Kaoru Yamazaki

Kaoru Yamazaki is the tritagonist of the novel, manga and anime series Welcome to the NHK. He is an old friend of Tatsuhiro Satou who met him during their junior high school days, and who reunites with him when Satou discovers that he lives in the apartment next to his. He is also the one responsible for making Satou an otaku.

He is voiced by Daisuke Sakaguchi in the Japanese version of the anime and Greg Ayres in the English version.

Summary
Kaoru Yamazaki is a major character in the series who is an acquaintance of Sato. The first time they met was during Yamazaki's junior high school days, when Satou attempted to rescue him from some bullies beating him up, but ultimately failed and got himself beaten up as well. Yamazaki is an otaku obsessed with bishoujo, hentai, dojin, and galge. He's spent most of his life on his family's farm but rebelliously moved to Tokyo when he learned of what his family had planned for him. He enrolled to study game programming and design. Him and Satou meet again after Satou came barging into his room, complaining about the loud music. After which they formed a friendship.

Background
Yamazaki was born to a farming family where everybody lived their lives planned out.

He attended the same High School as Satou and Hitomi. However, his flamboyant personality and tendency to become argumentative pissed off most students at the school leading to him frequently getting beaten up (Satou recalls this anger in the series, and once remarked that he'd beat him up too). Satou tried to help him once, but was beaten up in the process. This left an impression on Yamazaki, and he befriended Satou.

At this time, he started to develop his otaku tendencies, and started to draw in manga art style. Satou remarks in the series (after seeing Yamazaki as a full otaku) that he had a feeling he would end up that way.

He stayed on his family's farm, but found out that they already planned his life out (Marry at 22, first child at 27, second at 34 e.t.c.). This caused him to want to move out to Tokyo,where he could make his dream of being a game designer. He moved to Tokyo, where he now lives and goes to school at a video game writing/design school.

Personality
Yamazaki has a good personality when he isn't angry or pissed. Unfortunately, when he gets a temper, he gets very angry, which led to him being bullied in highschool. He also openly states that he is a misogynist and prefers fictional girls to real ones, but he also quickly forgets about 2D women when Nanako, his classmate, shows interest in him. Yamazaki's displeasure towards women and also fireworks stems greatly from his childhood, when he invited the girl he liked to the fireworks show, but she didn't go with him by lying that she had to see her sick grandfather. However he later found that she instead went with her actual boyfriend.

Yamazaki is also very ambitious, shown when his dreams for his and Satou's game development company are shown. He also works hard, shown when he takes up all the game devlopment duties(save for writing) for he and Satou's Gal Game: True Love. When he is drunk, he also gets very arrogant, and his tempered personality surfaces.

Story (anime)
Yamazaki is first seen when Satou comes barging into his room, complaining about the loud music. He catches up with Satou, telling him about the school and course he is attending. When he shows Satou his text book, Satou suddenly asks him if he could borrow it, to which Yamazaki agrees. Curious as to why Satou burrowed his book, he followed him to the park where he eventually found out that it was all to impress a girl named Misaki. Yamazaki gets angry at Satou for not telling him straight out that he has been a hikikomori for 3 years now and furthermore, lying about being a game creator. Though angry, Yamazaki later on offers Satou a way out of his lie by actually making a game, which made Satou hopeful and immediately accepts his offer. However, when Yamazaki reveals that they will be making a hentai game, Satou quickly regrets his decision. (to be continued)