Suicide Forest in Japan
The Aokigahara Forest is a lonely place to die. So dense is the vegetation at the foot of Japan's Mount Fuji, it is all too easy to disappear among the evergreens and never be seen again.
Each year the authorities remove as many as 100 bodies found hanging at the country's suicide hotspot - but others can lie undiscovered for years.
After the novel Kuroi Jukai 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.
Warning: This program contains content matter which some viewers may find disturbing.
I think....I think you should try to help someone, but don't force them, forcing only makes things worse....in the end let them decide..... persuade them, don't manipulate them
It is so sad when a person is desperate and hopeless, no one to talk to. Admire the kind uncle doing the best what he can to help.
How can I come in contact with the guy in the video, I'm doing a project
It’s not the easy way out, it’s incredibly difficult, brave and honorable. People who say it’s the easy way out are already living an easy life.
Horsesh*t to the caring commenters.
You say you care but if one dollars is left on the table you'd cut anyone in your way.
Hey Gabby,
I don't think I'd ever visit the forest myself. But I do have some answers to your question about the silence.
"The volcanic rock which the forest grows out of is naturally porous. This means it absorbs sound, making the forest oddly quiet and serene.
Also contributing to the silence is the fact that parts of the forest are very dense
In addition, volcanic rock is often naturally magnetic."
Hence your compass was messing with you.
I Want To Say Every One That Suicide Is Not An Answer
Leave Your Beautifull Life
I actually just visited this forest today. I went with a few friends and we decided to follow some of the "ropes" that we came across. We only made it to the end of one that was actually just dental floss wrapped around the trees. It was really weird because when we reached the end there was a pile of stuff. Like there was boxers, socks, glasses, and then a bottle of medicine and a notebook underneath it, but since the dental floss ended we figured that we shouldn't go any further because its so easy to get lost and we didn't have any string with us. Plus none of us touched the stuff because of the whole respect the dead aspect of everything, but it was interesting to hear in the documentary that sleeping pills were the second most common way to commit suicide in the forest and also that if you follow the rope then you'll always find something at the end. It just fit what we saw so perfectly.
Side Note: The magnetic field really does mess with compasses and also your phone too. What makes it even creepier is that you don't hear any birds chirping, insects flying around or really see any sort of wild life. Like I'm terrified of spiders but I didn't even come across a web once or any insect. So I was surprised to hear all those birds in this doc. I wonder if they just added some foley.
I watched this a while back. I can understand why people would head into a forest like this. Not for the folk tales of the supernatural, but the peace it brings, to allow you to truly contemplate what is really eating away at you inside. The peace can, in a way, act to lower ones inhibition, allowing one to find themselves and perhaps within find a meaning to living, whilst for others it can remove the final mental block, allowing them to be at peace as they choose the, as others would think, less favourable path.
I've been there, I still am. Still taking meds. I've tried to OD, hang myself and cut my neck but failed. Yet I still find no meaning for myself, I just continue biding my time until I can gather enough energy to try again.
It's something you can't really explain to people no matter how much you wish you could, even if they would truly listen.
When I see the doctor, there is only ever one question, and I can never get past it.
"What do you want out of life?" I want nothing.
Is it really a pu**y way out? Think for a few minutes. Life has gotten to the point, when you have tried anything and no one is here to help. No one is given you the answers you are looking for. So much pressure,depression, sadness, hurt,on this Earth, even if you take medication, it can make you worse. Seeing a professional, can not take away how you really feel inside once you have made up your decision. Sometimes it is better to let go. For all of us, try to see the warning signs, try to help if you can, but don't judge.
I don't think it is that bad I mean if they want to kill themselves go ahead and let them do it.
It was hard to watch, I wish they had more forest rangers so more suicides could be interrupted.
One of my passions has always been trying to give/share hope and love, and I'd like to hear these people's stories...I'm writing a blog and future books (I hope), to offer hope in general and perhaps address this. I have to become a student of cultures first, so that I can write sensitively.
And to those asking, last I knew, South Korea has a higher suicide rate than Japan.
Rule number 1 don't kill yourself!!!!!!!!
The guy in the tent is probably hanging from a tree I thought he was there to help people but in the video he walked away my point is if people want to die they will die no one will stop them its there life they can end it if they want but I just think its the pu**y way out
I found this really eerie and I watch a lot of similar documentarys, wish the documentary. Was in full.? Any one know where to find it, brave man, I found the skeleton. Haunting and desperately sad
I want to watch the rest of this video? Where i can find it?
where is the rest of this????
Didnt answer question for me ... when did this start happening and why. Okay, monks, but doesnt give enough info!!
i can see why someone would want to go. Things pile up and there are self centered people especially in places like South Florida. in a HUD rental place..looks beautiful.pool plants and such but there is an undercurrent with one staff member that has all the old ones full of fear. She does not believe in God..her choice but evil in thought and actions.,. She seems to get a kick out of being sadistic .. which she cleverly hides when officials are here, Each and every one of the old people she harasses is treated as if they made things up. Maintenance and all tenants are told not to talk to talk to them. I AM SURE A LOT WE SEE JUST WITHER AWAY ARE REALLY SUICIDES IN A LONG WAY INSTEAD OF AT ONCE. SOME WERE REALLY CREATIVE AND WITH TREMENDOUS PERSONALITIES UNTIL SHE DESTROYED THEM. I AM FIGHTING THAT. I CANNOT BELIEVE WHAT SHE IS DOING. I ALMOST WELCOME GOING..AND THAT IS NOT LIKE ME AT ALL. CANNOT TAKE HER WITH ME. DAMN!
I love it at the end where the ad comes up. "Want to see more? Sure you do." Lol.
The production of the vdo is a bit too dramatic and definitely balancing on 'romantic' visions of suicide. The "Jukai" is a vehicle for the destination of suicide in Japan as as guns are vehicles for suicides in America - no overtones of mysteries with a morsel of logic applied to the environment. I would appreciate a more objective piece of documentary journalism starting with removing altogether the lucid musical score that is in contrast with the serene ambient sounds of the Aokigahara forest. Although the commentary could be valid there is very little empirical data to back up nearly all of his subjective insights. "After the novel Kuroi Jukai 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." Seriously, WHERE is the supporting evidence to the "films" abstract? Because of a novel people commit suicide in the Aokigahara forest - Lame. I don't respect the directors vision on this subject matter and request that the vdo be removed until there is something other than hearsay to report. You could compare this 'documentary' to the endless AP reports that flagrantly throw "upon condition of anonymity" around like it's oxygen to sustain life. This production could inspire more suicides rather then prevent them from happening (just like the novel of course lol). Romance IS dangerous, never mind 'could be' the world is infatuated and infected by its splendor!
for the past few days I was planning to quit my life. I am getting fed up with this diabolical society. Still, I am alive and want to live, because everybody lives once. why should not we make an another attempt, being determined to stand out against repelling forces?
The words are still echoing in my mind _ to coexist, we should need to see each other's faces .....................
Thanks to the team for making such a fine video on the topic of suicide.
my father commited suicide just before the turn of the century. he had spent a few decades as a career criminal (though he prefered the term "outlaw" for its more romantic implications). having spent a decade and a half "on the lam", and seeing the latest round of laws enacted that would have eventually resulted in his capture and incarceration, he chose to end his life on his own terms, rather than spending his final days locked in a cage(he was, as we call them here in the states, a "3 time loser", so it was a foregone conclusion that his capture would result in a life sentence). he chose a similar setting (though less remote) as those in this short doc, and i have come to the conclusion that it had to do with the tranquility of the setting. a person consumed by a self perceived life of chaos and struggle might well find some solace in the concept of spending eternity in such tranquil surroundings. "peace at last, and forever", as it were. though im sure few of the folks in this forest had similar experience in the lead in to their demise at their own hand, im fairly certain as to their similar perception of the unsustainability of their existance, and the pointlessness of struggling on (no matter how ill-conceived). i share this tale not in a bid for sympathetic response, but to illustrate that i have had a good motivation to deeply contemplate the causal reasoning behind such a choice of setting, and the act itself. though i have nothing to qualify it with, the remoteness may well have to do with a lessened likelihood of discovery, allowing surviving friends and family the fantasy of "he just ran off and made good somewhere" to spare them the trauma of the truth.
I think we're only a generation or two away from the realization that as sentient beings we have the right to determine when and how our lives end. While I agree that teen suicide is tragic, consider how ghastly are the prospects of a 70-year-old with bone cancer. To that person, is a painless and dignified exit too much to ask?
...The only problem with killing yourself, is if it goes wrong, the pain from half killing yourself, must absolutely terrible, then you want to get back to being alive again, and someone to help too. Better to rig 2 or 3 things to kill you, so nothing can go wrong. I heard from a friend about his friend’s brother throwing himself off an apartment building, before he jumped, he doused himself in petrol, set himself alight then jumped, just to make sure in event that if he survived the fall he would burn to death anyway, he did die too.