Hiku (引く): to draw back or recede.
Komoru (篭る): to seclude oneself or be confined.
Hikikomori (引き籠もり): A person who isolates themself and refuses all human contact for long periods of time, often years. The term also refers to the entire social phenomenon.

Japanese society places many demands upon its youth. Its educational system is structured as a vast selection machine in which performance even while very young contributes to one’s eventual standing in society. “Social mobility is extremely easy for the able individual. On the other hand, people fear that if they do not succeed against the competition, the fall will be limitless.” (Kurimoto) The educational system itself is not the only problem, as children are quick to bully others who stand out, even to the point of suicide.

Most people eventually emerge into adult life unscathed. However, for a small fraction of them, the pressure proves too much to bear. As a consequence, they simply refuse to participate. In the young, the problem is called school refusal. Those who had held out until adulthood in the hopes that things would improve end up hikikomori.

The problem with hikikomori is that it is a self-reinforcing phenomenon. Tatsuhiko Takimoto, whose best-selling novel Welcome to the NHK is based on his own experiences as a hikikomori, writes:

The largest source of rage is his own personal cowardice.

He is poor because he lacks the skill with which to earn money. He has no girlfriend because he lacks charisma. But the process of seeing this truth and acknowledging his own incompetence requires quite a bit of courage. No human beings, regardless of who they might be, want to look directly at their own shortcomings.

Hikikomori often suffer crushing self-esteem issues which make it difficult for them to even contemplate improving themselves. There are legitimate obstacles to their finding a traditional job, but few manage even to support themselves as freeters. The majority are instead are supported by their parents, and either live with them or are entirely supported by a stipend from them.

Parents of hikikomori rarely cut off funds and force their children into the world. Having one in the family is seen as an embarassment, like mental illness, so parents often aid and abet in the seclusion of their children. Schools write off extended absences as “medical trouble,” and parents leave food and allowances at their child’s doorstep.

There are any number of professionals in Japan working to help hikikomori. These can range from “rental sisters” to more traditional halfway houses. In his book Shutting Out the Sun, Michael Zielenziger writes about three:

Minami, Watanabe, and Kudo are, in Watanabe’s definition, lunatics–people who are “doing really good, original work” to help some of the most vulnerable members of their society. These three have no professional contact with one another. Each pursues a different strategy of counseling hikikomori… Yet each operates on remarkably similar principles. They want their charges to exercise individual judgment over their lives. They insist that each be held accountable for his actions and be able to distinguish between fixed, not flexible, notions of right and wrong. They want to encourage individual autonomy over collective sensibilities, and recognize that these lost and sometimes troubled young adults can prosper only in an open, flexible, and trusting environment.

Eventually, some hikikomori emerge on their own, and some through the assistance of professional help. Many, however, are only thrust back into the real world with the death of their parents. With no professional background, no social skills, and no sense of how to deal with the world around them, the fate of these unfortunates remains unknown.