the honorable representative of japan

I picked up a copy of Metropolis (shock!) while I was at TGI Friday's (SHOCK!) last night. I usually just read them at work, but I hadn't seen this one before. Inside is a review of "shutting out the sun", a book about Japan's future that uses hikkikomori as its pivot point. I guess the book runs something like "the japanese individual is broken and hikkikomori is strong evidence".

But despite some ridiculous estimates in the past of a million or more of these young men, it's abundantly clear that they make up a very small percentage of the population, and if wikipedia is believed that they are merely manifesting developmental disabilities differently than similarly afflicted westerners would.

If I might suggest to the goose what he has so amply applied to the gander: there were likely more murder victims in America in 2006 than there are hikkikomori. There are far far more americans currently incarcerated than there are hikkikomori. There are 37000 alumni of
Harvard law school, more than most estimates of hikkokomri numbers.

How reflective of the american individual would a book that centers on murder victims or prisoners or HLS alumni be?