Aokigahara Suicide Forest
Resting in Mount Fuji's shadow lies a forest shrouded by death, the world's second most popular suicide location
Upwards of 30 people per year take their lives in the Sea of Trees, though this number has been persistently on the rise throughout the last decade.
Source jennieijapan.files.wordpress.com Click to Enlarge
Category Memento Mori
Called "the perfect place to die," the Aokigahara forest has the unfortunate distinction as the world's second most popular place to take one's life. (The first is the Golden Gate Bridge.) Since the 1950s, Japanese businessmen have wandered in, and at least 500 of them haven't wandered out, at an increasing rate of between 10 and 30 suicides per year. Recently these numbers have increased even more, with a record 78 bodies in 2002.
Japanese spiritualists believe that the suicides committed in the forest have permeated Aokigahara's trees, generating paranormal activity and preventing many who enter from escaping the forest's depths. Complicating matters further is the common experience of compasses being rendered useless by the rich deposits of magnetic iron in the area's volcanic soil.
Due to the vastness of the forest, desperate visitors are unlikely to encounter anyone once inside the so-called "Sea of Trees," so the police have left signs reading "Your life is a precious gift from your parents," and "Please consult the police before you decide to die!" mounted on trees throughout.
Contemporary news outlets noted the recent spike in suicides in the forest, blamed more on Japan’s economic downturn than on the romantic ending of Seicho Matsumoto’s novel Kuroi Jukai, which revitalized the so-called Suicide Forest’s popularity among those determined to take their final walk. (The novel culminates in Aokigahara as the characters are driven to joint-suicide.)
Locals say they can easily spot the three types of visitors to the forest: trekkers interested in scenic vistas of Mount Fuji, the curious hoping for a glimpse of the macabre, and those souls who don’t plan on returning.
What those hoping to take their lives may not consider is the impact the suicides have on the locals and forest workers. In the words of one local man, "It bugs the hell out of me that the area's famous for being a suicide spot." And a local police officer said, "I've seen plenty of bodies that have been really badly decomposed, or been picked at by wild animals... There's nothing beautiful about dying in there."
The forest workers have it even worse then the police. The workers must carry the bodies down from the forest to the local station, where the bodies are put in a special room used specifically to house suicide corpses. The forest workers then play jan-ken-pon - which English-speakers call rock, paper, scissors - to see who has to sleep in the room with the corpse.
It is believed to be very bad luck if the corpse is left alone, for the "yurei" (ghost) of the suicide will scream through the night, and the body will move itself on its own.
See an error? Know more? Edit this place.
- Address Yamanasi (Yamanashi), Japan
Located approximately two hours' driving time west-southwest from Tokyo.
Comments
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Anonymous
January 13, 2010
I feel so sad for the families and loved ones of these people who have commited suicide as well as the people themselves , They should put up some sort of memorial for them -
We appreciate your concern and the provided links Andrew. We also know that covering these types of places can be difficult and are easy to sensationalize. Your comment helps to set the context in which this is all happening something we value very much here at the Atlas. Thanks from the Atlas Obscura Team
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Anonymous
December 31, 2009
I think this kind of reporting does nothing to help focus on the deeper social and economic causes that brought about the extreme rise in the suicide rate in Japan and has taken the number of people here who kill themselves every year in Japan to over 30,000 for the last ten years. The initial sudden rise in the suicide rate in 1998 parallels the economic bubble years of the 1990's that led to the crash of the Japanese stock market and bankrupt companies nationwide. Media reporting in English on this deep and serious problem of the high suicide rate in Japan tends to be very sensational focuses only on small numbers of people among the many thousands of lives and families affected by this tragic situation. Before the media's focus on and creation of terms like 'detergent suicide', it was on 'group suicides' and before then on 'internet suicide clubs'. The actual number of people who killed themselves in these ways over these years never amounted to one or two percent of the total annual number of people who kill themselves here in Japan. If anything the media in general tends to have a desire to talk up by focusing on 'fads' (a terrible word to use in connection with such a tragic loss of life) and never seems to tire of using headlines that include words like "rattles Japan", 'shakes Japan', 'shocks Japan' and 'rocks Japan'. These annual suicide rates do nothing of the sort. If anything it saddens Japan and the friends and families of people who end their lives this way. Sensational headlines, cliched writing and one minute sound bites will never shed any real light on the problem of suicide in Japan; all it is likely to do is send a message of hopelessness and despair to the hundreds of thousands of depressed and unemployed people who are struggling to provide for their families and for themselves. An interesting post but, although a tragic loss of life, this story is typical of most media reports about suicide in Japan over the last ten years in that it focus on preventing a method of suicide rather than investigating the underlying causes of why people are killing themselves in such terrible high numbers every year in Japan. I would also like to suggest that as many Japanese people have very high reading skills in English that any articles dealing with mental health issues in Japan could usefully provide contact details for hotlines and support services for people who are depressed and feeling suicidal. Inochi no Denwa (Lifeline Telephone Service): Japan: 0120-738-556 Tokyo: 3264 4343 AMDA International Medical Information Center: http://amda-imic.com/ Andrew Grimes, JSCCP, JCP Tokyo Counseling Services: http://tokyocounseling.com http://tokyocounseling.com/english/ http://tokyocounseling.com/jp/ http://www.counselingjapan.com
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Anonymous
December 15, 2009
wow... my friend just went in there and made a video, there were alot of strange and mysterious moving objects and shadows. it was amazing what i saw, and how many people get lost or die in that place. My friend left a trail of tape to find her way back...i guess it worked
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Anonymous
December 15, 2009
Pretty crazy how that could happen. My friend just told me her friend killed herself from going in there. I didn't believe her so I checked out this place and idk, wow.
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Anonymous
October 28, 2009
The numbers seem to really vary. Just think of how many go in there, and aren't reported, aren't found. The numbers are probably much higher than that, especially with the 78 body count of 2002.
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Anonymous
October 27, 2009
If this has been going on since the 50's and if 500 or so have committed suicide there that works out to 10 a year or so. Still a lot but nowhere near the 30 stated in the article.
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