Busting out of its middlebrow comfort zone, NPR ran two pieces of interest to manga-lovers on tonight’s edition of All Things Considered. The first was an overview of Japan’s otaku culture that touched on all the basics–maid cafes, cosplay, Densha Otoko madness–without probing too deeply (or mentioning manga, for that matter). There were no howlingly funny statements, though the piece concluded with this dire, parents-lock-up-your-kids warning:

Maid and butler cafes are manifestations of the dysfunctional gender politics among Japan’s nerds, and of a predilection for buying subservience. Geeks may now be chic in this otaku nation, but their alienation from traditional norms speaks of social upheavals ahead.

Call me crazy, but I thought salarymen had pioneered this type of social club long before cosplay and Train Man were national obsessions.

NPR also ran a story about Japan’s lost generation, or hikikomori, a group of young men “who lock themselves away in their bedrooms, fearful of society’s expectations.” Michael Zielenziger, a professor of East Asian Studies at UC Berkeley, estimates the total number of hikikomori to be one million. More interesting than the actual broadcast are excerpts from Zielenziger’s book Shutting Out the Sun: How Japan Created Its Own Lost Generation posted on NPR’s website. A fascinating–if depressing–subject, though I can’t help but wonder why NPR didn’t seek any Japanese experts for additional perspective on the hikikomori.

And while you’re poking around the NPR site looking for mainstream affirmation of your manga habits, you might want to check out two archived stories on the American anime/manga boom: Japan’s Comic Book Export, a 2003 piece examining the Pokemon and Shonen Jump phenomenon, and Manga, Anime and Japanese Culture in America, a 2005 Talk of the Nation segment featuring Viz managing editor Elizabeth Kawasaki and Publishers’ Weekly editor Calvin Reid.