I’m finally done watching “Welcome to the NHK”. I have been an avid reader of the original manga, yet I can not fully recommend the anime.
While the manga is indeed hard to digest, mostly because you weren’t sure what exactly the protagonist is really thinking, the anime may have overshot the target of “dumbing it down” a bit. The story is presented well, and is, unlike the manga, very coherent. Yet somehow the stark coherency negatively affects how much the viewer is really aware, or rather how strongly he is aware of Tatsuhiro’s state of mind.
Also, the resolutions to a lot of conflicts are quite….. clean…. I can’t describe it any other way. The viewer might wonder, why Tatsuhiro’s sensei wants to have a love affair with him, even though she is in a happy marriage. In the manga one experiences why this is the case, one learns that clear cuts are a thing of fantasy; Problems are not simply resolved by one event, drama doesn’t stop when you have achieved some sort of “goal”. And while this is displayed as a problem in the anime regarding the main character, it is not regarding the other cast. Instead of a grating back and forth, the resolutions come at one point, and then are never questioned whatsoever. The ending was especially disappointing. I do not want to spoil it, but it was definitely written with a younger demographic in mind.
The anime is also heavily censored. Do not misunderstand. Not censored in the “black bars over genitals”- Japanese kind of way, but rather certain situations are skewed in favor of the protagonist. His pedophiliac tendencies are played down drastically, and one must wonder if this is rather a marketing trick than a necessity. And while perversion is a theme, violence and hate are two things which are shortly touched, but are never explored in detail, and this severely detracts from the female leads background and credibility.
One might argue all these steps were needed to cram the packed anime into 24*30 minutes. I am not so sure, especially if I look at the rather slow and uninteresting beginning. It takes about 5 episodes to really start getting hooked, early on one might wonder what all the fuss is about.
I am a little disappointed, this anime had the potential to be so much more. But in all fairness, “Welcome to the NHK” is still a strong anime, even worth a look for people who have read the manga. The excellent soundtrack adds immensely, and will make even the most cynical shed one or the other tear. Knock knock knock.
