The effects of recent economic flux in Japan have had a particularly negative effect on the developing generation of workers. Young people in their teens and twenties were brought up to believe that, like their parents, their lives would have a certain ordered safety - if they worked hard at school and got into a top university, the corporations of Japan would embrace them, providing them with a job, a home, even a life partner. But, in the last ten years, financial decline and a rise in unemployment has engendered a feeling of apathy amongst adolescents. With no certainty in the job market, Japan’s youth are beginning to question the relevance of harsh traditional values and an uptight educational environment– why work until you ‘spit blood’ if you can’t get a job at the end of it?

Real World deconstructs the Japanese ‘system’ from its victim’s point of view, and expounds on the various ways in which it causes young people suffering. The crime plot is merely a vehicle for the exploration of complex relationships in the novel’s microcosm of society. But it is the social commentary that truly brings the book to life, transforming it into a tool of social justice.

The main focus is the character Worm, who murders his mother with a baseball bat. Although shocking and outrageous, it’s an act that other Japanese teens can understand and rationalise. He was just ‘a typical nerdy guy from a family that pushed its kid too hard to succeed in school – so he flipped out’. A group of female characters allows Kirino to explore a variety of reactions to Worm and his crime. Each narrates one or more chapters, which gives the novel an air of angst-ridden ‘Dear diary’ authenticity, and each girl’s personality is reflected in how they relate to him. Toshi sympathises:

I think I know how he feels. Probably he just felt his mother was a pain. A real pain. If you told adults that was the reason you killed your mother, they wouldn’t believe you. But it’s the truth…

But Terauchi thinks he chose the easy way out; murdering his mother is considered to be ‘close to defeat’ in her eyes. Yuzan, the lonely lesbian, just hopes to find solace in male company, and boy-crazy Kararin is reeled in by his infamy; Worm becomes an anti-hero for her.  After all, ‘how many chances do you get to meet an actual murderer?’

The main draw is the way Kirino uses Real World as her manifesto. The book is essentially a call to arms. In addition to subtly denouncing the current education system, Kirino shows that the causes of Worm’s murderous outburst are identical to the key symptoms of hikikomori – or acute social withdrawal; a Japanese social phenomenon and a term popularised within the media since 1998. Hikikomori favour an extreme degree of isolation; the sufferer will withdraw from society for a period of months or even years. As the book progresses we are made aware that this is Worm’s ultimate goal – to remove himself from the ‘Real World’ and create a world that is only his.

Hikikomori is said to be typically triggered by a traumatic episode /series of episodes of social/academic failure. Worm’s mother uses the elite school he attends as an excuse to massage her own ego. She regularly brags to the neighbours and uses him as a trophy child. In reality, the teachers make fun of Worm because he’s bottom of the class. When he confronts her about this, rather than listen to her son, his mother’s only wish is that he keep making an effort and hang in there a little longer. ‘For what?’ he asks himself.
Worm recognises that the pressure on him to achieve is misplaced, and in such a stifling home environment there is a clear communication breakdown between mother and son. She assumes the system that supported her and her husband will be relevant to Worm, but she is misguided, fuelling Worm’s anger and hatred. How can Worm respect her advice when it’s past its sell-by date?

Worm is also a failure socially, as a result of his rampant sexual perversion. This links into another symptom of Hikikomori, the Japanese concept of honne and tatamae. Honne meaning one’s true persona, thoughts and emotions that may be hidden from friends, family and society; tatamae translates as ‘façade’ or the mask one wears to face the outside world.

Every character in Real World struggles with the balance of their honne and tatamae. Toshi takes strength from her fake name, Ninna Hori, while her true desire is to blend in with her ‘nothing sort of look’. It is clear to the other girls that Yuzan is a lesbian, but she cannot openly bring herself to come out of the closet. Terauchi hides her true feelings about her mother’s affair, yet it eats her up inside, and Kararin hides the pain of a broken heart under a sickly-sweet mask. Within the girls’ group, they all see through each others tatamae, but never openly discuss their honne for fear of shame, embarrassment or reprisal. Terauchi sums up the general feeling against prying into others’ feelings: ‘That’s their business not yours, don’t you think?’

In Worm’s case, he is driven wild by the sounds of his neighbours rampant lovemaking, and as a result of his lack of contact with women (other than his mother) , combined with his repressed sexuality, he tries to steal his neighbour’s underwear, but gets caught, bringing shame upon his family and forcing them to move home. At his new house he continues this obsession, by watching Toshi having a bath. And why would he stop this behaviour when his family run away from the problem instead of facing it? Worm is prevented from expressing himself sexually, causing a stunted emotional development. He is a teenage boy, going through puberty; he clearly needs an outlet for all the changes he is experiencing. How can Worm develop into a man but when there are no appropriate rituals to support this change? In his final confrontation with mother, it becomes clear that Worm only has one choice.

Maybe I should just kill her…imagine how free I’d be. As long as she’s around I’ll never be free. She’ll decide which university I should go to, pick out who I should marry, and wind up bossing my kids around.

The act of murder finally gives Worm definition, allowing him to take control of his life and make a new world for himself, where he is free. Committing matricide also gives Worm a newfound sense of power. He uses the concept of his sweaty ‘salt suit’ as his armour.

With my salt suit on, I was better than any other person around. I am mother-killer after all! And I’m on the run! Only a tiny percentage of mankind could do what I did. I can get away with anything.

Worm’s story is easily comparable to that of certain contemporary child killers. Sakakibara, the 14-year-old boy who killed two other children is mentioned specifically by Kirino in the text. But there are also many similarities between Worm and Seung-Hui Cho, the South Korean perpetrator of the Virginia Tech killings. Both were depressed, suffering from social anxiety, and engaged in the stalking and harassing of females. The Virginia Tech review panel states that Cho had an inability to handle stress and the ‘frightening prospect’ of entering the world of work, finances, responsibilities and a family. Both were also incredibly narcissistic and deluded. Cho sent a package of posed pictures and videos to NBC, condemning the American government and comparing himself to Jesus.

In his new world, Worm draws strength from his infamy, but this power ebbs away when Kararin informs him that he is no longer in the news: ‘The world’s forgotten about you’. To maintain his legendary status, Worm demands that Terauchi write him a manifesto to flaunt his genius.  Here, Kirino displays her acute understanding of the criminal pysche. Worm desires to be an elusive mastermind, fooling the police at every turn, but it is this vanity that makes him fall apart. Worm uses the salt suit, and later the persona of a beaten Japanese soldier as his tatamae, giving him the capacity to function in this new world. The links to other psychological disorders such as schizophrenia or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder are acutely prevalent, as is a narcissistic need to maintain power. Worm realises he can never be content with just murdering his mother; there are other people to blame for whom he has become.

…all of them piss me off – my old man, relatives, our house. You name it. Everything and everybody just got in the way now, and all I wanted was to go somewhere, anywhere, as long as it was far away from them.

When Worm discovers that his honne is merely a desire to isolate himself from everything, to remove himself from the ‘real world’, it is a total shock. There is only one world; the other world he thinks he’s created is a falsehood. After all, if his salt suit is just a mask Worm slowly realises he will have to confront his true feelings at some point. No one is immune to guilt.

…I was getting more and more confused, my existence more pointless by the minute. Is that who I am? Is that all? I got awfully sad and tears started to stream down my face.

He is only human, fallible. He will never be the powerful fictional character he wants to be. At this point he comes to realise that ultimately his time will run out. It won’t be long before he mentally has to rejoin the ‘real world’ that physically, he never left. More importantly, he will have to face the consequences of his actions and try to make peace with himself.

Kirino uses the symptoms of Hikikomori and comparisons to Sakakibara to draw attention to the fact that, before we can expect these killings to stop, society has to start addressing the root cause of these problems and take some responsibility.  An emotionally vacant parenting style coupled with a burying of true feelings and a constant lack of communication has led Japanese teens to be unable to express themselves. They keep the truth bottled up and react with explosion of passion, rather than a mediated response. For example, Terauchi would rather take her own life than face up to her mother’s affair.

As Michael Zielenziger says in his book, Shutting out the Sun: How Japan Created its Own Lost Generation, hikikomori are ‘bright, intelligent people who have discovered independent thinking and a sense of self that the current Japanese environment cannot accommodate…they have no one to talk to’. Although Kirino does not explicitly label anyone a hikikomori, every character in Real World expresses how they feel completely alone, like no one understands them. At such a crucial time in their lives, this is extremely dangerous. They need support and guidance, to talk about how they feel and deal with their problems, not sweep them under the carpet. This is echoed in Worm’s thoughts – ‘They say juvenile offenders are most often precocious and extremely bright, people who can’t adjust to the…system’.

I think in Japan’s case, Bristol band Five Knuckle said it best –
The system that plays us is the system that made us
And that system, is the system that betrays us.