Series: Welcome to the NHK is, like most anime these days, based on a manga. Serialized in Shonen Ace by Kadokawa thanks to creators Tatsuhiko Takimoto and Kendi Oiwa (the original authors per the back of the DVD case), the show focuses on a college drop out named Tatsuhiro Sato. He lives in his small apartment confined more by his mental state than the walls surrounding him. He sleeps most of the day, barely scrapes by in a depressed state, and surfs the internet looking for porn when he isn't watching TV or playing videogames. The story sets him up as the ultimate geeky loser without a life, afraid of his own shadow and now seeing strange apparitions that mimic some of the cute anime icons he is used to as though he were on mushrooms. The audience is left to decide for itself whether they are real or not (within the confines of the story of course) but they pick away at the remaining sanity of Sato ever so slowly until he is visited by a door to door saleswoman. While technically she is not selling anything, she is like a Jehovah's Witness but devoting her time to helping those that have fallen under the spell of isolationism or hikikomori as the Japanese call it. Sato sends her away with loud shouting about how he isn't such a person and it is clear that he is struggling with the truth of the idea even as he sends the woman away. The only thing that catches his eye is the cute gal walking with the woman, a gal he later comes to know as Misaki Nakahara; a younger gal that went to school with him before he dropped out.

Misaki intrigues Sato, largely on her looks and female status but also thanks to a message she leaves him in his mailbox that encourages the guy to meet her at night in a nearby park. His head running crazy with conspiracies about what she's up to, he resists going but ultimately gives into his baser instincts; running a bit late for the meeting. She confronts his neuroses head on with a series of innocent questions, sending Sato into a tailspin as he denies all of her observations. These observations are built on her having spent considerable time stalking him though so she offers him a "cure". To receive her help though, he must sign a contract that has a hefty release clause if he doesn't follow through on the treatment, said to be a means of insuring his compliance more than a designed manner of extorting money from the broke loser.

Sato starts a love/hate relationship of sorts by meeting her again, lying to her that he is actually gainfully self employed making software. She asks the inevitable question about what he's working on and she asks to see it; Sato stalling her by saying it isn't finished so they agree on a month before meeting again; at which time she will get to see his work. Sato, not having any such work in progress, mopes around but his recent chance encounter with an otaku friend of his from school (that has lived next to him for a long time but is almost as reclusive as he is) gets both of them together with the idea that they can make a simple dating game together. For those of you that haven't played games like The Sims, in Japan there are scores of such titles with the object being that you interact with an anime gal in order to see her lose more clothing in what amounts to a sad kind of "date". They sell really well (to guys like Sato apparently) and are easy to make so the two inventory all their skills in order to delegate who will do what. Sato's lack of any skills forces him to write the scenarios but he has no knowledge of women, these games, or social interactions so he wastes a lot of time borrowing research work from otaku pal Kaoru. While I could comment that I think I've seen some of their recent videogame work for domestic companies (I'll leave that to the guys in the Videogame Talk portion of the website to tackle), the plan is set in motion for them to pull themselves up out of obscurity by means of their new ambition; one certainly doomed to failure but enjoyable as a means of forwarding the plot.

Okay, my own borderline devotion to reviewing surely allows me to empathize with the characters who are not overly likeable but I suggest anyone attend an anime, comic book, or science fiction convention and tell me that they can't spot people that obsess constantly about something (pretty much most of the people there to varying degrees). This series pushes it further though and introduces a whole new breed of person that doesn't like to participate in society except when forced to, suggesting it is a real and growing trend in Japan (I believe it, especially after the college shootings showed a conspiracy theorist loser in action earlier this year). As a means to see the concept pushed to the extreme and turned on its head a bit, Welcome to the NHK is actually a lot better than I thought it would be (the anime shopping spree was hilarious) and invokes ideas about a balance in life that many people have tossed aside for one reason or another, making it thoughtful and funny at the same time. Whether such people exist or not in the real world is an aside to be left to the viewer to look up but I look forward to seeing more of this series so I rated it as Recommended.

Picture: Welcome to the NHK was presented in the same 1.78:1 ratio anamorphic widescreen color it was shot in by director Yusuke Yamamoto for Gonzo (one of my favorite production companies in anime). According to the credits, the show came out last year and as such, it has that distinctive Gonzo look to it that character designers Tomoo Uminato and Takahiko Yoshida are known for. The silly humor portions are sketchy drawings that emphasize the more richly handled plot elements, with the dancing anime icons somewhere in between; as though to nudge you into understanding that this is what Sato sees and not that of the real life visions of the rest of the relatively normal characters in his world. The fluidity of the animation itself was only about average but the minor nods to fan service and multitude of styles employed here offered up a nice change of pace all the same.

Sound: The audio was presented with a choice of the 2.0 Dolby Digital Japanese track (in the standard 192 Kbps) or the newly commissioned dub by ADV Films under director John Swasey and audio engineer Bryan Leach as handled in a 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround English with a bitrate of 448 Kbps. This is one of those times when the English language dub was superior for my enjoyment purposes as the familiar cast was allowed more latitude to explore the basics behind the characters rather than a copy of the subtitles from the original track. I suspect some translation issues arose too given how plenty did not quite fit on the original track; perhaps resulting from cultural problems that didn't translate all too well. It wasn't simply that the bass was deeper and more aggressive on the dub (it was) or that the music was richer with more separation and dynamic range (again true) but the translation itself was more fluid and made it shine as an example of a case where the dub was simply better than the original language track. I know tastes vary in this regard but I tend to prefer the Japanese tracks so check out both to see what I mean (and good job John, Bryan, and the English language cast).

Extras: There were the usual trailers, a paper insert for otaku products of a generic nature, a clean opening and closing, and some definitions for the terms used in the show. If you pay attention during the four episodes, you will pick up the idea of all the terms quite easily but for those that skim them instead; the dictionary will assist you in keeping up to speed.

Final Thoughts: Welcome to the NHK will probably sell half its copies based on the fan service picture on the front cover, sneaking its way into the hands of those who need it most; obsessed fans. The show did provoke a response in terms of preaching a balanced life and while I look forward to seeing more volumes of the show to see exactly where the series takes the three main characters, Welcome to the NHK: Conspiracy (V1) has paced itself at the perfect rate to fully cover the lifestyle it is essentially poking fun at. With five more volumes to go, there is still a lot of ground to cover but the excellent dub, the creative visuals by director Yusuke Yamamoto, and the writing all made this show a near classic out of the gate. If the rest of the series lives up to the promise outlined here, I can imagine it being a contender for various awards and top anime lists, regardless of how it makes us all look at ourselves so give this one a look and let me know what you think of it.

If you enjoy anime, take a look at some of the recommendations by DVD Talk's twisted cast of reviewers in their Best Of Anime 2003, Best Of Anime 2004, Best of Anime 2005, and Best of Anime 2006 articles or their regular column Anime Talk.