Vosot, a 60-year-old man from Tokyo, has been a hikikomori since his twenties.
After years of conflict with his family and a toxic relationship with his abusive mother, he withdraws completely from society. The day of his most important job interview marks a turning point, a moment of refusal that becomes the beginning of a lifelong condition in which he alternates long phases of extreme isolation with brief periods of relative sociality.
He later spends five years in Africa as a sotokomori (a hikikomori abroad), haunted by suicidal thoughts, before returning to Japan to work as a journalist. A violent psychiatric “treatment” leads him to found Voices Of Survivors Of Trauma V.O.S.O.T. (a mutual aid group) and later the Global Hikikomori Organization, connecting recluses from around the world.
Through online exchanges and real-life meetings, Vosot engages with hikikomori from diverse countries and backgrounds. His reflections challenge the narrow medical and social definitions of the term, revealing it as a complex and deeply human condition that extends beyond young men living at home, including women, the elderly, housewives, and businessmen.
In Vosot’s story, withdrawal becomes both a survival strategy and a critique of a society driven by productivity, performance, and consumerism.