Long Form Topic

Home-bound under the rising sun

Genre: Social Journalism

The bullet trains speeding by and the centuries old temple still staying tall under the rising sun. Japan is a mixture of hustle and bushel of modern day life with a window of vast cultural background for any bystander to see. However in a land that has become popularized and have millions of tourists a year...there are citizens who separate themselves from the outside world for years of a time. They  are known as Hikikomori (Japan's modern hermit). 

I have chosen this topic because I always had in interest in Japanese culture and being that I currently work in the mental health field I wanted to find a topic that combined the two. It is easy to only think about what happens in our own community but to venture out is to gain a whole new perspective and brings us together.

When it comes to my audience it would be those who are interested in Japanese culture and those who get their news through social media.That being said I think millennial ( those born between the late 80's and mid 90s) would be the largest audience being that there was a boom of Japanese animation and products that arrived in that time period which caused a huge interest in Japan for that age group. For example a member of my could be a 28 year old who has plans to travel abroad someday. He has Just finished grad school and is looking for an higher level of employment. He is often on social media and it has now become his main source of news. He may not comment on the main news source itself but he will share it to his friends and followers. My overall experience with  writing for this audience is limited but I have a  blog on the page of my comic series that target millennials. 

One writer I found who wrote on this topic is Ed Gent who is a freelance writer and while he wrote an article on the Hikikomori. It should be noted that his main work is on the topics of science and technology so his audience would mainly be those who share interest in those fields. However he doesn't appear to have much of a following.  On his Twitter page he has about 1500 followers but he is following around 600 himself. Also being that he can be diverse with his writing topics, he has a diverse audience.