“The thought of suicide is a powerful solace: by means of it one gets through many a bad night” - Friedrich Nietzsche
mentalfloss - It’s perhaps the most obvious setting for a horror movie imaginable — and it’s real. And incredibly grim. There is a thick, in places nearly impenetrable forest around Mt. Fuji, and it’s the most popular place for suicide in Japan. It’s the second most popular spot in the world behind the Golden Gate Bridge. From Vice, who sent a video crew there:
The Aokigahara Forest is the most popular site for suicides in Japan. After the novel Kuroi Jukai [The Black Forest, written by Seichō Matsumoto in 1960] was published, in which a young lover commits suicide in the forest, people started taking their own lives there at a rate of 50 to 100 deaths a year. The site holds so many bodies that the Yakuza pays homeless people to sneak into the forest and rob the corpses. The authorities sweep for bodies only on an annual basis, as the forest sits at the base of Mt. Fuji and is too dense to patrol more frequently.
If you’re sensitive, you might want to skip this fascinating but hugely morbid video. VBS.tv’s crew follows a geologist through the forest, and they find a number of grisly surprises.
From October 2008:
The most haunted location in Japan is believed to be a dark, dense forest which lies at the base of Mt. Fuji called Aokigahara. Aokigahara is an infamous place for suicides and many feel that it is a sinister place. "The perfect place to die." That's how Aokigahara was described in Wataru Tsurumui's bestselling book The Complete Manual of Suicide. In 2002, 78 bodies were found within it, replacing the previous record of 73 in 1998. More than a few of them were even carrying copies of Tsurumui's book. No one knows how many bodies go undiscovered."
Locals and scavengers occasionally look for the bodies of those who have commited suicide. When they search, they tie some tape to a tree near the path and then let it out as they go into the forest so they won't get lost. This tape is all over the forest around the path.
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Taro, a 46-year-old man fired from his job at an iron manufacturing company, hoped to fade into the blackness. "My will to live disappeared," said Taro. "I'd lost my identity, so I didn't want to live on this earth. That's why I went there."
Taro, who did not want to be identified fully, was swimming in debt and had been evicted from his company apartment.
He lost financial control, which he believes to be the foundation of any stable life, he said. "You need money to survive. If you have a girlfriend, you need money. If you want to get married, you need it for your life. Money is always necessary for your life."
Taro bought a one-way ticket to the forest, west of Tokyo, Japan. When he got there, he slashed his wrists, though the cut wasn't enough to kill him quickly.
He started to wander, he said. He collapsed after days and lay in the bushes, nearly dead from dehydration, starvation and frostbite. He would lose his toes on his right foot from the frostbite. But he didn't lose his life, because a hiker stumbled upon his nearly dead body and raised the alarm.
Taro's story is just one of hundreds logged at Aokigahara Forest every year, a place known throughout Japan as the "suicide forest." The area is home to the highest number of suicides in the entire country.
Japan's suicide rate, already one of the world's highest, has increased with the recent economic downturn.
There were 2,645 suicides recorded in January 2009, a 15 percent increase from the 2,305 for January 2008, according to the Japanese government.
The Japanese government said suicide rates are a priority and pledged to cut the number of suicides by more than 20 percent by 2016. It plans to improve suicide awareness in schools and workplaces. But officials fear the toll will rise with unemployment and bankruptcies, matching suicide spikes in earlier tough economic times.
"Unemployment is leading to this," said Toyoki Yoshida, a suicide and credit counselor.
"Society and the government need to establish immediate countermeasures to prevent suicides. There should be more places where they can come and seek help."
Yoshida and his fellow volunteer, Norio Sawaguchi, posted signs in Aokigahara Forest urging suicidal visitors to call their organization, a credit counseling service. Both men say Japanese society too often turns a cold shoulder to the unemployed and bankrupt, and breeds a culture where suicide is still seen as an honorable option.
Local authorities, saying they are the last resort to stop people from killing themselves in the forest, have posted security cameras at the entrances of the forest.
The goal, said Imasa Watanabe of the Yamanashi Prefectural Government is to track the people who walk into the forest. Watanabe fears more suicidal visitors will arrive in the coming weeks.
"Especially in March, the end of the fiscal year, more suicidal people will come here because of the bad economy," he said. "It's my dream to stop suicides in this forest, but to be honest, it would be difficult to prevent all the cases here."
One year after his suicide attempt, Taro is volunteering with the credit counseling agency that helped him get back on his feet. He's still living in a shelter and looking for a job. He's ashamed, he said, that he still thinks about suicide.
"I try not to think about it, but I can't say never. For now, the will to live is stronger."
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"To run away from trouble is a form of cowardice and, while it is true that the suicide braves death, he does it not for some noble object but to escape some ill." - Aristotle
Suicides Cost Japan Economy $32BN
BBC - The government in Japan says suicides and depression cost its economy almost 2.7tn yen ($32bn; £21bn) last year.
The figures refer to lost incomes and the cost of treatment. It is the first time Japan has released such figures.
Japan has one of the world's highest suicide rates, with more than 32,000 people killing themselves last year. PM Naoto Kan sees it as proof of an economic and emotional downturn.
The government is setting up a task force to try to reduce the rate.
"Given that the number of suicides in Japan has been over 30,000 for 12 straight years, this is a problem that needs to be addressed by the entire nation," a health, labour and welfare ministry official said.
"We hope this study triggers stronger prevention measures."
The study showed that those who took their lives last year - 26,500 people in 2009 - when they were aged 15 to 69 would have earned 1.9tn yen had they worked until retirement.
Mr Kan has pointed to the suicide numbers as proof of what he believes is wrong with the country, with too many people suffering economically and emotionally.
"There are many causes of suicides. Decreasing them would be one way to build a society with a minimum level of unhappiness," he said.
But attitudes to depression in Japan arguably demand equally urgent scrutiny, correspondents say.
In a country in which stoicism and consensus are highly valued, many older people in particular view mental illness as a stigma that can be overcome simply by trying harder, they say.
The use of psychotherapy to treat depression has lagged behind North America and Europe, with Japanese doctors often viewing medication as the sole answer, they add.
