Hikikomori: Why are so many Japanese men refusing to leave their rooms?

[MadImmortalMan]

Better dressing up dolls in lingerie and dating computer games than shooting up schools, I guess.

Society of Too Many Rules. The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin...

[Ideologue]

Does the presence of this social sickness in Japan, indeed in an even more degenerate stage than it has yet reached in the collapsing West, suggest that collapse is not intrinsic to Christendom, but in fact endemic to progress itself?  Distressing if true, for then Japan points the way to our own sexless future of poverty and despair.

[MadImmortalMan]

I guess collapse is intrinsic to everything. It's the rule of entropy. More complex forms always eventually degenerate into simpler ones. I don't suppose societies or religions are immune to that.

[Razgovory]

Actually, I do wonder if we are seeing Japan slowly collapsing.

[mongers]

While this sounds insane, there was a month or two in the early 90s when I gave up all human contact to be the god-king of a virtual British Empire.   

......

I have been to Akihabara.  I remember one of the department stores there had a floor dedicated to dolls.  They had all manner of dresses and accessories; including a long rack of doll lingerie.  You could get doll teddies, doll thongs, doll garters and the like.  Even by the standards of Tokyo it was very, very strange.

Wasn't that par for the course with proto-paradoxians back then?

I saw the Japanese 'thing' earlier today on the bbc website and instinctively thought of posting it here. 

Yeah, that is odd, very odd, though there's One or Two here who seem to heading down that road.   

[PDH]

Yeah, that is odd, very odd, though there's One or Two here who seem to heading down that road.   

I am not! 

[Caliga]

While this sounds insane, there was a month or two in the early 90s when I gave up all human contact to be the god-king of a virtual British Empire.   

That sounds fun.  Do go on.

[mongers]

Yeah, that is odd, very odd, though there's One or Two here who seem to heading down that road.   

I am not! 

[Iormlund]

... Japan points the way to our own sexless future...

Why do you think they invest so much in robotics?

They've got it all planned.

[Josquius]

Yeahhhh... That second article is dumb and typical of the way the west paints japan. Otakus are a minority and not really the problem. Lots of otherwise pretty normal seeming people also have little interest in such things as sex.

These days akihabara is an over rated tourist trap. Nothing too special.  Though the maid cafés are creepy.

That japan is specially anti immigration is also a bit of an odd view which is way too prevailant overseas. The trouble is the Japanese census doesn't include "temporary" residents (even those who have been here for years) and it doesn't distinguish between Japanese ethnicity and Japanese citizenship .
That healthcare workers statistic sounds very odd. I know there is a program that beings Filipino nurses to japan. I recall it was newsworthy a few years back for not bringing as many people as predicted- they couldn't pass their Japanese tests- but surprising if it is under 100

[Sheilbh]

Disorder isn't a noun?

I didn't think about that while I was writing it.

It isn't something you call a person.  "That guy's a social anxiety disorder."

I guess "shut-in" works, but has somewhat different connotations (suggesting that the person is elderly or otherwise medically unfit).

What's wrong with recluse?

[Ideologue]

It's fine, although a recluse is someone has a connotation of someone who actively shuns people, rather than simply can't handle them.

[Siege]

Japan is a fascinating country.