The jobless siblings
"Just a little NEET-talk"
Hatarakanai Futari (The Jobless Siblings) is a comedy slice of life manga by Satoru Yoshida, which began serialization in Kurage Bunch in 2013. It follows the adventures of the Isshi siblings, the hikikomori Haruko and Mamoru the NEET. Both siblings usually waste away their days playing video games or learning useless hobbies, much to the rage of their mother, who is always coming with plots to turn them into normal people while their father seems fine with their lifestyle.— Mamoru
Despite the simple premise it features lots of character development, hidden depths and heartwarming moments by the main characters and their ever-growing cast of friends, the reason as to why they ended like that is still a mystery with only a few glimpses of their life before, despite that they still don't plan to get a job.
The Main characters are:
- Haruko: A young hikikomori woman who suffers from social anxiety. Thanks to her friends she is now able to go out and officially graduated into a NEET.
- Mamoru: The elder sibling. Unlike Haruko, he has friends and regularly goes out. Before turning into a NEET he used to travel around the world.
- Kuraki: A young woman who recently moved next door. She works as an office lady but is bored with her life, she found comfort in seeing the siblings laid back lifestyle. She initially "stalked" them from her window but later became friends with them.
- Maruyama: Mamoru's childhood friend. Late on he also befriend Haruko and Kuraki. Despite having a job he is considered an even bigger loser than the siblings and is usually the butt of all their jokes.
- Yuki: A tall and physically imposing young woman, she is the descendant of a family of martial artists and she was one of Haruko's few friend during high school. She is really shy and hates how her appearance makes people scared of her.
Hatarakanai Futari provides examples of:
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Ambiguous Disorder: The reason behind the siblings' refusal to go out or get a job is still a mystery. - Art Evolution: The manga started as an on-and-off serialization, thus there was time to add more detail to the first chapters. Since serialization started, the manga is now publishing chapters almost daily so the art has become more simple to keep up with the new schedule.
- Deadpan Snarker: Mamoru is one, he has several gags involving his status as NEET which he says with a serious face.
- Dude, Not Funny!: Both the sibling's joke about their status as NEETs, but their mother is seriously worried about them.
- Anxiety Dreams: Several of the sibling's nightmares consist of them dreaming of getting a job.
- Eyes Always Averted: Haruko has problems maintaining eye contact with strangers and prefers to either close her eyes, look to the other side, or hide.
- Meaningful Name: "Mamoru" means "protector", and it perfectly defines how he lives his life, as it's heavily implied Mamoru is a perfectly functional adult who has decided to keep his Hikikomori sister company, so it's not just her and her parents.
- "No Peeking!" Request: While trying to test if Mamoru is telepathic, Haruko demands him not to look while she draws things for him to guess.
- Socially Awkward Hero: Haruko and Mamoru, despite being NEETs who do nothing all day they still manage to sometimes help the people around them. Once during a festival Mamoru chased away a couple of thugs all by himself... by screaming and making a huge scene, Haruko thought that while heroic he still was lame.
