NHK ni Youkoso! is the first psychological anime I watched The Tatami galaxy is the second. The first one I enjoyed much more.
NHK ni Youkoso investigates lives of nerds; Why does one becomes a Hikikomori? the answer is quite simple: While there’s food, bath, a fluffy place to sleep and everything one might need, why should one quit being a Hikikomori and set foot into the cruel world? Why should a loser, an underachiever face the reality while s/he can hide in the cozy lies of Internet. “The real me is the online me, I’m a big man” but hey let’s face the truth: We’re not the lies we tell others and ourselves!
The real me is the one who struggles, the one who’s in pain, the imperfect one, the … I don’t know
The series also explores many other issues such as loneliness, the problems nerds always have had with girls, suicide, unfairness of the world and god. This is a must-watch!
Now the second one, The Tatami Galaxy, with its special parallel worlds!
I’d never watched or read anything with parallel worlds, I was sure it was not parallel worlds but time coming back.
In each episode the young unnamed college freshman spends two years longing for a rose-colored life doesn’t make any progress and time comes back, in the next episode again he fails.
In each episode the boy is invited to grab the opportunity dangling in front of his eyes but he refuses to.
And here’s my favorite quote from this anime is in epsoide 9 :
You cannot use the word “possibility” without limitations.
Can you become a bunny girl?
Can you become a pilot?
Can you become a famous singer, or a superhero who saves the world with his powers?
No, I can’t.
Perhaps you could.
But if you keep focusing your gaze on that which is unrealistic, you never will.
The root of all your evil
is in always relying on one of your other possibilities to get your wish.
You must accept that you are the person here, now,
and that you cannot become anyone else other than that person.
There is no way that you can lead some worthwhile college life and feel satisfied.
I guarantee it, so have confidence!
There is no such thing as that rose-colored campus life.
Why? Because there is nothing rose-colored in this world.
Everything is all a bunch of colors mixed up, you see.