Physical Description (7-12 lines) Sato is a young Japanese man with mid-long hair and charcoal-dark eyes. His hair and skin glow just like a pale reflection of moonlight during a dark night. Hiding under a lock of hair, a dreadful glare could petrify anyone too disturbing. Shadows of purple and blue underline those onyx stones-like eyes, giving a sickly tone to an otherwise lovely figure. Under a snub nose, two pale lips repose in a constant frown. They were once used to smile, but those days seem to have passed. The young man wears shades of black and blue with a casual white shirt underneath. A weary pair of jeans completes the outfit, with washed out strips of fabric covering up small holes. The only things new and shiny in Yato’s clothing are his military black boots gleaming of a well-applied polishing wax. The young man is neither tall nor small, but his thinness makes him look taller. His arms and legs look too long for such a skinny body.
Mental Description: It goes without saying that Sato is not well. He suffers from something we could call a society’s illness. It has been a few years since this trend in young men’s behavior has been discovered. The British started to call the victims the NEETs meaning Not in Education, Employment or Training, but in Japan, they go by hikikomori (meaning being confined). They are mostly young men, occasionally young women that withdraw themselves from society, living in complete isolation for months, in some case, years. Researchers say that about 1% of the Japanese population suffer from this condition. This phenomenon is caused by an extreme social anxiety caused by the pressures of the outside world. Sato suffered from this insecurity, but he is trying to recover from it. Being the second child of his family made him afraid to not live by the expectations of others and little by little, he withdrew into himself. To escape from others' opinion, he lies and keeps himself far from old acquaintances. Soon after his withdrawal, he began to develop a paranoid disorder and now he is suspicious of everything. He sees conspiracies everywhere and hears menacing whispers where there is only wind. Sato knows that he has a problem and wants to get over it, but sometimes he wishes to stay alone forever.
Background Story ( 35 -45 lines) Tatsuhiro Sato was born during the rainy evening of November 27, 1994, in a small town of Kyoto. His father worked in the computer industry while his mother stayed at home, looking out for the children. He had a big sister,Mikumi, already achieving greatness at the Tokyo University while he was still in diapers, and a small brother named Takimoto. Takimoto had always looked up at Sato with hope like he could protect him from any danger. Sato would have really liked to be up to his brother, to be able to protect the ones he loved. But he failed. At seven years old, Takimoto was hit by a car. He and Sato were playing in the park, building sand castles when Takimoto inadvertently destroyed Sato’s. Furious, the older brother screamed at the younger one, making him run away. The driver never saw the young boy, and when he went to hit the brakes, it was too late. In the Emergency room, complications followed, a blood clot formed in the brain area and the boy lost all cognitive abilities. The family could not unplug him and the mother started taking care of him at home. Until his late teenage years, Sato would see the result of his mistake in front of him, feeling guiltier at every glaze of his brother’s vacant eyes. At 18 years old, he moved in a student's room in Tokyo to start his computer classes, just like his father wanted. He never set a foot in class. Sato knew he would never be able to reach his father’s expectations, not after his sister had succeeded in political studies with distinction. ‘’Why bother?’’, he thought. At first, Sato only skipped school. He was still working at a small coffee shop, going out sometimes with friends and visiting his sick brother once in a while. Then the lies began to be harder and harder to keep together. His father would ask him about school and Sato would be speechless. He started pretending big projects that needed his attention to skip visits. Once, his mother offered to visit him, but the young man said that he was on a field trip to the Engineering and Cybernetics University in South Korea to set a partnership between the two schools. Truth is, the university did not even exist. Sato did not care as long as his well-educated Japanese mother would keep sending him food and pocket money to pay the internet. The rest could wait. It could wait. Everything. School, work, family, friends, even love. Why bother when there is the internet? Why care about what others think, about standards and success, when universes and infinite adventures with non-judgmental characters were waiting at a click of a mouse? Days and weeks passed without the young men noticing. After a few months, he had his very own schedule that he followed strictly. Waking up in the early afternoon, eating, exercising a little, playing video games, chatting with other hikikomori like him, then a few anime until the early hours of morning and sleeping again. Sato was very satisfied with this and decided that there was nothing wrong. Meanwhile, letters from his landlord demanding rent were piling up near the door.
Once, Internet was shut down for a whole day in his district. That’s when his paranoiac behavior began. How could this happen just when he was about to finish the final quest of Sword Art Online? It had taken him months just to get there and now it was all gone like dust in the wind. There was no coincidence. Having nothing else to do, he looked at the few letters waiting at the front door.
EVICTION NOTICE Please, be informed that following the multiple warnings that we sent you, it has been decided that you could no longer stay in the APARTMENT #4. You must have left before 13/03/2016 or your goods will be seized.
Sato looked at his calendar. It was the eleventh of March. He felt something in his stomach that he had not felt in a long time: fear. Would he stay, he would have to confront people, would he leave, he would have to get back into the world. He lied down to think. Why would they do that? he thought. It is not like I bother anybody… Can’t they get their money from someone else? Why are they after me? He stayed on his back for hours, looking into the ceiling in search for answers. He began to think about society, how he was a prey to them. He felt more and more disturbed as his train of thought went on. Why has the society such high standards? Do they want us to fail? Why can’t I be left alone? At some point, he needed to talk to someone, so he went to his hikikomori friends:
TanikiLove02: has entered the Chat room TrueNyanCat: LTNS (long time no see), Taniki ! Wup (What’s up)? TanikiLove02: Inet(Internet) was down today . TrueNyanCat: SRSLY(Seriously)? Sry 4 u M8 (Sorry for you, mate) NoWeeb: WB Taniki (Welcome Back) TanikiLove02: WBU (What about you? ) TrueNyanCat: NIP(nothing in particular), got prob IRL tho .(I have problems in real life, though. ) NoWeeb: Wot? (What) TrueNyanCat: Gotta pay rent or I’m out. TanikiLove02: M2 (me too) ICYAStalker has entered the Chatroom. NoWeeb: FO (F**** off) ICYA, U banned. ICYAStalker: Do you have problems, my friends? Maybe I can help you. TrueNyanCat: HC? (How come) NoWeeb: SU (Shut Up) TrueNyanCat, DFTT (Don’t feed the troll) ICYAStalker: I cannot help you the way you think, but I can inform you.
And then Sato discovered the truth about society. How could he have not seen it before? The money going out of his account without him buying anything, the persistent mail coming in without him signing up to it, the constant flow of demands through the radio, the television, and internet! And most important! : The Japanese culture! When everything is centered for the otaku*, how could you not take the path of the Hikikomori? Society wanted him to be confined, to be set apart, poor, fearing tomorrow. Once trap, the Hikikomori can do one thing: consume more of the Japanese culture. He was the prey. There is no coincidence. He had to flee. Fast.
*Otaku (Urban Dictionary) : Usually an otaku person has nothing better to do with their life so they pass the time by watching anime, playing video games, surfing the internet (otaku is also used to refer to a nerd/hacker/programmer).
The character of Sato is largely inspired by the anime Welcome to the NHK and in particularly this clip :
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