the film is realistic about both the vagaries of show business in the Philippines and the hardscrabble lives many Filipino entertainers lead in Japan, where clubs run by their compatriots often close without warning, leaving their hapless employees in the lurch. But the story drags in plot developments, such as Shigeru's opposition to the singing career of his talented daughter Mayuko (Kei Kurosawa), reminiscent of a standard-issue family melodrama. For all its entertaining and insightful moments, 'Crosspoint' is finally at cross purposes to itself.
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
Chiikawa Goes Global: 'Kawaii' Characters Make It to the Top
Chiikawa, a contraction of the Japanese phrase nanka chiisakute kawaii yatsu , which means something like 'so small and cute,' refers to the adorable animal characters that appear in a manga series launched by the illustrator Nagano on Twitter (now X) in 2017. The series, reflecting her image of an ideal lifestyle, grew so popular that she launched a dedicated account in January 2020. Their spread is linked to an explosion in the number of yuru-kyara , as Japanese call supercute mascot characters. This was triggered in part by the explosion in social media and image-sharing tools from around 2011 onward, as illustrators posted their character and manga creations on Line, Pixiv, Twitter, and other online properties. The debut of the Line Creators Market in May of 2014 gave creators a 50% share in the revenues from the sales of digital stickers featuring their characters, which users purchased to decorate their messages to one another. This encouraged even more artists to submit their creations, in the beginnings of what is now known as the 'creator economy.' The incredible popularity of Gudetama, a character released in 2013 by Sanrio, is a perfect example. After being posted to social media, it was widely shared in the years to follow. By January of 2018, as seen in the chart below, the official Gudetama Twitter account reached 1 million followers. As the COVID-19 pandemic caused lockdowns around the world, the number of creators participating in digital spaces skyrocketed, fueling the growth of the Line sticker business. In 2021, LINE reported ¥100 billion in sales. The top ten creators took in an average of ¥1.18 billion from their creations, while 154 creators made more than ¥100 million. But with 3.9 million total participants, not even 0.01% are able to earn a sustainable income. Becoming the Artist of Her Era Nagano distinguished herself early on in the fiercely competitive sticker-creator business. She released a string of characters, including Jibun Tsukkomi Kuma (Joke Bear), Pagu-san, Burikko Usagi (Too Cute Bunny), and more, hitting the top spot on the Line Creator Marketplace numerous times. When she began drawing Chiikawa, she was already positioned as a top creator, with 330,000 followers on Twitter. How does a stand-alone character gain more popularity than those that appear in high-budget, heavily marketed video games and anime? All of Nagano's creations have a common denominator: they are caricatures, a form of satire once widely seen in newspaper cartoons and other mass media. In a Twitter post titled 'Living together with cats,' Nagano writes how 'Both move independently, from time to time coming into my view. What happiness!' In another post titled 'Ice cream manjū ,' she captures the moment of biting into the sweet with the observation, 'plump vanilla; sticky bean paste,' painting a picture in the reader's mind. In a way, her work resembles illustrated haiku poetry. Nagano also shows her genius in capturing the happiness of everyday moments in single-panel manga. In the world of Chiikawa, the characters are engaged in a kind of survival. They are small and fragile creatures who come together to savor tiny moments of joy amid a relentless cycle of eating, working, and sleeping every day. But the reason the series resonates so deeply among so many is because it doesn't settle for whimsical fantasy. It serves as a quiet message of encouragement to those facing the harsh realities of modern life. From Minor Sensation to Major Hit Nagano released Chiikawa Line stickers in July of 2020. In March 2021, Line named her as the monthly MVP in its Top Creator category, which recognizes top stickers and emojis based on number of downloads, usage frequency, and buzz. From the press release for the Chiikawa Restaurant in Tokyo's Ikebukuro. (Courtesy The Guest Café and Diner; © Nagano/Chiikawa Committee) To capitalize on this momentum, Nagano partnered with Spiralcute, a company specializing in the licensing of character merchandise. Together they launched a full-scale entry into the character business, opening an online store and releasing a range of official products. In April of 2022, an anime adaptation began airing as one segment of Fuji TV's Mezamashi terebi morning program, cementing Chiikawa's popularity. This can be seen in the explosive growth of the number of followers on Chiikawa's official X account. 2020: 10,000 → 400,000 2021: 400,000 → 800,000 2022: 800,000 → 1.7 million 2023: 1.7 million → 2.8 million As you can see, Chiikawa has built an incredible following over the past four years; by the end of 2023, it reached a level comparable to megahits like the anime series Demon Slayer (2.94 million followers), Pokémon (2.34 million), and One Piece (2.06 million). As of April 2025, the account has almost 4 million followers. It goes to show that Chiikawa is an all-star among Japanese characters. It's important to remember that Chiikawa isn't based on a manga or anime. It emerged organically, from the daily posts of single-panel illustrations and short stories on social media. The mass media has long treated the internet as the periphery of pop culture, but in recent years creator-driven platforms like the video-oriented sites Niconico, TikTok, and YouTube have transformed the media landscape, paving new ways for amateurs to compete on the same playing field as seasoned professionals. Chiikawa symbolizes this shift. Chiikawa may have emerged from the fringes, but it went on to win prestigious awards chosen by professionals, including the SNS Buzzword Award (2022), the Japan Character Award (2022 and again in 2024), and the Grand Prize of the Japan Cartoonists Association Award (2024). There's no question about it: The fringe has overtaken the mainstream. Huge Popularity in China Chiikawa sounds cute and cuddly, but it's a power player in the world of Japanese characters, representing a massive franchise in its own right. An overseas merchandising initiative kicked off in March of 2024. In China, where Chiikawa gained popularity ahead of other nations, a great deal of pirated merchandise fills the marketplace alongside officially licensed products. In order to better compete there, Spiralcute decided to partner with Miniso, a major Chinese variety store chain. They opened the first official Chiikawa pop-up shop in Shanghai at the end of March 2024; in just three days, sales reached some 8 million yuan, or over a million dollars. At one point, the line of customers grew 7,000 people long, prompting local police to break up the crowd. But the frenzy continued, quickly spreading to Beijing, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia, and South Korea. Additional pop-up shops in New York and Las Vegas enjoyed huge success as well. In 2024, Chiikawa proved popular enough to enter the top 10 best-selling intellectual property franchises in China. At Minoso's 2024 Super IP Awards, it was honored alongside globally renowned franchises such as Harry Potter and Disney characters. Chiikawa no longer belongs only to Japan, but to the whole world. Apps: a New Frontier Key to Chiikawa's success is its constant presence. In the first three years after launching the account, Nagano only had 200 days when she didn't post. New content is released on a near-daily basis, and the anime is showing on TV. And then there are the numerous events and collaborations—it's almost impossible to walk the streets in Japan these days without a glimpse of Chiikawa. Chiikawa merchandise released in collaboration with the MLB season opener held in Tokyo on March 7, 2025, at Tokyo Skytree Town. (© Kazuki Oishi/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect) The combination of an easy-to-understand take on the world and constant updates is what differentiates Chiikawa from previous generations of cute characters. Today frequency and high visibility are the norm, indispensable assets in expanding new character content franchises. And now, Chiikawa is expanding into new media. The mobile game app Chiikawa Pocket ( Chiipoke ) came out in March of 2025, racking up 3 million downloads in its first week. Having conquered social media, televised anime, and merchandise, Chiikawa is breaking new ground in the mobile gaming space. It's a big new stage for the now-international star. (Originally published in Japanese on April 28, 2025. Banner photo: A Chiikawa-themed pop-up store opens in Shanghai, China, on March 29, 2024. © Xinhua/ Kyōdō News Images.)
NHK
20-05-2025
- NHK
Arrest warrants obtained for Vietnamese suspects in Japan shoplifting ring
NHK has learned that Japanese police have obtained arrest warrants for two Vietnamese nationals suspected of directing a shoplifting ring in Japan from their home country. Sources close to the investigation say a joint task force, including the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, has secured warrants for Nguyen Ba Thanh and Nguyen Thu Huyen. Investigators say the two issued instructions from Vietnam to group members who are suspected of stealing cosmetics and other products from drugstores in Nagano Prefecture in September. This was reportedly discovered through the analysis of smartphones that were confiscated from the alleged shoplifters. The group is also suspected of shoplifting large quantities of items from drugstores across Japan, collecting the items at multiple locations across the country and sending them back to Vietnam. Investigators raided sites linked to the group near Tokyo and in Osaka in November. On Monday, they raided another site in Matsudo City, Chiba Prefecture, and arrested two other people suspected of involvement in the shipment of stolen goods. Twelve members of the group have been arrested so far. The investigators believe that the shoplifted items were delivered to locations in Hanoi connected to the two suspects who were allegedly issuing orders. The joint task force plans to ask the International Criminal Police Organization, or INTERPOL, to place the two suspects on its wanted list. The investigators believe the pair recruited shoplifters via social media and used messaging apps to instruct them on what to steal and where to send the products. They are continuing to pursue the full picture of this cross-border organized crime operation.
