The first 120 or so pages of Shutting Out the Sun (2006) are fascinating, and indeed, Zielenziger’s portrayal of a number of Japanese hikikomori (shut-ins), their families, and those working the help bring them back out into the public world, manages to be very thoughtful and compassionate, and even, at times, moving. Later chapters are less powerful, in my opinion, in part because of the way Zielenziger presents the social problems he chooses to tackle. Many, such as the falling birth rate, the lingering (relative) conservativism among men, the precipitously-declined birth rate, and the national obsession with conspicuous consumption of brand …