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"Being alone is best. I mean, it’s true, isn’t it? In the end you’ll be absolutely alone; therefore, being alone is natural. If you accept that, nothing bad can happen. That’s why I shut myself away in my six-mat one-room apartment."
Tatsuhiro Satou

Welcome to the N.H.K. is an odd, darkly comic story about an anxiety-ridden hikikomori named Satou, struggling against his persistent delusion that he is being forced to be a hikikomori by a conspiracy called the N.H.K., until one day, when a girl by the name of Misaki comes out of the blue, insisting on helping Satou rid himself of his "hikikomori ways". The plot then follows Satou's many attempts (and repeated failures) to overcome his crippling anxiety. It's dark, it's funny, and even heartwarming at the most unexpected times.

Originally a novel written by Tatsuhiko Takimoto with illustrations by Yoshitoshi Abe and first published in 2002, it has been adapted to both a manga and an anime. The novel, manga, and anime are each rather different in both story and themes. The anime and manga follow essentially the same plot until the manga's divergence from the novel, leading to its own, separate conclusion. The novel tends to be somewhat darker, focusing more on the characters' issues and less on the love story, which is essentially the focus of the anime, with the manga somewhere in between. There are significant differences in the specific way some events happen in the anime and manga, even when they're otherwise almost identical, which tends to bring out the change in tone. Many events of the novel (the fight scene, the visit to the church) never occur in the anime or manga, and vice versa (the "summer vacation", the entire second half of the manga).

The name of the main character, Tatsuhiro Satou, might be a play on the names of the original creator and his friend: Tatsuhiko Takimoto and Yuuya Satou. The N.H.K. novel eventually made Tatsuhiko Takimoto one of the pioneers of the post-Murakami literature movement in Japan.

The manga and original novel were licensed and translated into English by Tokyopop, but have since gone out of print with the shuttering of the company. The anime was originally licensed (and entirely dubbed) by ADV Films, but they lost the license partway through release to Funimation, who currently hold the series. If you're in the USA, you can watch it for free on Funimation's website.


Tropes:

  • Abusive Parent: Misaki is revealed to have an abusive stepdad after her original dad died when she was a baby. The abuse led to her mother committing suicide by falling off a cliff. He would also physically and verbally abuse her.
  • Acquainted in Real Life: Darkly played with. When Satou becomes obsessed with an MMORPG he stops working with Kaoru on their game. He then meets an incredible, sweet, fun player with a Catgirl avatar whom he quickly develops a crush on. He refuses to listen to anyone who tries to stop him from obsessing over this player's character. Then one day the character says she's coming to visit him, and Kaoru walks through the door with his computer, revealing that he was just trying to teach Satou a lesson and get him to start making the game with him again.
  • All Psychology Is Freudian: Or at least Misaki thought so for a little while. After the incident below, she switched to Jungian.
  • And the Adventure Continues: In the manga, Kaoru still wants to continue working on his game with Sato even after dropping out of the school.
  • Anguished Declaration of Love: In the finale of both the book and the anime, Satou blurts out one of these while pleading with Misaki not to commit suicide. In the series' typical darkly funny fashion, it doesn't even dawn on Satou that he means it until he's ready to kill himself to convince her not to throw her own life away.
    Satou: I like you! I love you! Please, don't die!
  • Artistic License – Medicine: People who work with the mentally ill are trained never to acknowledge or interact with figments of the patient's imagination (e.g., yelling "get out of here" at a schizophrenic's hallucinations) because it further damages their ability to separate fact and fiction. This makes purposefully inducing paranoid delusions in a damaged person so you can then symbolically destroy them a pretty bad idea.
  • Author Avatar: Satou. In story, there's a scene where Satou sits in on a game concept development class and writes a VN scenario where a lonely, isolated charcoal burner in the woods falls in love with a forest spirit that completely and implicitly understands him and "never calls him a NEET or hikikomori." In addition to the author himself living as a "hikky" for 4 years, he has revealed in interviews that the success of his work had him "reduced to a NEET, ...living as a parasite on the royalties from this book". He's also said offhand in an interview that really, the only thing that makes Satou and him different is their appearance and name, and that a lot of the events in the book happened to him. He said it gives him cold shakes if he tries reading it, as he can't look upon his protagonist's life objectively.
  • Bait-and-Switch Credits: The opening is an upbeat song paired mostly with pastel, brightly lit scenes of women frolicking in the sun.
  • Battle Aura: Parodied.
  • Beach Episode: Notable for actually being the Wham Episode of the series.
  • Because You Were Nice to Me: Essentially the reason Hitomi lets Satou have sex with her on her day of graduation in the novel (and because Satou kinda begged). He was really the only person that paid attention to her after a bad breakup and kept her from suicide.
  • Between My Legs: Misaki in episode 3.
  • Bilingual Bonus: "ХУṄ" on Satou's T-shirt is a Russian vulgar word for "dick".
  • Black Comedy
  • Bland-Name Product: Mindows Operating System, Qoogle search engine, Warlboro cigarettes, Lerox watches, Ultimate Fantasy and Usahi (and once Ebusu) beer.
  • Blank White Eyes: Satou and Misaki get these sometimes in the manga.
  • Book Ends: That snowy cliff is one of the first scenes shown, as a nightmare of Satou's, along with numerous similarities between the two beyond location where the ending takes place.
  • Bowdlerise: In both the light novel and the manga, Satou uses drugs that he orders from people. In the anime adaptation, he isn't shown using or taking any sort of drugs.
  • Break the Cutie:
    • In the anime, Misaki's abusive step-father beat her, and fully convinced her that she's cursed and an utterly worthless person.
    • Hitomi has a way of breaking on her own because she is just frail on the inside.
  • But Wait, There's More!: Megumi uses this line on Satou, Misaki and Yamazaki in episode 18 in order to sell them on the dietary supplement/keep Satou in the pyramid scheme.
  • Caught with Your Pants Down: In the manga: Satou was getting sexually frustrated so he gets naked and yells "Hyper Self-Pleasure Mode!" as he watches porn on multiple monitors.
  • Charles Atlas Superpower: Parodied. Satou wonders if he has gained any powers from living alone in his apartment like those characters who train alone on mountains. He karate-chops a beer bottle successfully but cuts his hand.
  • Cerebus Syndrome: The series becomes much more dramatic over the course of episodes, transforming from Cringe Comedy into a serious drama about entering the adult life.
  • Coming of Age Story: The series is effectively a really dark one, chronicling Satou's struggles as he tries to go from manchild to functioning adult.
  • Con Man: Sagawa, the head of the Mouseroad pyramid scheme. Megumi, as well, at least until she and other members of Mouseroad get arrested.
  • Conspiracy Theorist: Hitomi Kashiwa, Satou's senpai from high school. Satou himself takes it from her afterwards.
  • Conversational Troping: Happens quite a bit between Satou and Yamazaki while they're working on their "gal-game".
  • Cosmic Plaything: Misaki, Satou, and Hitomi believe themselves to be this.
  • Cringe Comedy: Very often, given the subject matter.
  • Cross Player: Yamazaki during the Ultimate Fantasy arc.
  • Curse Cut Short: Episode 17 in the English dub, upon Satou realising just what he's walked in to:
    Satou: I... am so... fu— *Eye Catch*
  • Dark Reprise: A dark version of the Pururin theme song appears when Megumi convinces Satou to join Mouse Road.
  • Deep-Immersion Gaming: The MMORPG Untimate Fantasy.
  • Despair Event Horizon: Misaki goes past it after Satou refuses to be in a relationship with her.
  • Don't You Dare Pity Me!: Elena in the Manga when Yamazaki tries to give her money so she can get a sex change operation.
  • Dude Looks Like a Lady: Elena in the manga.
  • Dysfunction Junction
  • Driven to Suicide: Misaki's mother, in the anime.
  • Earn Your Happy Ending: In Megumi's case, her brother starts to get hungry after Megumi got arrested, so he begged to work for a local restaurant, finally ending his hikky phase. We don't see what happens to them afterwards but it's probably safe to assume both of them will be okay.
  • Festival Episode: The new years eve celebration.
  • Flanderization: Especially in the manga, where Satou and Misaki eventually get reduced to their disturbed mental state. Nobody is ever nearly as bad in the novel as they get in the manga, and the climax of the book that (mostly) resolves everyone's problems only sends them spiraling further in the manga.
  • Flipping the Table: Satou does this to Yamazaki once in ep. 4.
  • Foreshadowing:
    • The Nightmare Sequence at the very start of the first episode foreshadows the last episode.
    • A later example — Megumi's hikikomori brother ends up getting a job after not eating in 3 days. Satou goes through the same thing in episode 23.
    • In the Beach Episode, Sato raises a fist as if to strike Misaki, whose immediate response is to curl up in a ball and cover their face for protection. Misaki grew up with an abusive stepfather who would frequently beat her.
  • Foil: Misaki's and Hitomi's relationship with Satou is both equally toxic, but for opposing reasons. Misaki sees Satou as someone pathetic enough that if she can become his Living Emotional Crutch she can make herself feel better. Hitomi meanwhile, from back when they were in High School, continually dragged Satou down to her level, playing into his paranoia and social anxiety.
  • Functional Addict:
    • To a certain degree of "functional". The drugs don't control his life, but he doesn't do anything with it anyway.
    • Hitomi, as well, though the degree to which she could function deteriorates until she ends up taking part in a suicide pact.
  • Future Loser: If you're even remotely of the slacker persuasion and you're the same age as Satou, seeing his Imagine Spot of him at 50 years old (fat, lonely, self-loathing, completely immersed in otaku culture, unable to function 'outside' and eventually homeless with no friends or family) is horrifying.
  • Gallows Humor
  • Gecko Ending: The manga, in a somewhat inverted way. Both the novel and the anime end with Satou trying to kill himself, only to survive, with Misaki and him deciding to keep living. This happens in the manga as well, but at the halfway point, so it doesn't resolve the story. The manga keeps going on to reach its own conclusion (somehow). Both end similarly, with Satou and Misaki attempting to embrace life after failing suicide. Neither are totally over their problems, but they're trying. The manga couple just has to go through a lot more shit to get there.
  • G.I.R.L.: Part of Sato's descent into MMORPG addiction was due to feelings he developed for a cute Cat Girl healer he met in the game, who turns out to be Yamazaki.
  • Girl of My Dreams: The first episode of the anime opens with a nightmare of Satou's, in which Misaki is watching from afar, carrying the same white umbrella she has when they meet for real.
  • God Is Evil: What Misaki believes.
  • Godiva Hair: Hitomi in one of Satou's fantasies.
  • Gonk: A coworker of Hitomi's.
  • G-Rated Drug:
    • Usually averted by Satou's fairly hard drug use, but also parodied.
    • In the novel he talks a lot about "legal drugs" he acquires off the internet (even if he takes said drugs by snorting them). But then he mentions by name some extremely illegal and unimaginably powerful real-life hallucinogens, with a level of detail that makes one suspect the author didn't just read about it on Wikipedia.
  • Fake Relationship: Misaki agrees to pretend to be Satou's girlfriend when Satou's mom comes to visit.
  • Happily Failed Suicide: At the end of the series (or halfway through the manga), Satou throws himself off a cliff in an honest-to-God suicide attempt, but discovers that a hidden metal net has been installed just below the cliff after the previous suicide on that spot. After that, he seems to become quite happy with his life again.
  • Hard Truth Aesop: Satou's NEET lifestyle is only stopped once his parents stop sending him money, not because of the support of anyone else. While his friends do help with preparing him to be an adult, the series makes it an important point that positive changes in life are not always voluntarily acquired. Played with in that Satou's friendships make it far easier to grapple with the realities of having a job and being in the outside world, with the possibility that he would have completely shut down and actually killed himself if he didn't have things to live for.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Satou thinks he is doing one of these in the ending of both the novel and anime, and also during the midpoint of the manga.
  • Hikikomori: The fulcrum upon which the plot revolves.
  • Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: The anime's episode titles follow a pattern of "Welcome to the _____". Additionally, the titles are shown at the end of the episode, where they have gained greater significance.
  • Inconsistent Spelling: Once again, the Japanese "long-o" rears its ugly head, and each incarnation of the series in English treats it differently:
    • The manga spells it "Satou", and keeps names in Eastern Order (i.e. "Satou Tatsuhiro")
    • The novel spells it "Sato", but flips the names to Western Order. (i.e. "Tatsuhiro Sato")
    • The anime spells it "Satou", and flips the names to Western Order. (i.e. "Tatsuhiro Satou")
  • Inelegant Blubbering: Satou and Misaki, at the end of episode 13.
  • The Internet Is for Porn:
    • Yamazaki teaches the far-less-nerdy Satou this lesson, who proves to be a willing student. Except he misses the whole part about how deleting your OS to make room for your porn is a bad idea.
    • In the novel he was like this before meeting Yamazaki (minus the deleting your OS part), but with the mindset of "the internet is for porn and scoring drugs".
  • Interrupted Suicide: Satou, Hitomi, Misaki, and the "Off Meeting" in the anime and manga. Subverted by Misaki's mother.
  • I Want My Beloved to Be Happy:
    • Satou wants his Sempai, Hitomi Kashiwa, to be happy. That is why he does not sleep with her, since doing so could ruin her marriage to Jougasaki.
    • This is also part of Satou's reasoning for refusing Misaki's second contract which would basically force him to be in a relationship with her, although his delusions insist that it's really because he doesn't want to be considered a "worthless human".
  • Loners Are Freaks: Subverted, since the main cast are just normal people suffering from anxiety, depression and paranoia.
  • Male Gaze: A lot of this going on (the anime's opening, even) but most of the time it's All Just a Dream in Satou's head.
  • Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Deconstructed with Misaki.
  • Maybe Ever After: Misaki and Satou's brief romance is left ambiguous in almost every adaptation. The novel makes it clear that it's more or less finished. The manga leaves off on a more hopeful note, with Satou promising to pursue their relationship anew once he cleans himself up. The anime is similarly ambiguous.
  • Meaningful Name: It's actually in the fact that it doesn't mean much. The surname Satou/Sato is so common in Japan that it is meant to represent the majority of Japanese society and what they struggle with. The English equivalent would be naming the main character Smith.
  • Meido: Satou and Yamazaki go to a Maid Cafe in the Manga and Anime.
  • Mental Story: It's mostly about the main character's inner strife, and no decisions are reached even in the end.
  • Moe: Parodied, see Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot.
  • Myers–Briggs: In one of the many psychology terms Misaki uses during her sessions with Satou, she tells him that he is a "introverted feeling type". This is from Carl Jung's theory of psychological types, which was later used as a basis for the Myers-Briggs type indicator. If Misaki's statement is accurate, Satou would be either an INFP or an ISFP according to the Myers-Briggs interpretation of Jung.
  • Naughty Nuns: Satou fantasizes about Misaki being one of these when he first meets her.
  • Never Trust a Title: One might surmise from the title that the anime was aired on NHK (日本放送協会, Nippon Housou Kyoukai, "Japan Broadcasting Corporation"; Japan's public broadcaster). But in fact, N.H.K. in the context of the anime (and light novel) stands for "Nihon Hikikomori Kyoukai" (日本引きこもり協会)—Japan Hikikomori Corporation, which besides using "Nihon" instead of "Nippon"note  is a far more appropriate acronym given the subject matter of the series. In fact, the anime was never actually aired on an NHK network like NHK-G, NHK-ETV or NHK-BS 1. It was syndicated to JAITSnote  stations.
  • Nightmare Sequence: The anime starts with Satou having one, and has many through out the series.. In the novel and manga, it's implied to be from drug abuse. While in the anime, it's anxiety.
  • Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Yamazaki and Satou try to make the perfect Eroge heroine.
    • In the novel, page 98: "She's the protagonist's childhood friend as well as a robot maid. She's blind, deaf, and sickly; on top of that, she's an alien with Alzheimer's and multiple personality disorder. However she's actually a ghost with a connection to the main character from their past lives. And her true form is really a fox spirit!"
    • In the manga, she's a Cat Girl Robot Maid who's got Alzheimer's.
    • In the anime: "She's your classmate and childhood friend, who also happens to live next door. She's also a robot, but not just any robot, a Maid Robot! In a previous life, she and the main character were lovers. She's also really sick, so the main character has to take care of her. Then she jumps in front of a car to protect him and ends up in the hospital for a whole year! But she's actually a ghost! AND SHE'S AN ALIEN TOO! THEN YOU FIND OUT SHE'S A REINCARNATION OF A FOX FROM SPACE WITH A SPLIT PERSONALITY!!"
  • No Antagonist:
    • Though Megumi definitely fits until we learn more about her.
    • Misaki to a lesser extent in the manga.
    • Arguably, each character is their own worst enemy.
  • Nosebleed: Satou has one when thinking about having sex with Hitomi. Despite being linked to arousal, it's a regular, realistic nosebleed.
  • Not What It Looks Like: Misaki spills hot water on Satou's pants and is trying to quickly clean it off. Cue Yamazaki walking into Satou's room and seeing Misaki's head in Satou's crotch with Satou making weird noises.
  • Older Than They Look: One of the eroge games Sato plays to "research" features a big-eyed girl on the cover... with the title "I Am Not Loli!"
  • Otaku: Yamazaki Kaoru, He has tons of Anime merchandise in his room. In the anime he even has a Pururin body pillow.
  • Poor Communication Kills: Inverted Satou's senpai, Hitomi, intends on going to an "Off" Meeting – a group suicide. She stops by Satou's the night before and gets very drunk, talking about going on "summer vacation." Satou thinks he has a chance at being with her and getting out of his shut-in life with someone he loves, so eagerly offers to accompany her anywhere, "whether it's to Paradise or to Hell." She thinks he saw the Off Meeting notice sticking out of her purse while she slept, so he never learns what's what until the whole group is on a deserted island ready to do the deed. Satou manages to talk everyone out of it at the end... however, there's a fair chance that they never even would have made it that far if it wasn't for him! Group resolve was flagging back on the mainland, and it's only because he pushed them to go ahead with their "vacation" that they made it to the island at all. Nobody dies, but they nearly got there because of his misunderstanding.
  • Porn Stash: And how! Yamazaki has tons of doujins and eroge. At one point, Satou downloads 120 gigabytes of porn.
  • Pragmatic Adaptation : The anime version leaves out some of the more complex plots of the manga and novel, but uses the opportunity to explore the earlier themes in more depth.
  • Precision F-Strike:
    • There are a handful of F-bombs dropped in the English dub, mostly by Satou, but his use of it during the climax of the final episode is especially spectacular and certainly qualifies.
      Satou: I'll show you, Yamazaki! I'm about to die saving the girl I love! How do you like that? That's not just dramatic! It's FUCKING dramatic!!!
    • Hitomi manages to get in a single F-bomb to punctuate her crossing the Despair Event Horizon in episode 13.
      Hitomi: He may have said I was important to him, but in the end, I know he doesn't need someone useless like me. Why would he? He's so fucking perfect he can do anything he wants all by himself!
    • Conversely, Yamazaki's single F-strike is somewhat more comedic.
      Yamazaki: Satou, you're not listening! I'm telling you the dialogue you wrote for the heroine in this scene doesn't work at all.
      Satou: You think so?
      Yamazaki: Not even close!
      Satou: I dunno, it seems fine to me.
      Yamazaki: That's because you're a fucking idiot.
  • Really Dead Montage: Or rather Really Put on a Bus Montage.
  • Refuge in Audacity: "BEGONE DIRTY WHORES!"
  • RPG Episode: The main character's bad habit was playing Ultimate Fantasy, a Lawyer-Friendly Cameo of Final Fantasy XI ("Welcome to the Taru Taru").
  • Sabotutor: Misaki's stated goal is to help Satou overcome his fearful reclusiveness and properly function in society, but her true intent is to make him dependent on her affection and service so she can feel needed.
  • Scare 'Em Straight: Yamazaki does this to Satou in order to cure his MMORPG addiction. It works for Satou (and the audience).
  • Scary Shiny Glasses: Yamazaki has these sometimes.
  • Sex for Solace: On New Year's Eve, Hitomi offers to have an affair with Sato. Sato, however, declines: an affair would destroy her marriage, and the guilt from that would ruin them both.
  • Sexual Euphemism: Yamazaki uses "this and that" to describe the action in a hentai doujinshi.
  • Shout-Out: Many.
    • Starting with the series title itself, a reference to Japan's public broadcaster NHK ("Nippon Hôso Kyôkai", which translates to "Japan Broadcasting Corporation").
    • In the novel, Yamazaki is obsessed with Ojamajo Doremi (in the anime, the references to Doremi are replaced with the Show Within a Show Puru Puru Pururin).
    • Chapter 37 of the Manga is called "Welcome to the 2nd Impact" in a Shout-Out to Neon Genesis Evangelion. The Title page has Misaki, Satou, and Yamazai in plugsuits with an Eva in the background. The chapter also contains a pachinko machine with images of Asuka and the Angels on it.
    • The preview for the second episode consists entirely of the cast quoting Eva.
    • The "Moe Game" Satou worked on is based off of True Tears. The game was named "True Words" and the main character on the cover looked almost identical to Noe.
    • The fraternity that Misaki and her aunt attends is a shout out to the Jehova's Witnesses church. Even the magazine Misaki's aunt gave to Tatsuhiro is called "Awake"!, just like the real one by the Jehova's Witnesses' publishing house (Watchtower Bible and Tract Society).
    • In the fourth episode, Yamazaki is describing the various types of Gal Game heroines to Satou. The robot gal Satou imagines based on Yamazaki's model and description is strangely similar to Kos-Mos of Xenosaga fame. Especially with blue hair, red eyes, and forehead crest with her model number printed on it.
    • In episode 4, a Strike Witches poster is proudly displayed behind Sato as he describes his idea for a ridiculous galge heroine.
    • That MMO Satou gets into, Ultimate Fantasy, is clearly Final Fantasy XI.
    • A subtle reference from the book/anime, the cliff Misaki is named after has many similarities to the cliff from which the main character of Dazai Osamu's "No Longer Human" (Ningen Shikakku) jumps to commit a semi-failed lovers double suicide.
    • In the anime episode where Satou imagines himself kneeling in front of and being judged by a court of samurai is a very close recreation of an identical scene in Akira Kurosawas 1951 period drama "Rashoumon", which is itself based on Ryuunousuke Akutagawa's "In the grove".
    • Satou has a poster on his wall for a movie called Bakayaro 6, of the American indie flick Buffalo '66. In homage to Buffalo '66, Satou has Misaki pretend to be his significant other when he meets his mom.
    • An episode late in the series shows posters for N-Men, H-Men, and K-Men, with blurred versions of X-Men Storm, Wolverine, and Phoenix.
    • Chapter 5 of the novel is titled "Humbert Humbert", a reference to the main character of the Vladimir Nabokov novel Lolita.
  • Show Within a Show: The anime adaptation has Puru Puru Pururin, a Magical Girl anime that Yamazaki is obsessed with and Satou believes is being used by the NHK to control the masses. A real opening theme and a (now defunct) website were made for the show despite its fictional nature. In the original novel, Yamazaki is obsessed with the real anime Ojamajo Doremi instead.
  • Shrinking Violet: Satou
  • Slice of Life: A dark, bittersweet version.
  • Snow Means Love: The last episode combined this trope with Snow Means Death - Misaki returns to the town she grew up in to commit suicide, and is saved by Sato, at which point they realise they love each other. Then Sato goes nuts and tries to kill God in a kamikaze attack...
  • Stepford Smiler: Misaki in particular, although Megumi has her moments.
  • Stock Sound Effect: Cicadas during the summer scenes.
  • Suicide Pact: The "Offline Meeting" Hitomi and Satou attend. In the end, Misaki and Satou both sign a hostage pact where both are obliged to respond to the other's suicide by also committing suicide — the idea being that since the suicide of the other is something neither will stand for, it will stave off their own suicidal thoughts.
  • Surreal Humor: Many of Satou's delusional moments and nightmares.
  • Surreal Theme Tune: "Odoru Akachan Ningen", the original ending theme used for episodes 1-12.
  • Theme Music Power-Up: "Odoru Akachan Ningen" for Satou in the final episode, without lyrics this time.
  • There Are No Therapists:
    • None of the main cast ever consider seeking formal counseling. Satou's father does think about sending him to a psychiatric hospital in volume 5 of the manga. Unfortunately Truth in Television, as even admitting to having mental issues is a sign of deep shame in Japan. Asking for counseling help is essentially social suicide.
    • Though partly averted with Hitomi, who is (at least in the anime) taking several different psychiatric medications. Unfortunately it doesn't really help, either with the probable schizophrenia or with the probable depression.
  • Title Drop: Done both in the first and last episode.
  • Trash of the Titans: Satou's apartment. He manages to keep it a bit tidier in the latter part of the story, as Misaki comes often to help him clean.
  • Unsettling Gender-Reveal: Elena does this to Yamazaki in the manga.
  • Tsundere: Yamazaki uses the term to dismiss Satou and his girlfriend when they're inexplicably aggressive to him.
  • Wham Episode: Episode 13.
  • Weakness Turns Her On:
    • Misaki selects Satou for her project because she wanted to find someone even more "worthless" than she believes she is.
    • Hitomi also had this for Satou, seeing and liking the pathetic loser he is.
  • Will They or Won't They?: Satou and Misaki. In the manga version, they do acknowledge each other as lovers, but they don't officially start their relationship until Satou can get back on his feet.
  • Yandere: Misaki in the manga. She's much more innocent in the anime.

Alternative Title(s): Welcome To The NHK

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