Topping more than 30,000 a year for all of this century, Japan’s suicide rate is now the second highest in the world, trailing only Sri Lanka.
With over 100 Japanese a day taking their own lives, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare is doing its utmost to keep people alive, conducting a series of projects aimed at getting the number of suicides below 22,000 within five years.
Nowhere is the suicide dilemma as obvious in Japan as in the Tohoku Region’s Akita Prefecture, which has the dubious honor of having been home to the greatest number of suicide victims in the country every year for the past decade…
“Spring and autumn, when the farming business is busiest, are really dangerous times. That’s when old people are left alone when everybody else goes out to work in the fields and it’s the most likely time for them to commit suicide…”
lol - Mainichi, the news rag.
it's true
"The suicide rate per 100,000 people was about 20 until 1997," said Nishijima, "but rose to 26.1 persons in 1998, slightly below Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, which have the world's highest suicide rate, and Russia, Hungary and Slovenia where the suicide rate is 30 per 100,000 people."
http://www.theforeigner-japan.com/archives/200304/news.htm
http://www.easterwood.org/hmmn/archives/000096.html
Getting lost on a hike in Aokigahara might be the last thing you ever do.
Popularly known the "sea of trees," this sprawling, 3,000-hectare primeval forest on Mount Fuji's northern slope might do justice to a Grimm Brothers fairy tale. Or perhaps a Stephen King thriller.
Here, at elevations of 800 to 1,400 meters, lush vegetation grows from spiracles formed by Fuji's ancient eruptions. Dense mists swirl over a labyrinthine landscape. Above, a canopy of twisted trees blots out the sky; below, iron deposits interfere with compass readings.
Little wonder, then, that people come here seeking death.
Seicho Matsumoto's 1960 mystery novel "Nami no To (Tower of Waves)," helped transform Aokigahara into one of Japan's best-known suicide meccas, notes Aera. Publication of "The Complete Suicide Manual" in 1993 further boosted its popularity among those desiring an exotic setting in which to end their lives
As an instrument of suicide, a train, even one not of the bullet variety, can deliver an end not only swift and final, but spectacularly public, immediately affecting the lives of thousands, thus fulfilling any candidate's wish to make a powerful last statement. There's nothing unusual about finding bodies in Aokigahara. The lush and sprawling forest nestled at the foot of Mount Fuji has long been one of the
most popular places in Japan for suicides.
http://forum.japantoday.com/Suicide_Perception:_Japan_versus_USA/m_16443/tm.htm
What rubs me the wrong way are the explanations.
"Harsh winters blamed for Akita's high suicide rate" Huh?
"sea of trees... lush vegetation... Little wonder, then, that people come here seeking death." What?
Where is the intense social pressure? Where is the "dishonor so great that death is preferred"?
I never quite understood the whole suicide angle for free peoples, outside of individuals with clinical depression.
If life is so bad, just walk away. It's a better alternative to death.
Japan is too small to really walk away anywhere to.
And nobody would really want to emigrate to, say, Korea.
Say what? How hard is it to disappear in a population of several hundred million? The point isn't to go somewhere new; the point is to ditch all responsibilities completely.
> just walk away
What if you can't just walk away? You can't hide or run forever.
I think you could safely move to the other side of Tokyo, and people would have a hard time finding you.
There's a lot of people in Tokyo...
Sometimes it's not specific kinds of people but people in general.
But then you would have to pack, and unpack, and all that trouble. It'd be easier to just kill yourself.
A left family will be lonely.
Yeah, damn idiot suiciders.
I would think that suicide rates go up once there are established methods of suicide.
>>18
Yeah the article >>6 links to mentions trains being efficient and fast method of suicide:
>"[Trains]...can deliver an end not only swift and final, but spectacularly public, immediately affecting the lives of thousands, thus fulfilling any candidate's wish to make a powerful last statement"
It's almost like an advertisement,
"For all your suicide needs, Shinkansen is here!"
man....theyre...lazy? so they just dont feel like living anymore?! that seems so very very very wrong....