On March 21, TV Asahi's long-running variety show "TV Tackle" ran a special feature on hikikomori — people who have withdrawn from society. Hikikomori first came to the attention of the general public in 1999 when a Niigata man was arrested for keeping a teenage girl prisoner for nine years in his room. Though the case was atypical, it ended up representing many people's image of hikikomori as being dangerous sociopaths.