According to NPA reports, a major suicide trigger in 2010 was depression, and some 57 percent of all the suicide victims were out of work when they died. Among those, men in their 50s were most numerous, though men in their 30s and 40s has been the demographic showing the biggest percentage increase in the past few years.
挿入写真Local anti-suicide patrollers out at night.
"This generation has a lot of difficulty finding permanent jobs, and instead people take on temp work that is unstable and causes great anxiety," said Yukio Saito, executive director of Inochi no Denwa (Lifeline), a volunteer telephone counseling service that last year fielded nearly 70,000 calls from people contemplating suicide.
"Callers most frequently cite mental health and family problems as the reason for contemplating suicide," Saito said. "But behind that are other issues, such as financial problems or losing their job."
Although financial worries are undoubtedly major drivers of modern-day suicide, other unique cultural and historical factors also seem to play a part.
In some countries, suicide is illegal or at least largely unacceptable on religious or other moral grounds, but in Japan there is no such stigma.
"Throughout Japanese history, suicide has never been prohibited on religious or moral grounds," said Cho. "Also, apart from on two specific occasions in the Meiji Era (1868-1912), suicide has never been declared illegal." Lifeline's Saito concurred, saying: "Suicide is quite permissible in Japanese society, something honorable that is even glorified."
The tradition of honorable suicide dates back centuries to Japan's feudal era, when samurai warriors would commit seppuku (ritual disemboweling) as a way to uphold their honor rather than fall into the hands of an enemy.
The present-day acceptance of suicide stems from this, Cho said. "Vestiges of the seppuku culture can be seen today in the way suicide is viewed as a way of taking responsibility," he observed.
Japan is also subject to suicide fads, and Seicho Matsumoto's 1961 novel "Nami no To" ("Tower of Waves") started a trend for love-vexed couples, and then jobless people, to commit suicide in the Aokigahara Jukai.
The book, which this year posts its 50th anniversary, concludes with its beautiful heroine, who is involved in a socially unacceptable relationship, heading into the forest to end her life.
In fact that suicide trend in the forest peaked in 2004, when Yamanashi prefectural police figures show 108 people killed themselves there.
