It is a reflection of an actual problem in Japanese society; with the low birthrate, it is fairly commonplace for adults to live with their parents until they are married, well into their late twenties or thirties.

Unfortunately, with so few ready career employment options available, many in this position remain in education or are underemployed for a comparatively long time, and around 3-5% are neither employed or in education.

We are seeing shades of the underemployment and “over”-education issues in the west, but in Japan, “living in your mother’s basement” is not a derogatory comment; it’s both expected and the norm.

NEETs never look like that. Especially if they eat junk food, never exercise and stay inside.

Never been to Japan and not an expert on NEETs by any means but their portrayal in Anime/Manga/LNs seems awfully romanticized to me. A lot of the Stories featuring them feel a lot more like self-insert fantasies than actual stories with characters and plot (exception exist, for example Mushoku Tensei before the Truck hits). On the other hand western stories aren’t free of problems with self-insert stories either so overall it’s fine, just not made for me most of the time I guess.

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I’m waiting for the day some anime producer is brave enough to make the anime equivalent of , it would be pretty fun to watch since the anime industry seems to be too afraid of actually drawing an overweight character.

Also, not even Charlie (The Whale’s protagonist) is a NEET.