So the funny thing about being in a class about death is that as soon as you tell people about it, they begin to tell you their own creepy, weird death stories that they’ve encountered. This is how I came to learn about Japan’s ‘Suicide Forest’ also known as the Aokigahara Forest located at the base of Mt. Fuji.  

This place is what nightmares are made of. Hundreds of people have come here to commit suicide; for three decades a small task force of police and volunteers have been doing annual ‘Death Harvests’ to collect the bodies of those who have successfully managed to kill themselves in the forest.  In the past, the Harvest has collected up to as many as 70 bodies while many others are found throughout the year by people walking or hiking in the forest (who on earth would go walking in this forest? That’s what I want to know).  It has become such an issue that the Japanese government has commissioned signs to be scattered throughout the woods that read things like: “Your life is a precious gift from your parents. Don’t keep your worries to yourself – please seek counseling”.

There are other places in the world where abnormal amounts of suicides take place as well, for example, the Golden Gate Bridge has the highest occurrence of suicides than anywhere else in the world. In fact, there is a great documentary entitled “The Bridge” from 2006 that focuses on the Bridge and its jumpers (it’s a really interesting film, I recommend it). 

So while Aokigahara Forest is not so unusual in this respect, what I find really interesting is why so many people are attracted to this location for the purpose of ending their lives.  Unlike the Golden Gate Bridge, the Aokigahara Forest became popular for suicides after a bestselling novel was written in 1960 by Seicho Matsumoto in which the main characters commit suicide together in the Suicide Forest. Since the novel became popular, suicide rates in the forest skyrocketed.

Of course there are other factors that play a role in encouraging suicide at Aokigahara Forest, but I find the amount of influence a simple piece of popular culture has on suicide rates to be very frightening.  You have to wonder what this says about society in general.

"Japan's harvest of death". The Independent (London). 2000-10-24. Retrieved 2012-02-12.