If you call a suicide hotline in Japan, you might have to dial the number 30 or 40 times because the lines are so busy. A lot of people have a lot of problems, but there’s no one to talk to, no one to listen to, and they say, “God forbid, someone answered the phone.”
I dream of a war, a suicidal war, but I don’t even know who the enemy is. Who and what killed so many of us? There are one million people in the world every year, and 30,000 people die in Japan alone. I don’t know what I’m doing, I just know I have to do something.
In Japan, no one dares to talk about the causes of suicide or how to fight it, but a manual on how to do it has sold more than a million copies. What if 10,000 lives could be saved in Japan? Not by miracles, but by thought, by honesty. Does anyone dare to listen? If death is darkness, then this is life, and this is all about trying to save a life from the mouth of death; it’s about choosing hope over despair, even as you clutch your nails in despair.
Over the past 10 years, 300,000 Japanese have committed suicide. That’s about the population of Iceland. The suicide rate in Japan is twice that of the United States, three times that of Thailand, nine times that of Greece, and twelve times that of the Philippines. Is this acceptable, or is it time to fight back?
Japan has a high suicide rate because they may always think of suicide. When faced with a serious problem, they have certain choices to make, and one of the alternatives they make is suicide.
One of the hallmarks of suicide in Japan is people’s vulnerability to suggestions. See how often the Japanese try to find someone else to die with, others with the same desperation. So they would search for each other online and plan to die together. There are many Japanese who do this. The feeling behind this behavior is that it seems more comforting and safer to be with other people, even if everyone dies. Why are the Japanese so susceptible to suggestions?
There are no samurai and no kamikaze pilots in Japan today. What remains is that suicide can be a beautiful feeling. The suicide rate of Japanese writers is very high. Just to name a few, many people have committed suicide in the past few decades. And the pattern is completely different from the rest of the world. Nowhere else is writer suicide so common.
What makes a suicide hotspot a famous suicide location? In the case of Tojimbo Cliffs, there is local author Jun Takami. He wrote a book “From the Edge of Death”. Death is always a bestseller which makes it a tourist attraction. The author of Cape Ashizuri is Torahiko Tamiya. His novels have also been made into films. It makes the Cape a popular suicide spot.
Directed by: Rene Duignan
