Category: Japan

Japan Times and other news sources discuss a recent survey of hikikomori in Japan. The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry places the number of social recluses at over half a million, a slight decrease since a comparable. The Ministry defines hikikomori as “people who have stayed at home for at least six months without going to school or work, or going out to interact with others.” The age group describes 15 to 39, where, however, the number of those aged 35 to 39 actually increased, with the period of time in social reclusion now increasing.

URLs: ttp://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/09/07/national/japan-home-541000-young-recluses-survey-finds/; http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201609090047.html; http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/11/asia/japanese-millennials-hikikomori-social-recluse/

Shiko Ishii has published the 400th edition of Fonte, a newspaper for Japanese hikikomori, a newspaper he himself founded at age 16 when he became a recluse.

The Fonte newspaper for people who have stopped going to school or withdrawn from society printed its 400th issue this month.

It was a special moment for Shiko Ishii, 32, the newspaper’s chief editor. He still remembers Fonte’s first issue in 1998 — it featured an interview with him as a 16-year-old who had stopped going to school.

“I had doubts about the point of studying just to pass exams, so I stopped going during my second year at middle school,” he said.

At the time, Ishii felt bad for his parents because he could not go to school like other children. He often thought about dying. “Nobody around me felt the way I was feeling,” Ishii recalled. “That was the toughest part.”

After being interviewed in 1998, Ishii’s outlook changed. “I thought perhaps my own experience might be able to help somebody else,” he said.

URL: http://news.asiaone.com/news/asia/japanese-newspaper-recluses-hits-400th-edition

A recent study by Japan’s National Institute of Population and Social Security Research shows, according to Vox Populi (Asahi Shimbun) that “elderly men who live alone are more prone than their female counterparts to becoming social recluses.”

This is not a surprise given the history of reclusion and hikikomori in Japan, which has always been an especially male phenomenon, but the study surveys a more mainstream population wherein the loss of family and friends tends to isolate elderly men versus elderly women. This information further delineates the differences between men and women in general, and essentially identifies it with larger social patterns in contemporary Japan.

URL: http://ajw.asahi.com/article/views/vox/AJ201307260049

Related article on the study: http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/social_affairs/AJ201307260005