Japanese company comes to the aid of hikikomori with "Just Looking"

by Chris MaGee

It's estimated that there are approximately one million hikikomori living in Japan. For those of you not familiar with the term it roughly translates to "pulling away, being confined" and refers to people, usually young men, with severe social anxiety. Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare's definition of a hikikomori is an "individual who refuses to leave their parents' house, and isolate themselves away from society in their homes for a period exceeding six months." Along with this disturbing phenomena there's a lesser known group of roughly 520,000 individuals, not as severe as the hikikomori, that have been dubbed NEET or "Not currently engaged in Employment, Education or Training", and the name pretty much says it all: people who have basically dropped out of society. It's a real mental health crisis with it's roots tangled in Japan's social structure, so I don't want to seem as if I'm making light of it with this article, but I have some serious doubts about the effectiveness of the following product.

Japanese company Avex is coming to the aid of the socially withdrawn with "Just Looking, a DVD recently released on the market that Avex explains is designed for these "young males who aren’t used to socializing with women to become more accustomed to making eye contact and/or handle the fact that a sentient being sits across from them and awaits interaction." And here's where the creepy factor comes into this. The women featured on the DVD do nothing but stare... and stare... and stare, only occasionally exchanging a brief "Ohayo! (Good morning!)" or some such greeting with the viewer. Frankly, if I had a stranger who just stared at me from my TV, their eyes following me wherever I went in my room I think my slow spiral into madness would get sped up just a wee bit. And in the case of the model featured below... well, I doubt that many of these guys would be looking into her eyes, if you know what I mean.

Thanks to clast via Japan Probe for this story.