The Suicide Boom

You never know what’s going to get popular in Japan next: maybe horn-rimmed glasses will suddenly come back into vogue, or a new restaurant will open in Akihabara selling gourmet instant cup ramen prepared by pretty girls in maid costumes (this actually exists). Sadly, there’s been a tragic “boom” in Japan involving suicides using a concoction of easily available household chemicals which, when mixed, make for the perfect way to die. (Well, that’s if you consider being paralyzed and slowly suffocating over two hours to be perfect.) So far there’ve been more than 40 cases involving the chemicals, not counting related deaths like the father who tried to save his son and also succumbed to the fumes, and it’s feared the number will keep growing. There are many reasons why more Japanese are likely to willingly visit that sashimi bar in the sky, including the high degree of stress in Japan’s overly urbanized society and differing attitudes about death in a country that has glorified suicide in the past, in the form of classic novels of shinju, or lovers’ suicide; seppuku, the ritual self-disembowling of samurai; and of course kamikaze. Still, there are real reasons why there are so many suicides in modern Japan, including the near total lack of counseling services, the tendency for Japanese to widely ignore such services when they do exist, and mistrust of virtually all medications, making it rare for depressed people to be given drugs that might be able to help them. The government could be doing more, too: recent changes in traffic laws have managed to bring the annual number of people killed in traffic accidents to a record low of under 6000 per year (compared to 40,000 in the U.S.), but there are few visible signs that the government is trying to do anything to stop suicides. Although Japan has quite a reputation as a suicide country, it’s only 10th in the world, with countries like South Korea, Russia and Lithuania ranking considerably higher.

Let’s all keep on being supportive of each other and not be suicidal or anything, m’kay? We love you!