How Japan is tackling ‘hikikomori’ – a syndrome that created a generation of recluses [telegraph.co.uk]

Last November, a government study estimated that nearly 1.5 million people in Japan were living as recluses CREDIT: Eri Miura/Getty

By Nikola Smith, The Telegraph, July 31, 2023

For seven years in the prime of his youth, Hiroki Takimoto barely emerged from a bedroom in his parents’ home, reading old books, playing video games and eating, as he tried to hide himself from the world.

Now 42 and fully recovered from a syndrome known in Japan as ‘hikikomori’ – or ‘shut-ins’ – the professional writer recalled in an interview to the Telegraph his sheer desperation as he quit society and normal life between the ages of 18 and 25.

“I wanted to disappear silently without anyone noticing. I felt that I was only really alive when I went to the bathroom,” he said.

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