Japan's "suicide forest"

Aohkigahara Forest west of Tokyo at the base of Mount Fuji is also known as the "suicide forest." According to Wikipedia, it's the second most popular suicide spot after San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge. From CNN:

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

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.

Desperate Japanese head to 'suicide forest' (Thanks, Ed Szylko!)

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zeroy

I’ve often thought that a good place to commit suicide would be WAY off the beaten track, probably the Mojave Desert for me. But that still leaves the problem of method. After much thought, I always come back to heroin overdose. But I have no idea how I could set myself up for a guaranteed OD.

However, “your compass doesn’t work so you can’t find your way out” is just about the lamest dumb anecdotal explanation I have ever heard. Is it a maze of twisty passages all the same? I have spent large portions of my life trying to get lost to no avail. I always know where I am. Right here. And what kind of magic causes your compass to not work. Oh, I know. Humongous underground veins of lodestone.
Antinous / Moderator

Actually, very few people survive a fall from the Golden Gate Bridge, but everyone who survives seems to be wearing tight Levi’s. It’s something about added structural integrity. Most bodies are never found. And, yes, I know people who have jumped and died, people who have jumped and survived and people who have been murdered by being thrown off.

As to the suicide forest, maybe they didn’t want Mainichi Shimbun to report how many thousands were inconvenienced when they jumped in front of the train.
JJR1971

Maybe many of these Japanese suicides enter the forest then take a fatal overdose of medicine…like a bottle full of sleeping pills?

Wandering around lost and starving to death sounds like an awful way to die. Or eating poisonous plants because you don’t know jack about wilderness survival.

Monster Quest recently did a show there where they tried out some techniques borrowed from Ghost Hunters. That was kind of a cool show. As I recall, the Japanese Forestry Service was initially reluctant to grant permission to the show’s producers then relented. They also stumbled upon a small group of Japanese students who were kind of voyeurs themselves, hanging out in the woods for the vicarious thrill of it (the students spoke enough English to relay this to the camera crew and show hosts).
minamisan

it’s more than just a suicide forest: it’s so haunted that even if suicide wasn’t your intention upon entering, the longer you stay in there the luckier you will be to get out alive.
Anonymous

You humans are so strange. Maybe if you did life differently, people wouldn’t be killing themselves.
airshowfan

I once read in an article that most suicides are fairly impulsive, and rely on opportunities that can be taken with little effort or planning. Like jumping off a tall place that you go by regularly (i.e. not one that can only be accessed through a long hike), or using items in the home. This Japanese forest seems to be a strong data point against this notion, especially if so many people do it. I’m guessing a forest-hike suicide would take some planning, and some effort to execute.
TalkingBook

also featured in the excellent Haruki Murakami novel, Kafka on the Shore.
andrewtokyojapan

I would also like to suggest that as many Japanese and people have very high reading skills in English that any articles dealing with suicide in Japan could usefully provide contact details for hotlines and support services for people who are depressed and feeling suicidal.

Useful telephone number for Japanese residents of Japan who speak Japanese and are feeling depressed or suicidal:

Inochi no Denwa (Lifeline Telephone Service)ï¼š

Japan: 0120-738-556
Tokyo: 3264 4343

Andrew Grimes
Tokyo Counseling Services
jtegnell

This may be the most popular single spot, but I imagine not the most common method, whatever that may be.

Japanese people love committing suicide. It’s like the national pastime. Kids hook up on the internet so they can commit suicide together.

As far as it being “shameful” according to chrisrr — that may well be. But it’s very very very common for something so shameful. And people kill themselves in a very public way all the fucking time, by tossing themselves in front of trains. Train lines stop VERY commonly inconveniencing tons of people because of “accidents” (which would be more accurately called “on purposes”).
Sork

What secret government installations are in that forest, perhaps embedded into mt. Fuji, and what makes it draw people into the forest?
J France

Airshowfan #20: I’ve known far too many people who have killed themselves, and it was not in ways that were easy or accessible – for the most part.

The “sensible” ones do a fatal OD – opiates – the not so sensible ones tended to jump. And the latter went out of their way to get to those places. Seems like a crappy way to do it. Overdose all the way.
Anonymous

If you could read Japanese I would recommend
ã€Œå®Œå…¨è‡ªæ®ºãƒžãƒ‹ãƒ¥ã‚¢ãƒ«ã€(“The Perfect Suicide Manual”), a million-seller which came out in 1993.
fyodordos

The numbers that are quoted appear to cumulative.
BastardNamban

I’ve heard about this place before from people all over Japan. I mean, my background is a Japanese scholar. And so I’m fairly well versed in traditional and popular ways and customs regarding suicide. What I can’t figure out is why this place is so well known/popular. Am I missing something obvious?

Most common suicide methods are simple & quick. Often involve jumping from heights, or into trains/subway paths. Taking off shoes first of course, to signify intent. Even hydrogen sulfide gas is a very personal way of dying- alone, and rather quickly, from what I understand. Axphixiation in cars is popular, with both burning charcoal or exaust fumes. Physical harm isn’t as common. Hangings are about the most painful I can think of that come up from time to time. The general desire is either quick death alone, or death with a loved one, such as in the car, which can be slow. Slow & painful is very abnormal for suicide in Japan, and for that matter, anywhere.

From most accounts I’ve heard of this forest, people just “wander in and die”. I don’t hear of them jumping from somewhere inside it, or anything quick- most are slow and painful deaths, starvation etc. So why is this so popular? Is it a cultural meme, subconsciously powerful from that book? Or is shame so great for the people who travel here, that they never want to be found? That’s my only guess.

Has anyone read this “black forest” story? I need to get a copy and figure this out.
monument

Watanabe?

(in japanese accent) IT WAS A GOOD DEATH!
Danyboy

If you plan to climb Mt. Fuji, then the hike through Aokigahara is highly recommendable. It is a very pretty and quiet forest. This in stark contrast to the actual climb up Mt. Fuji which is barren and crowded.

Unfortunately, some suicides are a bit lazy and hang themselves a few hundred meters from the road, right next to the hiking trail. Not the most pleasant sight in the early morning.

Supposedly, the less scrupulous adventurer can even earn a decent sum by emptying the pockets of the less fortunate. In this case, it would have gotten you a new car, conveniently parked close by.
ornith

@5, 16: That explains the prevalence of the-forest-where-you-keep-looping around in Japanese RPGs…

@10: there’s more than one way to romanize Japanese. I’d agree that using the h is generally an outdated method, but it’s not, strictly speaking, wrong.

@32: Not everyone has access to enough opiates etc to OD reliably – the OTC-med OD methods tend to have very high chances of leaving you with permanent liver damage or the like and not actually killing you. Yes, there are illegal ones, but not everyone has the money or access to get them that way.

Also, and on this point I speak from personal experience, the sort of depression that would make a person truly suicidal also tends to screw up their ability to make and carry out elaborate and/or sensible plans. The same neurotransmitters that govern mood are involved in almost everything else in the brain too. When I was depressed enough to be suicidal, I was also progressively losing my ability to manage complex sentences (mine or others’, and before that point I lost all ability to parse the Japanese I was learning at the time) and to form new memories. To say nothing of becoming completely agoraphobic because I always felt like everyone would know what a piece of crap/fraud/etc I was and/or I would break down in public – a very, very common symptom of even moderate depression.

The situation is a bit different in Japan because there’s a cultural history saying “suicide is a more noble option than dishonor, and using painful methods is more honorable” instead of one saying “suicide sends you straight to hell”, so people will do it in a less depressed state (hence the very high suicide rate) and be more prone to hanging themselves or jumping off cliffs instead of drugging themselves. Going out to a “suicide forest” instead of hanging yourself at home, I assume would be to spare your family the shock of finding your body.
Daemon

Given Japan’s suicide rate, I’m rather surprised that the Golden Gate bridge manages to beat it.
ChrisRR

BastardNamban, My japanese teacher told me that once you go into the forest your compass doesn’t work so you can’t find your way out. Obviously with a culture where this is very shameful they don’t wish their body to be found.

My teacher also says that people tend to take a means to kill themselves, it’s not simply getting lost that kills them.

And she also told me that occasionally the government send in groups of people to clean up the dead bodies because there’s so many of them.

…….My teacher talks about suicide way too much.
Anonymous

If anyone hasn’t answered this yet, I think the majority of these suicides are hangings…I think Cracked.com had a article on this and it had pictures and most were hanging from the trees. It was in like a story or something and some people did it, then more, then more. You get the idea.
inkfumes

I saw a page of photos of that forest last year I think. It was quite gruesome and very sad… I mean I assumed the photo’s were real. So morbid. So much sadness there.
Manko

There was a good audio piece on this on NPR within the past few months…This American Life, maybe? I don’t recall exactly where I heard it, unfortunately, but the interviews with local folks who’d seen lots of tourists with the Thousand Mile Stare were pretty gripping.
curtismayfield

@manko: I also heard the npr radio piece.
good radio! evocative
Jarvik7

I’ve been though the ‘suicide forest’ a couple times. You go through it on descent from the Mt. Fuji climb. I haven’t seen any bodies though, since I haven’t gone off the trails.

I never carried a compass so I don’t know if the anecdote is true, but a large amount certain minerals can throw compasses off can’t they?

The real reason that Aokigahara is a popular suicide spot is.. because it has the reputation of being a popular suicide spot, not because of any physical attributes of the forest. I suspect the origin of the reputation comes from literature. The whole thing about removing shoes is the same. There was a big boom in chemical-reaction based suicides last year because it was in the news – chain reaction.

Train-based suicide isn’t a ‘popular’ method, since it causes significant troubles for the train company/conductor and the family of the deceased (they are billed for repair & cleanup costs). It is however common enough that I have been on trains delayed by suicides further up the track and have witnessed a failed attempt (he was too slow and ended up jumping into the side of the train).
God45

The “oh” is a long “o” sound (over there, oh no, etc.) You can also romanize the sound as ou.
FreakCitySF

I count light poles on the GG bridge now, and I wonder how many have jumped from each point of the bridge.
Anonymous

Number 28 hit the nail on the head. The main reason for those particular woods’ popularity is the book that was published in 1993, “The Perfect Suicide Manual”

That seems to be the generally accepted reason for the high rate of suicides in THAT forest.
Cugel

Reminds me of Blofeld’s suicide garden in Ian Fleming’s YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE (utterly unlike the film, and much creepier.)
lowrahk

It is “Aokigahara Forest” not Ao(h)kigahara Forest.
andrewtokyojapan

Update to previous posting:

The current numbers licensed psychiatrists (around 13,000), Japan Society of Certified Clinical Psychologists clinical psychologists (19,830 as of 2009), and Psychiatric Social Workers (39,108 as of 2009) must indeed be increased. In order for professional mental health counseling and psychotherapy services to be covered for depression and other mental illnesses by public health insurance it would seem advisable that positive action is taken to resume and complete the negotiations on how to achieve national licensing for clinical psychologists in Japan through the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare and not just the Ministry of Education as is the current situation. These discussions were ongoing between all concerned mental health professional authorities that in the ongoing select committee and ministerial levels that were ongoing during the Koizumi administration. With the current economic recession adding even more hardship and stress in the lives its citizens, now would seem to be a prime opportunity for the responsible Japanese to take a pro-active approach to finally providing government approval for national licensing for clinical psychologists who provide mental health care counseling and psychotherapy services to the people of Japan.

Also Dduring these last ten years of these relentlessly high annual suicide rate numbers the English media seems in the main to have done little more than have someone goes through the files and do a story on the so-called suicide forest or internet suicide clubs and copycat suicides (whether cheap heating fuel like charcoal briquettes or even cheaper household cleaning chemicals) without focusing on the bigger picture and need for effective action and solutions. Economic hardship, bankruptcies and unemployment have been the main cause of suicide in Japan over the last 10 years, as the well detailed reports behind the suicide rate numbers that have been issued every year until now by the National Police Agency in Japan show only to clearly if any journalist is prepared to learn Japanese or get a bilingual researcher to do the research to get to the real heart of the tragic story of the long term and unnecessarily high suicide rate problem in Japan.

Useful telephone number for Japanese residents of Japan who speak Japanese and are feeling depressed or suicidal: Inochi no Denwa (Lifeline Telephone Service)ï¼š

Andrew Grimes

Tokyo Counseling Services
Anonymous

Strike my last, it was actually the 1960 novel Kuroi Jukai by SeichÅ Matsumoto, which ends with two lovers committing suicide in the forest.

Sorry for the bad info.
UncaScrooge

As someone with strong ties to the Golden Gate Bridge, may I suggest to all and sundry that the bridge is the crappiest way to kill yourself ever.

Here’s what I know: You will regret it the instant you drop. You will survive the fall. Many bones in your body will break. Your clothing will be blasted from your body by the force of the fall. A combination of trauma and drowning will kill you more slowly than expected. Your bloated, nude corpse will be fished from the bay by a horrified new recruit to the Coast Guard (people with seniority sure aren’t going to mess with your remains). Any onlookers or bridge workers that witness your drop will be traumatized. An expensive suicide deterrent fence will be erected, changing forever the experience of going for a non-death march on the bridge.

The Golden Gate Bridge is one of the crappiest ways to go that I can think of. Don’t do it. If you must kill yourself (and you probably shouldn’t) there are many less painful, frightening and mortifyingly humiliating ways to do it.
andrewtokyojapan

I would like to add a perspective from Japan and so will limit my comments to what I know about here but would first like to suggest that western media reports on suicide rates in Asian countries should try harder to get away from the tendency to â€˜orientalizeâ€™ the serious and preventable problem of increased suicide rates here over the last 10 years by reverting to stereotypical and much overused words and expressions.

I am a psychologist and psychotherapist working in Japan for over 20 years. Mental health professionals in Japan have long known that the reason for the unnecessarily high suicide rate in Japan is due to unemployment, bankruptcies, and the increasing levels of stress on businessmen and other salaried workers who have suffered enormous hardship in Japan since the bursting of the stock market bubble here that peaked around 1997. Until that year Japan had an annual suicide of rate figures between 22,000 and 24,000 each year.

Following the bursting of the stock market and the long term economic downturn that has followed here since the suicide rate in 1998 increased by around 35% and since 1998 the number of people killing themselves each year in Japan has consistently remained well over 30,000 each and every year to the present day.

The current worldwide recession is of course impacting Japan too, so unless very proactive and well funded local and nation wide suicide prevention programs and initiatives are immediately it is very difficult to foresee the governments previously stated intention to reduce the suicide rate to around 23,000 by the year 2016 being achievable. On the contrary the numbers, and the human suffering and the depression and misery that the people who become part of these numbers, have to endure may well stay at the current levels that have persistently been the case here for the last ten years. It could even get worse unless even more is done to prevent this terrible loss of life.

During these last ten years of these relentlessly high annual suicide rate numbers the western language media seems in the main to have done little more than have someone goes through the files and do a story on the so-called suicide forest or internet suicide clubs and copycat suicides (whether cheap heating fuel like charcoal brickettes or even cheaper household cleaning chemicals) without focusing on the bigger picture and need for effective action and solutions.

Economic hardship, bankruptcies and unemployment have been the main cause of suicide in Japan over the last 10 years, as the well detailed reports behind the suicide rate numbers that have been issued every year until now by the National Police Agency in Japan show only to clearly if any journalist is prepared to learn Japanese or get a bilingual researcher to do the research to get to the real heart of the tragic story of the long term and unnecessarily high suicide rate problem in Japan.

I would also like to suggest that as many Japanese and people have very high reading skills in English that any articles dealing with suicide in Japan could usefully provide contact details for hot-lines and support services for people who are depressed and feeling suicidal.

Andrew Grimes
Tokyo Counseling Services
Anonymous

For anyone who wanted to see the Destination Truth episode, it’s on the sci fi website under free episodes to watch online. I haven’t watched it yet, but it’s in high definition so it might be easy to see the apparition.
Anonymous

So let me get this strait: The Japanese government is trying to prevent suicide by placing cameras around the forest, so that people don’t get seen?

This does not make sense to me, just like making suicide illegal.
Jenathan

@manko Here’s a link to the radio piece: http://www.studio360.org/episodes/2009/02/06

It’s by the stellar WNYC show Studio 360.
jetfx

If Dante’s Inferno has it right, those suicides are going to end up in forest anyway.
Demortius

“Unemployment is leading to this,” said Toyoki Yoshida, a suicide and credit counselor.

Will someone please tell me what a “suicide and credit counselor” is?
Anonymous

The 1993 book, “The Perfect Suicide Manual”, which was a million seller BTW, has also been held by some people to be responsible for an increase of fatality of suicide attempts in Japan.

This book, which is still available, details several suicide methods and talks about their pros and cons, how likely you are to miss etc.

The Japanese tend to choose hanging, jumping to their deaths, in front of a train or carbon monoxide poisoning. These methods are more lethal than overdosing on sleeping pills, a popular method in the West.

This difference in choice of method has been attributed to this book, and to the Werther effect caused by the media talking about suicides, which triggers copycat suicides.

You could always argue that the fact the Japanese choose more definite methods is proof they are more depressed, and they would have choosen pills if they wanted to call for help, but there are tons of people who hanged themselves, jumped or tried to poison themselves with carbon monoxide, only to chicken out, or who failed, and were glad they failed later on.

The number of people who killed themselves only tell half the picture.
Anonymous

ancient samuris… following the “bushido code” often comminted “suicide” after a bringing or before bringing dishonor to themselves. the samuris did not go fast and painless. they cut themselves 2 or 3 time(depending on ran and amount of dishonor) in the gut(stumach, belly). this would have been excruciating, but then a trusted friend would be-head them, then the “friend would also cut himself, but the last “friend” would have no one to be-head him. i would sumise that they are trying to bring back the very honorable code of “bushido”. i have also thought about this once before, with respect to the “dishonor” of the “bushido” code. although an “anglo/ native american”, i believe the “bushido code” is a veruy honorable code, and try to live up to it everyday.
zuzu

Will someone please tell me what a “suicide and credit counselor” is?

Look, if your FICO drops below 350, you might as well off yourself.

Just be sure to make it look like an accident if you want your family to collect on your insurance policy.
zomgjess

@ 18 – Actually it wasn’t MonsterQuest, but rather Destination Truth that did an investigation in Aokigahara. They caught a crazy apparition on video which is really easy to see on TV, but I haven’t found a video online of a high enough quality to make out the shape. The episode is still pretty entertaining! And those random Japanese college kids with their broken engrish “we went to here to see dead bodies” were pretty creepy!

=^.^= episode linkxorz
Pejk

Here’s a link to the piece I did for Studio 360:

http://www.studio360.org/episodes/2009/01/30/segments/122033

Yes, it is a sad story but it’s a really beautiful place.
Anonymous

Perhaps Aokigahara Forest *is* the forest from the Inferno. :)

There’s a fairly enjoyable manga, “Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service”, which visits this forest regularly for obvious reasons. (It’s a horror-genre manga, I think, but I like it for the sfnal elements of people who can talk to the dead — it’s hot too horrific.)
Teapunk

There are several popular suicide spots in Japan, just as they have “the three most beautiful gardens” and so on, apparently they also have to have most popular suicide spots. Another one are the Cliffs at Tojinbo, actually a rather touristic and scenic spot, today complete with suicide counceling.
And last year they put up signs against suicides, I would really like to know what they say.
Boeotian

There’s a great documentary movie on The Golden Gate bridge being the number 1 suicidal spot.
It’s called The Bridge. Worth watching.