“The Hikikomori of Japan” by James Whitlow Delano in the New York Times Magazine
“The Hikikomori of Japan” by James Whitlow Delano was published in the January 15 issue of the New York Times Magazine. Hikikomori, which in Japanese means “pull away,” are generally young men who isolate themselves from the outside world, seeking shelter in their rooms often for years at a time. South Korea and Taiwan have reported a scattering of hikikomori, and isolated cases may have always existed in Japan. But only in the last decade and only in Japan has hikikomori become a social phenomenon. Like anorexia, which has been largely limited to Western cultures, hikikomori is a culturebound syndrome that thrives in one particular country during a particular moment in its history.