HIKIKOMORI-0
Hikikomori-0 (2025) blends contemporary cultural motifs with Japanese folklore in the character “Brucio”, a composite of artist Bruce Yonemoto and a popular Japanese video game character. A series of seven high-end, handcrafted 3D-animated vignettes, utilizing cutting-edge motion and facial capture, brings Brucio to life in performances that are interminably sad yet hopeful - as he struggles just to open his apartment door and finally go outside.
In each vignette, the Nurikabe (a folkloric creature likened to an invisible, impassable wall) forms an invisible barrier Brucio cannot cross. The work connects myth with the global phenomenon of hikikomori, a form of self-seclusion originally defined by the Japanese but now seen worldwide. While Brucio is trapped, he may finally find his way outside with the help of his friends: a small green lizard and his brother.
Nurikabe (from the Bakemono no e) at BYU
Installation Example
Hikikomori Phenomenon
In the midst of an assimilationist social structure and in the face of difficulties finding a realistic option for living, hikikomori subjects search for their own ways to forge authentic relations with others. The hikikomori experience is characterized by suffering under such structural conditions, involving severe conflicts with parental and societal expectations. Studying how they survive isolation sheds light on an essential aspect of the relationship between individual and society, and it suggests that a stronger form of social solidarity is possible. Compared to a society that leads some people to deny their own natures by forcing them to participate in ready-made arrangements, a society that supports all people without demanding that they deny their own natures would be much healthier. I contend that the struggle of hikikomori subjects is a struggle for such a society. It is necessary to accept the hikikomori experience for what it is: not a challenge to force some people into preexisting social structures, but a challenge to foster a more inclusive society predicated on solidarity—a society that supports everyone in their pursuit of happiness.
Teppei Sekimizu
A Sociology of the Hikikomori
Theatrical Version (Full Video)
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