The Loneliness Epidemic and the Comics of Nagata Kabi

In 2023, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released the report Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation demonstrating that pronounced loneliness corresponds to “a greater risk of cardiovascular disease, dementia, stroke, depression, anxiety, and premature death” (p. 4). The comics medium offers many examples on the mental health toll of loneliness (e.g. It’s Lonely at the Centre of the Earth by Zoe Thorogood (2022), The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist by Adrian Tomine (2020), etc.), but the non-fiction manga of Nagata Kabi details the physical ramifications of it in her diary series beginning with My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness (2017). Kabi’s volumes document her desperation to make any outside connection. With her story broken into separate volumes, it is easy to miss the connection between Kabi’s acute loneliness – anguishingly explored in her earlier comics – and her further medical conditions. Taken as a whole, Kabi’s comics track the medical ramifications of intense loneliness and the Japanese concept of hikikimori, serving as a keen example of the epidemic’s effects and an comics exploration of its healthcare impacts.