It felt safe here

Portraits of hikikomori people living in Chiba, Japan.

Fuminori Akoa, 29, is a hikikomori who has locked himself in his room for one year. According to him, he is a great man and could do extraordinary things, but he does not always try his best. He changes his hobbies and goals frequently, and says he has gradually become lost.

Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare has defined a hikikomori as a person who does not participate in society (particularly school or work) and has no desire to do so. A hikikomori is also someone who doesn’t have any close, non-familial relationships. These withdrawal symptoms must last for at least six months, and the social withdrawal itself must not be a symptom of a pathological problem.

Riki Cook, 30, has been a hikikomori for three years. Riki Cook is American-Japanese. His family lives mainly in Hawaii and he lives alone in Japan. The photos were taken in his family’s living room in Chiba, Japan, in 2016.

There may be more than one million hikikomori in Japan, or approximately one percent of the total Japanese population. While the degree of the phenomenon varies on an individual basis, some people remain in isolation for years in the most extreme cases—and sometimes even decades.

The most widely reported cases of hikikomori are from middle- and upper-middle class families whose sons, usually the eldest, refuse to leave home. This is typically after having experienced one or more traumatic episodes of social or academic failure. However, hikikomori are hidden away and their parents are often reluctant to talk about the problem.

Chujo, 24, has been a hikikomori for two years. He dreams of being a singer, but his family want him to work in business.

After working in one company for two years, and experiencing too much stress, Chujo decided to lock himself in his room.

According to an article in Nippon.com:

In September 2016, the Cabinet Office released the results of a survey conducted in December 2015, estimating that the number of hikikomori nationwide is on the order of 540,000. Among these recluses, about 35% have been in self-imposed isolation for seven years or longer. The total number is 150,000 lower than that estimated in a similar survey conducted in 2010, but we should note that the figure does not include long-term truants under 15 or recluses aged 40 or over. This means that hikikomori in the 35–39 age group as of 2010 — who accounted for 23.7% of the total in that year’s survey — were no longer covered in the 2015 survey. Furthermore, many recluses have no contact with medical institutions or support organizations, so are invisible to those providing data for the surveys.

Some local governments have conducted surveys of their own regarding hikikomori in their jurisdictions. For example, in May this year Saga Prefecture announced the results of a survey identifying 644 recluses, of whom more than 70% were aged 40 or over and 36% had been living in isolation for 10 years or more. Such findings suggest that if those not covered under the Cabinet Office’s survey were included, the total number of hikikomori would top 1 million.

Sumito Yokoyama, 43, has been a hikikomori for three years. He graduated from university in 1996, but didn’t find the job that he expected to.

Sumito Yokoyama in his private room in Chiba, Japan, in 2016. When I took these photographs, he said his health was not very good — no serious illness, but he always felt tired and just wanted to stay at home. Sumito Yokoyama died in September 2017 in his apartment. Nobody realized he was dead until his body was discovered two months later by his family.

Japanese health professionals are now scrambling to stop the next generation from suffering the same fate. Not only is the condition shattering families, it is also threatening and burdening the country’s economy.

When their parents get old and pass away, hikikomori fall into an even more dramatic condition. After losing their source of financial support, many of them quickly become severely destitute. In other cases, the parents leave behind considerable assets, hoping that their offspring will be able to get by in isolation by scrimping and gradually drawing on the inherited savings.

Kazuo Okada, 48, a hikikomori who has locked himself in his room for seven years. He worked as a clerk previously, but now stays in his room, reading books and playing jazz music.

Kazuo Okada is very good at learning and has a superhuman memory. When talking, he always puts all the data into the story. Even when cooking, he has to weigh the exact amount he wants. In the above video, he is weighing exactly 250 grams of rice for each meal.

To counter this problem, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe plans to mobilize people with hikikomori syndrome and get them back to work to strengthen the increasingly aging workforce. Abe also wants to reduce the rate of population reduction, which is a big problem for the third largest economy in the world.

Ikuo Nakamura, 34, is a hikikomori who has locked himself in his room for seven years. He had some disagreements with his teachers and friends at his university, and later found life very unfair. He says he has lost faith in people now.

Working on “It felt safe here”

“It felt safe here” is the first step of my long-term project. When I was in Japan, I was in contact with New Start, a non-profit organization, as a photographer. I then asked to volunteer there for two months, from May to June in 2016. New Start has a live-in community center, as well as a restau­rant and cafés, where hikikomori can interact with the community through work experience and social activities. During the two months, I went three times per week to join them for lunch. I would try to learn about their stories and become friends with them. I also joined the weekly Saturday evening party, with food prepared by people from the center. Locals are invited each week to come and meet some of the hikikomori, in an attempt to break down the stigma associated with the condition. To stay in New Start, the parents have to pay between $2,000-$3,000 a month, depending on their child's condition.

The New Start NPO is located in Chiba-shi, Chiba, Japan.

Some activities at New Start NPO. The organization offers a way back into the world for hikikomori.

After two months with New Start, I found out about the “Rental Sister” program and tried to make contact with people at the agency. In the realm of creative problem-solving, some organizations and halfway houses like New Start employ young women to physically go to the houses of hikikomori and try to strike up a conversation from the other side of the bedroom door. The goal for these “rental sisters” is ultimately to reassure, befriend and then coax the hikikomori out of their bedrooms and to a place where they can get help. The program I contacted has two rental sisters and one rental brother, but only Ayako Oguri could speak English, so I chose to follow her. After she agreed, I went with her to all of her clients’ houses and tried to meet the hikikomori who had locked themselves in their rooms.

Me (middle) with Kenji Tanaka (left), a rental brother, and Ayako Oguri (right), a rental sister.

It was a very long process. Most of the hikikomori didn’t want to meet me at first, but I continued to go with the rental sister, standing at the door and saying hello outside of the house. Meetings between the hikikomori and the rental sister usually take around two hours. After two or three times, the hikikomori would eventually accept me and allow me to go in the house and wait in the living room. After visiting three to five times, they would then allow me to go into the room, join the meeting, and take some pictures.

Ayako Oguri writes to Masahiro Koyama, 40, who has locked himself in his room for 10 years. This is Ayako’s third time coming to his house and she is still denied access. Since he refuses to talk, she writes letters and leaves them in front of his room.

My ambition is to capture the long process of a hikikomori being locked in a room and then, with the help of the rental sister, coming out. I do not know yet if that moment will be very dramatic or calm. They could simply open the door, step out, breathe fresh air and feel a little overwhelmed by the bright sun. Is it worth seeing?

Ayako Oguri talks to hikikomori in their private room. Usually, it will take a rental sister about one to two years to draw the hikikomori out.

However, as I’m only in Japan for six months as a resident artist of the Japan Foundation Asia Center, I can only do the first step—assess the hikikomori’s character, get to know them, and take their portrait in a separate room.

This is just the beginning of a long story that I have not yet had enough time to tell.

Maika Elan is one of six selected visual storytellers of World Press Photo’s 6x6 Global Talent Program, in Southeast Asia and Oceania 2017.

Andrei Polikanov, visual director Takie Dela online media, Russia, said of Maika’s work, “Maika Elan (Nguyen Thanh Hai) is a new generation freelance photographer born and based in Hanoi, Vietnam. Maika is the best representative of the new breed of documentary photographers with the highest professional skills, courage, dedication and compassion. In the most powerful way, she captures the characters and trends which escape the attention of local media and remain totally unreported …”.

In a rolling process of nomination and selection, the 6x6 program identifies six under-recognized talents from each of the world’s six continents, and connects them to a global audience.

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