I read the Welcome to the NHK manga after having watched the anime and listened to the novel, so one would think I'd have a fully formed opinion by now. But Welcome to the NHK is like drinking seawater, the more you consume it the more its message seems to refract and split all over the place.
Welcome to the NHK is good, but can be sobering in very bittersweet ways. I think it warrants being consumed as an anime, manga, and novel, its narrative of codependency, manipulation, and hatred almost ignores the medium it's told through.
The NHK manga is, by far, the most "whole" version of the NHK narrative. Those familiar with the anime may find the early chapters to blitz through preconceived "arcs" in record time, but the manga has a way of drawing characters back into the narrative again and again. The example that comes to mind the real-life meeting island. In the anime, the suicide meeting feels like the climax of Hitomi and Jougasaki's relationship, when everyone goes back to shore, Jougasaki has more or less had his character "resolved". In the manga however, the real-life meeting occurs shockingly early, and Jougasaki repeatedly shows again, now filling a role as a highschool counselor. Yuuichi's narrative is similar in this regard, and pans out completely differently from the anime. The common thread between the two characters and how their continued use in the manga's narrative is treated is Misaki's portrayal in the manga.
If you've watched the NHK anime, then reading the novel may give you a glimpse into a different narrative. Reading the manga, however, will show you an entirely different character. In the NHK manga, Misaki is portrayed at her most manipulative, cruel, and selfish, and it is certainly her most interesting portrayal. If you read the NHK manga for anything, read it for Misaki's characterization. During the earlier points of the NHK manga, I felt that I was going to recommend watching the anime, as its visuals and audio provide a very "bad-trip" feeling at times, something I think help feeds into the themes of NHK. Having finished reading, the recommendation is no longer so simple, the anime retains this bad-trip feeling, but instead the NHK manga reads more like a nightmare, where nothing is real, and what is real means nothing. The narrative is oppressively nihilistic, insisting on a superficial and vapid view of society and culture even as circumstances surrounding characters improve.
In watching the Welcome to the NHK anime, I was left thinking, "it'd be so easy to end up like Satou, isn't that depressing?" In finishing the Welcome the NHK manga, I was left thinking, "could I actually end up thinking like Misaki? That's terrifying."
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