Near a waterfall in a bamboo forest a Samurai warrior in white robes places a knife in his abdomen and slides it across his belly. Just before he screams out in agony, another Samurai slices with a downward motion like death from above into the neck of the first warrior, stopping short of the throat to just leave the head in tact. Japan’s society has always had an understanding, or acceptance of the practice of suicide. Though this may seem like a time long ago, suicides in Japan are not just a long forgotten warrior ritual. Suicide has entered the 21st century in Japan, and had hit the ground running, as Japan’s suicide rate skyrockets at an alarming pace, due to the lack of stigma suicide has in the Japanese culture, financial problems with the middle aged, and social pressures in young people.

Suicides in Japan have become everyday events, as almost one hundred people kill themselves every fifteen minutes in the island nation. Studies showed in 2003 that more than 34,000 people in Japan had killed themselves in that year alone, most male and over the age of sixty. Forty-five percent of the suicides in 2003 were due to health problems, while about a quarter of the suicides were due to economic and financial troubles. But more astounding, rather than how many, is the way they carry out the suicides.

Imagine scouring the Internet for people to die with. This phenomenon known as an “internet death pact” originated in Japan in 2000, and has killed 123 people since October 2004. These pacts are usually carried out by groups of young people who meet online in a “suicide club”, a chat room or website where people looking to kill themselves come together. Astonishingly, the most common way of committing suicide in a pact is lighting a large charcoal oven in a sealed environment resulting in death by asphyxiation. Although this method is catching on, especially in younger people, death by hanging is still the most common form of suicide in Japan.

“Please consult the police before you decide to die!” Those are the words inscribed on a sign in Aokigahara Forest, one of the grisliest places in Japan. The forest, sitting at the base of Mt. Fugi, was described in Wataru Tsurumui’s book The Complete Manual of Suicide, as the “perfect place to die”. Due to the best selling book’s description of the dense, dark forest coupled with the fact that it borders the sacred Mt. Fugi, has made this spot one of the most desirable spots to commit suicide. In 2002, seventy-eight bodies were found hanging from the trees within the forest, and by May of 2006, at least sixteen new suicides had already been found, causing more problems in the area.

Homeowners near the forest are becoming more and more scarce, as people rush to get out of sight of the grisly events. Not only are the homeowners running away, the park service at that location has had trouble keeping staff there. The park service, which performs weekly searches in the forest for dead bodies, has had numerous resignations over time, and is largely resigned to having park rangers come in from elsewhere to perform the searches, as opposed to having permanent staff there.

Although the Japanese openly admit that suicide can be an honorable thing, they are less willing to admit modern causes of suicide in their society. Hikikomori, a Japanese term for total social withdrawal, affects approximately 500,000 to 1,000,000 adolescents in Japan today. Hikikomori can be one of the first signs of suicidal tendencies in young people, as the affected person gets more and more excluded, and seeks more and more extreme measures of isolation. Hikikomori is usually brought about by the excruciating pressure on young Japanese people to do well in school, and to perform their roles in Japanese society.

Although Japanese society may not be quick to admit the problem, studies have shown that school bullying and pressure from the overbearing society are the two most common reasons for suicide in young adults. Bullying has inundated Japanese schools for some time now, as the pressure to conform to the group grows larger every year. Just recently, a Japanese student sent a letter to Japanese minister of education Bunmei Ibuki. The letter was written anonymously, and stated that he would kill himself if the other kids didn’t stop bullying him. Ibuki issued a televised plea to the student, urging to come forward for help, fearing copycat suicide attempts. That weekend, Ibuki received twenty-four more letters, and ultimately six more students killed themselves, along with a teacher who was fired for not stopping bullying incidents.

This wave of new kid-suicide has finally reached some attention due to the disturbing numbers of kids affected by bullying. A study recently conducted with 6,400 students showed that over 62.7 percent of young women were verbally or physically harassed, along with 55.6 percent of males. The students are resorting to suicide largely because they feel a detachment from their parents, causing a rift of communication. Help centers in Japan set up to directly combat the lack of communication are inundated with over 120,000 calls each year with kids thinking of suicide who need someone to communicate with. A wave of televised advertisements from celebrities and psychiatrists have hit the Japanese television urging kids to seek help, and to talk to their parents. But parents say this is not enough, placing the blame on schools for suppressing bullying incidents, not reporting them to the authorities, and urging kids not to come forward. This, authorities say results in a vicious circle, in which the parents are left excommunicated from their children, and the school system.

The people that make it through adolescents often find themselves stuck in an equally frantic situation. With Japan’s economy sinking lower, it is not uncommon to see Japanese businessmen hurling themselves off tops of office buildings, hanging themselves, or even jumping in front of Japan’s many bullet trains. Along with the economy, work related stress is a regular issue in Japan, due to the lack of worker rights. Overstressed and often working over 150 overtime hours a month, Japanese businessmen are often looking more and more to suicide as a way of escaping social pressures. Due to the high suicide rates in businessmen, companies have instituted stress-relieving techniques such as yoga into the workplace, albeit with little success.

Suicide has always been an accepted and even glorified practice in Japan; it has been so rooted in Japanese society, the populace itself has transformed around the phenomenon. Whether from bullying, financial troubles, or societies pressures, many Japanese consider suicide an art form, and hardly look at it as a loss of life. Couple this with the aforementioned motives; it is safe to say, in Japan, suicide is here to stay.