TUJ Journalism 150- National

Suicide rates in Japan are approximately more than 30,000 Japanese commit suicide per year. According to Mamoru Iga, “Japanese suicide rate is bimodal”. One of the peaks is twenty to twenty-four age. The other rate is sixty-five- and over age group”.

The most famous suicide in Japan is internet suicide. The internet suicide becomes widespread in Japan until around 2003.

According to the Wikipedia homepage, “An Internet suicide is a suicide pact made between individuals who meet on the Internet. The majority of such Internet-related suicide pacts have occurred in Japan, which has one of the highest overall suicide rates in the world”. Japan is the first place where internet suicide occurred.
Why are Japanese youths think chat rooms is useful?

Chat room is the most useful and available method for Japanese youths who desire to commit suicide because Japanese youths who wish to kill themselves gather in the suicide chat room and complain about their own life or school. Many of them think that they do not necessary to go to school.

According to chat room manager who wrote about internet suicide, “chat room is a place like a heaven for Japanese youths who desire to kill themselves because they can discuss whatever they wants to say without talking with face to face. Therefore, they can relax to talk or express their real emotion through the chat room”.

Japanese youths who hope to commit suicide want someone to listen their agony in their life. For instance, there is a conversation between Japanese youth and manager of the chat room. Young Japanese student left a message in a chat room. “Parents cannot comprehend what I think, and I am really cannot find the reason why I should go to school. However, if I will retire going to school, my future become dreadful”. This student complained about school however, he has an effort to think about his life and future. Therefore, responder said “you have enough time to think about yourself. You also need to think about your life. If you cannot find the answer why you should alive, please talk to me again. I want you to talk about anything that you worry”.

Some of the youths listen carefully what responder said in a chat room, and find the answer to alive in a world. However, some of the other youths sometimes do not care about responder’s response in a chat room because these youths are already decided to commit suicide.

In detail, Japanese youth gather in the internet chat room and talk about why they hope to commit suicide or how best to commit suicide through the chat board. They sometimes make a decision not to commit suicide by means of other people’s comments.

The method that is the most famous in Internet suicide is three or four people assembles the place which is basically low possibility to find in a person. They use briquette in order to burn it inside of the car and commit suicide. Their death factor is the Carbon monoxide poisoning death.

According to person who experienced Briquette suicide, “Briquette suicide is distressing, hot and stinking somehow. Besides, aftereffects are not avoidable when they attempt like me. I feel uncomfortable at this really strictly. I suggest people who really want to commit suicide. You must ready to endure the hardest pain in this world”.

It seems that it is the easiest way of committing suicide for most of the Japanese. However, it is just our imagination. In a reality, we cannot understand how Briquette suicide is hard unless we try to experience it.

Why are Japanese youths feel depress to alive in the world?”
The reason is that recent Japanese youth are not good at creating great human relationship with others such as classmates, neighbors. One of the young student told audiences about his own experience through TV called NHK. This student expressed that he has a mental problem when he went to junior high and high school because he could not make friends with other classmates. He also insisted that he could not adapt to school environment. Finally, he considered retire school and stay home every day. He felt loneliness every day more than before because he always stay alone in his room.

Large amount of Japanese youths feel loneliness because they are not good at making friends with others. They also have a communication problem. Japanese youths talks with others through the mobile phone or internet because it is convenient for them.

What kind of things stimulates Japanese youth and make them feel commit suicide?
One of the represent things is internet suicide video. Some of the people who desire to commit suicide advice people that if you want to die by yourself, you should watch video which is about mass suicide called “suicide circle” or “suicide manual”. This video produced for audiences who want to watch horror movie or who want to identify how best to commit suicide.

They also think about a method to commit suicide. Japanese audiences think that these videos affected and stimulated Japanese youth too much. Therefore, they began to think that we can die easily if we make use of same method of how to commit suicide in the video. However, producer wished audiences to think about life more cautiously, so the question is whether producer was really thinking about audiences who desire to commit suicide or not. Of course, producer thought about this problem.

According to the producer who made suicide videos, said “it is up to the person who watch this video and how this person feels about video”. People do not feel a sense of responsibility of producer to show this video to people of all age by this remark. Huge amount of people who want to stay alive cannot survive because they do not have enough money, wealth, healthy condition. Furthermore, the huge numbers of ancient Japanese who lived in the 100 years ago often driven into the situation that must die though they did not want to die. As a result of these, Japanese youth should realize that we fade the sense of values for life.

The other stimulus thing for Japanese youth is book which is called “complete manual for suicide”. This book influenced Japanese youth as well as videos. The author of this book is Osamu Tsurumi. According to Osamu Tsurumi, “this film is not recommending people to commit suicide”. However, so many Japanese complained that some of the people affected and attempt to commit suicide after they read it. What author answered against this opinion is Japanese youths gave him a message about this book, and it said some of Japanese youths could relax when they read this book or encouraged after they read his book.

Many of the things such as internet, video and book which are about suicide have a bad influence on Japanese youth. After they influenced, some of the Japanese youth cannot distinguish the difference between reality and non-reality. This means some of them think suicide is ordinary thing to do. However, some of the others realized that suicide is terrible thing to do. They recognized that a lot of people grieve when I commit suicide and also trouble another person such as relatives, friends, and classmates. This situation leads them to commit suicide.

By Yuichi