The Most Famous Suicide Forest in Japan
The Most Famous Suicide Forest in Japan
Internationally known as the "Suicide Forest", it is located along Mount Fuji in Japan, and some consider it the most terrifying and infested place in the world.
Since 1950, nearly 150 people have disappeared in the forest without explanation, and according to National Geographic, local authorities found about 36 bodies from the previous number at one time in one of the search periods.
Aokigahara (青木ヶ原) is a forest located in the foothills of Mt. Fuji in the Yamanashi Prefecture. Before obtaining the name “Suicide Forest”, this mysterious place was called Jukai, 樹海, meaning “the Sea of Trees.”
It’s known to be the most well-known suicide destination in Japan and the world. It’s the number two place with the highest number of suicide, after the Golden Gate Bridge, in California. This might sound a little eerie. As the forest is very lush and wide, some corpses can go undiscovered for years. Thus, the statistics about the deaths there sometimes vary.
Aokigahara is not like any other typical forest. Because of its igneous rock soil, produced by the last eruption of Mount Fuji, the ground is rough and bumpy. Several caves lie deep under the ground, perforated by widespread roots. The trees here are mostly conifers, cypresses, and shrubs growing for 100 years or more. Thanks to this, Aokigahara is also well known by people who like bird-watching and walking in nature.
However, the trees are dense, and the lack of human presence in the overall space is why this place seems so isolated from our cozier reality. This isolation, motive, bad reputation, lack of life around, and the whole environment can break a disturbed person and push them off the edge of their sanity. Most people who attempt suicide in Aokigahara do it by hanging or overdosing themselves with poison. The forest is patrolled by volunteers, not as an attempt to rescue people but to recover the corpse remains.
It’s unclear why this forest began to be commonplace for suicide. There are legends about a certain curse of the forest: inhabited by suffering souls of the past, this place would attract sensible, fragile, and weak people to end their pains.
During the 90s, crime novels were also written, increasing these legends. A famous one is “Kuroi Jukai,” written by Seicho Matsumoto in 1960, which ends with the dramatic suicide of two lovers right in the Aokigahara forest.
In 1933, Wataru Tsurumi explained the best ways to suicide in its Kanzen Jisatsu Manuaru, the “Complete Manual of Suicide”. The aim was not to encourage people to commit suicide, of course, but to encourage them to live through pain, knowing that at the worst crucial moment, one can escape pain by committing suicide. The author also describes the best places to give up life, and Aokigahara forest is on the list. It seems that copies of this book are found among the belongings of the suicide victims.
Because of its infamous reputation, many tourists and filmmakers are attracted to this place. The government prohibits Filming in Aokigahara, but official films were produced. The most recent one, released in 2016, is “The Forest.” Of course, it’s a horror film where a young woman enters the Aokigahara Forest to find her sister.
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