Timesuck with Dan Cummins - 88 - Aokigahara: Japan's Suicide Forest

Starting point is 00:00:00 An alarming number of Japanese citizens have taken a dark pilgrimage to the Okigahara forest, more commonly known as Japan's suicide forest, to end their lives most commonly by hanging themselves. An untold number have wandered in and have never wandered out. Beginning in the 1960s, between approximately 10 and 30 people each year spent their last living moments in this forest at the base of Mount Fuji. And the number of annual suicides has greatly increased recently, and 2,000-3 105 bodies were discovered. Comprehensive data on lives lost in the forest doesn't seem to have been released since 2003, which is not a good sign.

Starting point is 00:00:37 Why here? Why is a small patch of serene forest the second most popular suicide destination in the world, thought to trail only the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. More than 1500 people have jumped off that bridge and died since construction was completed in 1937. So many that the US government has decided to build the world's most expensive safety net. A stainless steel net located about 20 feet below the bridge of sidewalk. We'll span 1.7 miles of roadway on each side of the bridge and extend 20 feet out over the water.

Starting point is 00:01:10 It's going to take four years to construct and we'll cost just over 200 million. Should be finished by 2021. And while that net will certainly make it a hell of a lot harder for people to throw themselves off of that bridge, how do you stop people from taking their lives in a 30 square kilometer patch of forest? You can't put a net under every tree. We're going to break down Japan's suicide dilemma, both with the suicide forest within it and without it. It has one of the highest suicide rates of any country in the world. I'm going Gonna look at all sorts of explanations, including some terrifying Japanese paranormal legends today on TimeSuck.

Starting point is 00:01:50 You're listening to TimeSuck. Happy Monday, TimeSuckers, or Tuesday, Friday, last Monday, for any time traveling time suckers or Tuesday, Friday, last Monday for any time traveling time suckers or whenever you're, you know, just happening to let the suck knowledge slap your hair in biscuits. I'm the man some call the suck master. The man my mom calls Daniel Boone. Man, a lot of Starbucks breest is called Don.

Starting point is 00:02:19 I can call Don a lot of Starbucks. Apparently I need to speak up and announce it because I'm Dan Cummins. And you are listening to Time Suck. Welcome to the cult of the curious, Hail Nimrod in the Suck dungeon again today. Recorded this one a little early because the Reverend Dr. Josh Crelz on vacation is coming Monday, he's gonna be whooping it up in Disneyland.

Starting point is 00:02:40 Gonna be possibly crying and shaking on the pirates of the Caribbean ride because you know, get kind of dark in there You can hear lost spooky voices and that's nothing to be ashamed of if you're four years old If you're Josh and you do get scared that it is something to be ashamed of and we can talk about when he gets back Another open house reminder just to be clear. It's just a busy now our situation. You know nothing fancy This is a chance for anyone who wants to come by say hi. See how the whole shebang works To be able to do so.

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Starting point is 00:06:00 to a little sucker, special shout out to time sucker and space lizard Cody Asuna and his son, Bohanan, little Bohanan, little space noot, only one year old who listens to this show, listens to the secret suck with his dad, got bit by a dog recently, needed six stitches to a cheek, four stitches across his tongue, he's doing fine, he's doing fine, but you know, it hurts, it never hurts, and he can't suck on a bank bank you with those tongue stitches, you know, no bank, no puff of those baby smokes. So, you know, it's frustrating for boy handing for dad, Cody and everybody I'm sure.

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Starting point is 00:07:53 So now it's digging to, let's dig into some darkness. Let's find out what the hell is going on. Why are bad things happening in Japan's suicide forest? Quick note about today's episode. I'll be making jokes during an episode on suicide. I will not be making fun of suicide, suicide, not a fucking joke. Anyone listening to this, think of yourself harm, please reconsider. Do not stay quiet if you're having thoughts darker than anything Luciferina could put in your head. Reach out to someone genuinely seek help.

Starting point is 00:08:30 Think about those you believe in behind. Hit pause. Re-evaluate the potential of your life. How you could change it. You know, thank you fucked up too bad. Made too many mistakes. Volunteer at youth or homeless shelters. Teach others not to make the mistakes you've made.

Starting point is 00:08:43 They're still so much good you can do. Talk to someone who can provide a different point of view. Hold on a little longer. Reach out. Call the suicide, you know, hotline, suicide prevention, uh, helpline, at suicide prevention. All right, god dang it. Suicide Prevention hotline.org. There we go. Three words, not two. Suicide Prevention hotline.org. 1-800 1 800 273 8255. It's not a sponsor. Just don't want to what don't want to lose a listener. Don't want to lose a listener to Nimrod's butthole. You remember that's where you end up, right?

Starting point is 00:09:13 That's time suck mythology. No ball sack for you. Nope, you're not getting Nimrod's heavenly scroat. If you ended up, you go straight to his butthole. But for real, if you know someone listening who is struggling with suicidal thoughts, who is attempted suicide, you go straight to his blood hole. But for real, if you know someone listening who is struggling with suicidal thoughts, who is attempted suicide, you know, if you're someone who knows somebody has died from self harm

Starting point is 00:09:34 and need to talk to somebody else about it, lots of reasons to call that number. Lots of reasons to hit those digits. They're gonna be in the episode description, save yourself, save a friend, make yourself feel better, you know, unless you know for sure that your friend is definitely a serial killer. Like if your friend has showed you several bodies

Starting point is 00:09:50 in his freezer for sure, not CGI, not some kind of prop, then that's one of the few times you don't maybe try and talk about the lich. Overall, good of humanity, better to let them fade out than kill more people. Right? You gotta be honest here on TimeStack. Some people might even think like, dude, come on, you can't even say that. Yeah, you can.

Starting point is 00:10:14 Yeah, you can. If someone's a fucking serial killer, then you do let that person kill themselves. Outside of that, and very few other exceptions, get help. Okay, so we know that a lot of people have taken their lives in the suicide forest, but what about Japan in general? You got to give the forest some cultural context in this land of the rising sun. As recently as 2017, Japan's suicide rate was the sixth highest in the world, second worst among the eight major industrialized nations.

Starting point is 00:10:41 The number of suicides in Japan was 21,897 in 2016, which was actually the lowest total in a bit in 22 years. But suicide's still the leading causal death among people in the 15 to 39 age group. Japan's suicide rate, the number of suicides per 100,000 people, stood at 19.5, as of 2014. Russia topped the list of eight major economies at 21.8. Japan's rate was higher than 15.1 in France, 13.4 in the US, 12, 6 in Germany, 11, 3 in Canada, 7,

Starting point is 00:11:16 5 in Britain, and 7.2 in Italy. The year of most, and that's the year of most recent available statistics in each country. The highest rate was observed in Lithuania. This is troubling. 30.8 out of 100,000 people were recorded to have taken their own lives, followed by 28.5 in South Korea. 24.2 in Suriname. The 11.7 suicide rate for Japanese women was the third highest following South Korea's 7.17.3 and Serenam's 13.4.

Starting point is 00:11:50 Not sure what the hell is going on with Lithuania. That's that semi headed off into a side suck trying to figure why suicide is such an epidemic there. I couldn't find a good answer other than theories on struggling to form an identity in Lithuania's latest kind of post communist national incarnation split from the Soviet Union 1990 But it's so did a lot of other countries in Europe and their suicide rates not nearly as high I guess that country does have poor national mental health resources doesn't have a good mental health system support system and

Starting point is 00:12:18 also Did not know this this might have something has a super high percentage of demons 2014 there were 3.2 demons per capita. That's per person, not per 100,000. Per one person there's 3.2 demons, which is 350 times the worldwide average. It's 400 times what's common in Europe. And there are also at least 10 open portals to hell in Lithuania. at least 10 open portals to hell in Lithuania.

Starting point is 00:12:49 And also the citizens of at least four different towns have been attacked constantly by real monsters for the last several years. So no formal study, but a lot of demons, a lot of hell portals, a lot of monsters. I don't know, that's just what I read on a fucking website that exists only in my head, because that is bananas. We're not talking about Lithuania, we're talking about Japan.

Starting point is 00:13:10 Why are Japanese suicide rates so high? Well for starters, suicide is viewed very differently in Japan than it is in the US. I always find this kind of stuff fascinating. We all have our world view, we all have this lens we see reality through that's very, very, very, uh, been shaped, you know, by the culture we came up in, the culture we live in. And sometimes just things you take for granted where you're like, oh, yeah, you don't, you don't care. So kill yourself. That's horrible. Well, just because we think that here doesn't mean another, you know,

Starting point is 00:13:36 culture believes the same thing. Uh, people can have a very different perspective on it. And Japan does historically have a very different perspective on it. Uh, Yoshinori, Yoshinori,ori, the director of psychiatry at Tikiyo University in Kawasaki, Kanagawa, explains how while an America's suicide is almost always culturally viewed as shameful, cowardly, selfish act, it can be seen actually as an honorable way out in Japan, an honorable solution to your problems thanks to Japan's samurai tradition in part. So let's talk about the subuku.

Starting point is 00:14:10 Subuku called Harakari, Harakiri, there we go, Harakiri. In the Western world, see some of these, I'm trying to do the proper pronunciation. That's always, I've always heard it's like, Harry, carry, that's definitely wrong. That is definitely wrong if you're trying to pronounce it right. Horror, horror, horror, Kiri. And I feel like it's so fucking easy for me to slide into

Starting point is 00:14:33 like the stereotypical white guy trying to do an Asian voice that I feel like so fucking nervous when I do Japanese words too. Like, ah, head of Keti. Like I'm trying to do like this crazy, like horrible, like borderline racist, you know, like, ah, supple cool, okay. Like, so I'm trying not to do that. Trying to do it justice. Try not to just do a fucking weird,

Starting point is 00:14:56 white English version of it. It's gonna be, it's gonna be a balancing act. Gonna be tricky. Gonna be tricky. I'm walking a tightrope this episode. So yeah, this hara kiri is the ancient samurai act of ceremonial suicide. It was first recorded in 1180 CE. And why would samurai kill themselves? To answer that, we need to brief explanation of who the

Starting point is 00:15:15 samurai even were. The samurai were a warrior class, prominent in feudal Japan, between the 12th century, all the way until April of last year and then last April two million samurai handed in their swords to the Japanese government in exchange for new PlayStation 5s, which you're like what's the PlayStation 5? Well they have shit over there. We don't even fucking know about. There's several years ahead of us. No, no, but it did last until pretty recent, less until 19th century And the samurai valued honor above everything else. They lived by a very strict code that was based on that old hardcore phrase, phrase, excuse me, death before dishonor.

Starting point is 00:15:53 They took that shit very seriously. The samurai culture developed in the 12th and 13th centuries distinct from the culture of the rest of Imperial Japan. They became, kind of like these warrior monks, and they lived by the tenants of what became known as the Bouchida, Bouchida, the warrior code, which sounds like an awesome way to live until you realize that it includes some rules

Starting point is 00:16:14 like killing yourself if your feudal lord happens to be killed, which seems a little hardcore for my taste, and that Bouchida, or Bouchida, code stressed on questioning loyalty and obedience, and again, valued honor above even life. And I'm sure now we're gonna do a samurai suck at some point. That would be super cool.

Starting point is 00:16:32 This is really peak my interest in this suck. Japan had a military government from 1192 to 1867 CE called a Shogunit. Now it was led by a Shogun, and the title applied originally to the chief military commander, and then it became a herogunit. Now it was led by a shogun, and the title applied originally to the chief military commander, and then it became a hereditary position. So kind of like a second emperor,

Starting point is 00:16:51 technically legally the shogunit was under the control of the emperor, and the shogun's authority was in theory, limited to the control of the military forces of the country, and then kind of like second command to the emperor, but really the position of emperor became just kind of a puppet position symbolic and the shogun actually ran the show.

Starting point is 00:17:12 The feudal character of Japanese society created a situation in which control of the military became tantamount to control of the country. The emperor remained in his palace in Kyoto, chiefly is a symbol of sovereignty behind the shogun and the samurai were loyal to the Damias who are feudal lords and the Damias were loyal to the Shogun. Being a samurai was to be the Confucian perfect gentleman samurai were taught that their essential function was to exemplify virtue to lower classes. So they you know know, they carry themselves as role models. They're supposed to show what class and honor and dignity looks like to the rest of society.

Starting point is 00:17:49 Obedience to authority is stressed, but duty comes first, even if it means breaking the law, the extent to which duty superseded all else is perhaps best exemplified by the story of the 47 Ronan from the early 18th century. Ronan being Samurai who are no longer serving a feudal lord. Their lord has died. The Samurai had become masterless after their lord had been treacherously murdered and then they avenged their lord's death and afterward all were ordered to commit a subpooku. The precise content of the Bushida code varied historically as the Samurai class came under the influence of Zen Buddhist and Confucian thought, but it's one unchanging ideal with martial spirit, including athletic and military skills, as well as fearlessness towards the enemy in battle.

Starting point is 00:18:33 Fruble limit, frugal living, kindness, honesty, personal honor, also highly regarded as was a piety, piety, piety. That's fucking these words. You know what sucks about pronunciation when your brain doesn't like comprehend this basic, like you've spoken, I guess, your own variation unto yourself of English your whole life is I can write all of the pronunciation guides I fucking want to, but memorizing exactly what all of them mean just as a whole another ballgame. So paiddy, paiddy, what a fuck and whatever. As well as you know being humble, there we go, fuck that word.

Starting point is 00:19:11 However, the supreme obligation of the samurai was to his lord, even if this might cause suffering to his parents. And the samurai were bound by the code of Bushito to kill themselves rather than bring this honor to themselves or their da mian or the show gun, their families, community, et cetera. If captured by the enemy was imminent, they would commit, uh, Sopuku rather than be taken. If their Damiya was killed, they would commit, uh, Sopuku, if they brought dishonor on themselves in a number of ways,

Starting point is 00:19:37 done something unforgivable by their code, they would commit Sopuku. In 1945, after their defeat in World War II, many Japanese military officials and civilians uh... committed voluntary support who out of a resolute sense of pride and honor the refuse to bend the enemy that's pretty recent still doing that and uh... here's how that ritual would go down in the ancient uh... way uh... the samurai if time allowed and and your enemy wasn't kicking in your door trying to try to capture you uh... prior Prior to the event, so for whatever reason,

Starting point is 00:20:08 their master essentially has died. They have no one to serve anymore. They've lost in battle. They did something that broke their code. Could've been as simple as cheating on who they're supposed to be with or having sex with some Mary, I mean, who knows? There's probably all these little ways

Starting point is 00:20:28 you can dishonor yourself. And if they feel like the best way to cleanse their palate, I guess, I don't fully understand it. It's to take a whole, another sucked, understand exactly what their code entails. You probably honestly, to be, I mean, completely honest, have to be raised in that culture to really fully understand it.

Starting point is 00:20:49 But whatever, they've done something that they felt was dishonorable and the way to make it right is to commit subpoco, and kill themselves. And also you could like do it to bring honored to your family. So it could even be something like,

Starting point is 00:21:03 you didn't even do it. But your family, somebody else in your family does something very dishonorable. And I guess you can like do it to bring honor to your family. So it could even be something like, you didn't even do it. But your family, somebody else in your family does something very dishonorable. And I guess you can like restore their honor by taking your own life in that situation too. Don't fully understand all the rules. But here's what they would do to commit it. They would drink some sake to get ready

Starting point is 00:21:18 for what they were about to do. You know, you'd think they'd be able to drink a lot of sake, but no, we'll find out exactly how much they're able to drink here in a second. Large white cushion would be placed, and witnesses would arrange themselves just greatly to one side. Oh, yeah, and I'm gonna correct myself already.

Starting point is 00:21:32 I'm gonna update myself. I thought you got to drink the sake. I left that note in there, and that's a, I think an incorrect note. You don't drink the sake first. It's all like very sequential. Yeah, took a second to get my head around this. You get a large white cushion.

Starting point is 00:21:48 That's placed, you know, that you get to like, kind of kneel on. There's witnesses, they arrange themselves. Kind of behind you in a little line. You wear a white kimono, you kneel on the pillow, very formal style, you know, postures important. I mean, everything is like, to every little detail is accounted for.

Starting point is 00:22:04 Behind and to the left of the samurai. Now, their assistants, servants would place a wooden table before the samurai, which would contain a sake cup, a sheaf of washi, paper handmade from Mulberry Bark, writing utensils as well as the Kuzuka, a disembowling blade. Although the samurai would be allowed to use their own sword if they preferred, the Socky Cup was then filled from the left by an attendant. I love like, I mean, every little detail should be followed. The samurai then empties the cup in two drinks of exactly two Sips each. As one sip would show greed and three or more sips would show hesitation.

Starting point is 00:22:45 So they would make a total of four sips. That also being symbolic, the character she, which means four also means death. I mean, this shit is hardcore. If I was about to disembowel myself, it'd be very hard to stop at four sips of rice wine. It's like, could I have one sip of rice wine and then an entire bottle of Everclear?

Starting point is 00:23:06 Can I be given four fat lines of coke? You know what, actually, can I have four syringes full of pure heroin? Why the writing utensils? Well, before committing a subcoucou, a samurai would write a jacé, probably not pronouncing that one right, a death poem, it would write a death poem,

Starting point is 00:23:22 which was considered important as a person facing imminent death was believed to have a special insight into the nature of death, the nature and value of life. The poem should be graceful and natural, usually in the theme of transient emotions. I mean, so many fucking rules and rituals, even mentioning the samurai's impending death in the poem as considered poor form, that's uncouth, that's bad taste. This is also important for the samurai is the poem would serve as a written glimpse into his nobility of character and how he wished to be remembered after death. So, you know, you know, the way he'd be revered afterwards, the way his family

Starting point is 00:23:54 would be honored in his honor can be affected by this poem. Asanu, Naganoi, for example, who subbuku precipitated the famous incident of the 47 Ronan, is said to have written a particularly poor death poem. I guess he implied the impending end to his life thereby, you know, he showed a little immaturity, little lack of character. What a fucking baby. Come on, dude. Man up and write a nice poem before sliced and open your own fucking stomach.

Starting point is 00:24:19 And then having your assistant, you know, cut your head off. I hope that if I were writing a death poem poem that the Reverend Dr. Josh Crel would remind me to ride it in the correct, respectful way before quickly cutting off my head. And if it was grammatically incorrect, time suck editor Jesse Dobner would also have to commit subpooku. Josh would have to cut off his head as well. So many heads are going to get cut off. But they didn't have to cut their heads off.

Starting point is 00:24:45 That's part of the ritual. So according to tradition, this is so hardcore. When the samurai felt ready, he would loosen the folds of his kimono, exposing his stomach. He would then lift this big knife, you know, or his sword, you know, his choice with one hand, unsheath it with the other, set the sheath carefully to one side. He would mentally prepare himself for a few moments, then quickly drive the knife into the left side of a stomach, and then draw it across to the right. See what I'm saying? You're just like, you just like stab yourself and then pull it across

Starting point is 00:25:17 your stomach, ripping it, everything inside of you to the right. And then he would turn the blade in his wound and bring it upward. I guess you upward a little bit and then you're done. Then you're completely disemboweled. Now, most samurai did not have to endure this last agony as their assistant would cut their head off at the first side of pain. I would be super pissed if Josh, if I'm like, my fucking guts are hanging out and he's, you know, he's text in or something or, you know, he's fine. I just got his headphones on. He's listening to me dude come on fucking head off you supposed to 30 seconds ago

Starting point is 00:25:49 God come on. I'm so mad. You're not cut my head off right now Jesus Yeah, usually the in the in the cut that this like to finish them off Was known as a jimongionji, like a cross-white cut to perform it in its entire, oh yeah, so that stomach cut had like a term for it. Jumonji, a proi pronounce not wrong too, a cross-white cut, and if you performed it in its entirety, I guess that was like, you know,

Starting point is 00:26:17 you're super honored, you're super revered then, because that was particularly impressive, yeah, I bet. And why the stomach, because I was like, I wanted like And why the stomach? Because I was like, why would that seems like a terrible place to kill yourself. This is like one of the worst ways to do it. Well, it's because they believed the human spirit resided in the stomach and that slitting the stomach open was considered to be the most straightforward and bravest way to die. Therefore, this act is a privilege reserved for the samurai samurai commoners not allowed to even do that to themselves

Starting point is 00:26:46 which i don't know how you regulate that you know someone killed themselves is kind of hard to be like you know what are you what are you gonna uh... revive them and then killed them again as punishment i don't know what you would do to put them they're not supposed to do it commoners were supposed to if they want to kill themselves was to hang themselves or drown themselves

Starting point is 00:27:03 uh... samurai women called uh... uh... unabugisha unabugisha to kill themselves, those to hang themselves or drown themselves. Samurai women called Unabugeshah, unabugeshah, could slip their own throats, but only a samurai was allowed to commit subduk. And yes, there were those samurai women, badass warriors who fought alongside the men, definitely doing samurai suck at some point, talk about all of it. Think about the phrase, you know, of only the samurai were culturally allowed to kill themselves in this way, but commoners could hang or drown themselves. That says so much about Japanese culture. So rigid in so many ways.

Starting point is 00:27:33 And so focused on honor and class distinction and all that. You know, it's crazy. Suicide's okay. You can kill yourself. But do not cut your stomach open or your family will suffer dishonor Man and bonus points for cutting open your whole stomach without showing pain fuck that no way I would be a that samurai no, no, I I feel like if I if I was the one who's supposed to commit suboco the other samurai and the little line behind me to witness it

Starting point is 00:28:02 They'd be waiting a long time. They'd wait a long time There'd be a lot of them saying stuff like come on Come on aren't you ready yet? I got to go the bathroom or you know like come on come on dude my legs are asleep. I'm not already Come on, mate. You're supposed to write a quick poem not a book. We got 250 pages there. Oh, fuck sick. Push the sword and already Three of the other witnesses have killed themselves while waiting for you to kill yourself. This shit is ridiculous. There'd be a lot of me saying stuff like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, oh, hold up, hold up, hold up. This sword seems sharp to you. I don't wanna stab myself with a dull sword. I just, maybe you can sharp it a little bit.

Starting point is 00:28:48 Hey, hey guys, I wanna do this, but maybe not today. I'm just, look, I'm nervous, no, this is for you. I'm nervous to cut my stone gobbin' because I think I had a bad egg this morning. Feels like I might have some food poisoning. You know, I got some stuff going on. You can hear, you know, I think, let's reconvene next week, let's reassess. I just, I'm worried about the smell, you know? I got some stuff going on, you can hear. You know, I think let's reconvene next week,

Starting point is 00:29:05 let's reassess, I just, I'm worried about the smell, you know, I don't want that, you don't want that. Anyway, the real samurai tried to keep their composure even on the brink of death, showed their strength, full control over their mind and body in the last moments. You know, any previous reputation of a samurai might be meaningless if they died in an unseemly manner. That would suck. I guess, you know, if your family's all

Starting point is 00:29:29 worried about your honor, like, what if you were some badass samurai, you know, you killed like 40 enemies in battle, you had like scars all over your face, where you've been cut up with swords, you just fucking hand over your shit, but then it'd write it down, you're like, oh no! And then they're like, oh no! It's all for nothing. That was suck. And there were also of course circumstances where you could not commit, subhoku, you didn't have time for that whole ritual,

Starting point is 00:29:54 and there were other acceptable ways of honorably killing yourself, like cutting your throat, if you had to do it quick, maybe some enemies coming to get you. You could also throw yourself from a running horse with a sword in your mouth. That was written in the thing I read about it. That's very specific.

Starting point is 00:30:11 Man, that takes a lot of athletic training to be able to do that. And you could throw yourself off a cliff. That was also allowed. Geez, man. And check out this element of talking about exactly how they wanted things done just so. Check out there's an element of the about exactly how they wanted things done just so check

Starting point is 00:30:25 There's an element of the assistant chopping off their their the samurai's head Which sounds to me like the relationship between that assistant and Sam was like night and squire But I ideally if this ritual went perfectly the assistant would lock off the samurai's head almost but not quite totally off Like not not totally off And you do that one stroke. You get like 90% in one stroke, and then you give a second little tap stroke so that the head drops forward

Starting point is 00:30:52 instead of it goes flying off, or rolling around the room. Because that, if it's too sloppy, that's also not as honorable as they would like it to be. So ideally, I'm not making this up, one big chop, head falls forward, little chop, head drops into your hands. Perfect situation, perfect, most honorable way. You catch your own fucking head, not kidding. Wow. Unbelievable. So there's ads. And before we discuss other

Starting point is 00:31:20 aspects of Japanese culture, that explain a different attitude towards suicide, clearly than we have here in the United States, let's talk about the right way to go to sleep. You're not supposed to make a shit go to sleep, not supposed to make yourself go to sleep forever. Don't do that, call that number we talked about earlier. You are supposed to treat yourself to a good night's sleep, such as laying on the best mattress in the mattress game,

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Starting point is 00:32:57 160 now. When you go to L-E-E-S-A, that's L-E-E-S-A. Dotcom slash time suck. Now let's talk about another cultural thing going on in Japan. Let's talk about kamikazis, right? Because I think, you know, a lot of people not from Japan really looked at that as like, what the fuck is going on there? But I think we're going to get a, we're going to have a much better understanding of why

Starting point is 00:33:20 that was done by the end of this suck. Kamikaze were a group of young Japanese pilots who flew suicide missions, aimed at taking out as many as the enemy as possible to crash their planes, never ejecting themselves in an attempt to survive into allied ships. You know, like they did during the attack

Starting point is 00:33:35 on Pearl Harbor in World War II, about 38 hundred Kamikaze pilots died during World War II, more than 7,000 naval personnel were killed by Kamikaze attacks. While many other countries labeled kamikaze pilots insane fanatics, Japanese viewed them more as determined heroes who sacrificed everything for the security of their family and fellow citizens. They were voluntarily ending their lives with honor. And that was not long ago. It's 1940s. It's again, it reveals a very different perception

Starting point is 00:34:04 regarding suicide that we typically have here in the States. The Japanese word kamikaze is usually translated as divine wind and how dedicated were those kamikaze pilots? I mean, they trained, you know, they trained for months to kill themselves in battle. And they didn't even think they were gonna be sent to some kind of weird harem of virgins, like some Islamic fundamentalist suicide attackers believe.

Starting point is 00:34:25 You know, and I wonder like, like, what did they believe, a way to them on the other side of death? Well, the predominant religion, historically in Japan, is shintoism. It's the world's fifth largest religion, and it's religion of ritual and tradition. Man, a lot of rituals, man. A lot of a lot of stuff in Japanese culture. One of the core beliefs of the shinto religion is the idea that everything possesses a spiritual essence or energy called Kami.

Starting point is 00:34:49 Mountains, rivers, places, animals, and people are said to have Kami inside, hopefully pronouncing that word right. Shinto beliefs about death and the afterlife are considered dark and negative, I guess. That deal old traditions described death as a dark underground realm, with the river separating the living from the dead.

Starting point is 00:35:06 The images can be very similar to Greek mythology, the concept of Hades, it can be similar to Norse mythology and the concept of hell. Can't forget, can't leave out the Norse. Can't forget about the Norse gods and Odin's spider horse. Shinto traditions lean heavily on the concepts of the presence of Kami and not reincarnation, the spiritual energy, and everyone is released and recycled at the time of death. The spirits live in another world, the most sacred of which is called the other world of heaven. That, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that,

Starting point is 00:35:32 that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that and festivals, Shintoists believe that ancestral spirits can protect their descendants. Prayers and rituals perform by the living honor of the dead, memorialize them, and return the spirits of the dead, offer protection and encouragement for the living. Shintoism also views that some individuals live such an exemplary life that become

Starting point is 00:35:59 deified in a process called apostiosis, many in the Imperial family of experiences honor as have successful warriors. So basically, you die in noble warriors death and you make it to the VIP section of the afterlife. And they do have a very, yeah, yeah, interesting and different kind of perception of the afterlife. It sounds like ghosts. It makes sense whether Sony horror movies

Starting point is 00:36:19 coming out of Japan. You know, this like, heaven isn't some, the afterlife isn't some place like way far away. It's like a different kind of parallel dimension almost to our world, where, you know, the spirit are just kind of like right there are always being, you know, they're always around us, always, always around them. People's ancestors still around them, you know, living in some different plane of existence, but not living, you know, somewhere else necessarily. Shintoism being Japan's major religion, it does really play into cultural attitudes towards

Starting point is 00:36:48 suicide because in Shintoism, suicide just not taboo like it is in Christianity. In an article in Psychology Today titled Asian Honor and Suicide, the difference between East and West from 2014, they talk about in the West, given Christianity's view, how suicides become, you know, or long been shrouded in shame. And actually, if you just one of the most grievances, you can commit because you can't ask for forgiveness after you've committed suicide. You know, and you can't call out that kind of final hail Mary. And so your soul ends up being condemned to hell, which makes it kind of like a super, super taboo sin. But in Eastern cultures, it has been seen as a

Starting point is 00:37:25 way of atonement, restoring honor, you know, like with the samurai, a way of protecting a family's legacy from being tarnished. Even as recently 2007, after a high profile cabinet minister in Japan killed themselves while under investigation for financial impropriety, the governor of Tokyo called him a true samurai for preserving his honor. That's just 2007. Now, just not looked at the same way. Adal, one of the ultimate sins and shameful deeds in the US and traditional Japanese faith, it erases the misdeeds and wrongs of life.

Starting point is 00:37:56 You know, it leads to an enlightened soul. But Japan is trying to change this cultural attitude recently. In the early months of this year, 2018, Japan announced that it was rolled out of five of your plan aimed at increasing suicide prevention. just cultural attitude recently. In the early months of this year, 2018, Japan announced that it was rolled out of five-year plan, aimed at increasing suicide prevention. Their goal is to cut suicide rates by 30% over the next five years. So now that you know a little bit about Japan's

Starting point is 00:38:15 historical attitude towards suicide, let's peek into the specifics of the suicide forest itself. All right, let's talk about Okigah uh, uh, uh, Oki Gajara lies at the base of Mount Fuji. Locally, it's known to the much less ominous name of jukai, sea of trees, because it has very high density of trees that are that are green, year round. Looks almost like an ocean when you kind of like, you know, look at it from the mountain. Uh, Mount Fuji, Japan's holy mountain and national icon is the tallest peak in the country. And it's pristine.

Starting point is 00:38:43 Snowcap familiar shape is painted, and imprinted on virtually everything you can imagine. Flag's cup, shirts, hats, posters, ancient and contemporary art, it's majestic image conjures, a sense of awe that transcends time and culture, only 60 miles from the congested streets of Tokyo, but it feels like a completely different world.

Starting point is 00:38:59 And Mount Fuji rises 12,389 feet above sea level, and and otherwise for the most part, gentle landscape where the mountain has long been heralded as being spiritually significant. The Anu, an ancient indigenous group, believed it to be a sacred place named it after the words meaning fire and hearth. Buddhist have also held that it's a powerful and spiritual place. And then the Shinto are the ones who hold it in the highest regard. They've constructed eight major shrines at the base of Mount Fuji. Hundreds of smaller shrines throughout the area. People can pay tribute to their ancestors.

Starting point is 00:39:32 The earliest of the dates of shrine creation goes all the way back to 806 CE. Climbing the Mount itself has been considered an important pilgrimage for centuries and has required the guidance of a holding monk or priest for many generations. And actually, women were not allowed on Mount Fuji at all until 1945, because they were believed by the Shinto to be unclean due to menstruation and childbirth, not making that up. Didn't catch that part of Shintoism earlier.

Starting point is 00:39:59 Shinto has a very complicated attitude towards women. They're seen as conduits between spirits and men described as Miko or children of God. And yet they had those dirty, bloody baby dispensaries. They fuck up all the shrines with their blood vaginas. To this day, there are still shrines that have signs. I looked at some pictures of them asking women to at least wait until 72 days after childbirth.

Starting point is 00:40:21 If you're gonna bring your naughty filth hole around our clean shrine, well, at least fucking wait, you know, a couple of months. You better be careful. Luciferina might just wreak havoc on those shrines. She might make Mount Fuji erupt an anger. If they don't tone down their misogyny, they want to piss off Luciferina, hell Luciferina. Today, thousands of people climb Mount Fuji slopes for several hours in late summer, usually at night, to see the sunrise when you're astounding view at the peak. It's considered, again, a sacred, powerful site. Women are begrudgingly allowed to enjoy now.

Starting point is 00:40:54 And instead, if you have a dream about Mount Fuji, you're gonna have good fortune. And then the Okigahara, the suicide forest lies beneath Mount Fuji's northwestern side. It takes about four hours to get to this isolated forest by train from Tokyo. It's this of about 12 square miles of dense, beautiful forest that grew top, the hardened lava of Mount Fuji's last major eruption in 864 CE. And you know what, I looked at so many articles, I'm going to scrap that. Maybe it does. I'm going to scrap that. Don't hold me to that four-hour

Starting point is 00:41:23 thing. I'm going to update that as we go in real time as well because I looked at that so many articles, I'm gonna scrap that, maybe it does, I'm gonna scrap that, don't hold me to that four hours thing. I'm gonna update that as we go in real time as well, because I looked at that so many different times to say I'm like, wait a minute, 60 miles from Tokyo, but it takes four hours, but the forest is right behind it. Who the fuck, it takes, what's outside of Tokyo? That's not a matter of food, that's all we need to know. Get into a bog down and exactly how many miles from Tokyo does.

Starting point is 00:41:44 The porous lava rock that makes up the ground underneath the forest absorbs sound well, creates a hushed environment that is early quiet. So that's part of maybe what just kind of makes it a little outside of the suicides. It is just kind of, I guess, kind of place to creep people out a little bit. And like if you were to yell for help, it's unlikely people would hear you. It just has a lot of sound absorption, just the natural acoustics of the ground and the forest. That would be weird if you didn't know

Starting point is 00:42:10 that there's built on a type of rock that does that. And it just is extra quiet at night. That would be very unnerving. Outside of park workers themselves, and people wanting to commit suicide, not many locals go there. Local children are told it's haunted, to place full of dark forces. The area first started being called the suicide

Starting point is 00:42:27 force in 1950s or 1960s. I saw some articles that said 1950s, maybe question mark on 1950s. I'm gonna say definitely on early 1960s and we'll understand why when I bring up a book that relates to the suicide force a little bit later on. But people start finding rotting corpses while they're hunt for the gorgeous views of Mount Fuji within a couple of quick decades, volunteers, police, park rangers, journalists,

Starting point is 00:42:55 they're regularly surveying the grounds in search of those contemplating suicide to try and talk them out of it. If you decide to visit for any reason, when you get there, you'll find the forest has a small paved parking lot. That too often, this is pretty sad, has one or several abandoned cars. Hundreds of cars have pulled into that lot with their owners only to eventually leave, you know, without their owners. So many has to tow it away.

Starting point is 00:43:20 And because their owner is no longer in need of a car. Trail leads from the lot into the forest. There's a sign along the trail, the likes of which you probably will never find in another park. It says, your life is a precious gift from your parents. Please think about your parents' siblings and children talk about your troubles and then it advises you to contact

Starting point is 00:43:38 the Suicide Prevention Association in Japan. If you decide to press on, and journey into the breathtaking greenery of the Cypress hemlock and pine trees, you will find some possibly some natural inhabitants on the way. A bit unlikely, but there is Asian black bear bats mice deer boar fox rabbit squirrels birds. They're definitely in that park as well. I had no idea there were bears in Japan like wild bears. Looked them up, Japanese like Asian black bears. Pretty damn cute.

Starting point is 00:44:12 Bigger than I thought, it maxed out at about 270 pounds, so they know they're legit bears. Also very endangered, unless poaching goes down, I guess they're, I think, they'll be extinct within a hundred years. So, it has only about 10,000 left in the whole country. When the sun is up in the forest, you'll hear the quiet chatter of birds, but it's deathly silent at night in the dark. Occasional flowers and mushrooms can be found amongst the ferns and moss covering rocks on the forest floor, tree roots and fallen limbs, snake to the undergrowth over around the rocks and small caverns, creating a creeping sense of

Starting point is 00:44:41 entanglement. It's also just really pretty. I mean, I have watched several videos on it. It is like a very pretty for it. The first kilometer or so of hiking after that parking lot takes you closer to the mountain itself and it's littered with the remnants of other hikers despite the constant upkeep of the officials working there. The trail itself mostly clean, but there's ribbons and ropes,

Starting point is 00:45:00 you know, left tied to trees from previous visitors who wanted to mark their way back to the trail to make sure they didn't get lost in the dense forest. Little pieces of garbage, cut credit cards, empty blister packs from pills, which that's scary. Occasional broken phone. These are all easy to spot along the periphery. Trail markers point out several natural attractions.

Starting point is 00:45:18 There's the narasawa and uh, Fugaku ice caves, uh, the lakeside, bat cave, the Fuji five lakes. The ice caves would be pretty creepy, as the government hadn't sanitized them, with steps and hand railings and signs and lots of concrete, lights and paths and screens and stuff. It's just cave-related water droplets fall to the cave floor and freeze and create these ice, the lagtight and stalagmites, looking formations, I guess stal these ice stalactite and stalagmites. These, you know, looking formations, I guess stalagmites are not technically stalactites and stalagmites, but they look like those,

Starting point is 00:45:50 made out of ice. Super cool actually looking and also a great setting for a horror movie. The farther you venture in, out past the caves, the more pristine the forest becomes, the more foreboding it feels. If you choose to ignore all suggestions, venture off the path, you can easily get lost. All sorts of kind of looks the same. So, you know, which way exactly

Starting point is 00:46:08 did you come from? Given that roughly a hundred bodies have been found each year, although officials have quit posting officially that number in hopes of quelling the phenomena, the longer you wander, loss of the forests or greater your odds of encountering a dead body are going to become. Most of the suicides, as I said earlier, have hang hang themselves, which is nearly always fatal. The majority of the rest choose death by overdose, which isn't nearly as fatal, but there's a good chance that some of those who didn't die right away from the overdose maybe change their mind ended up still dying because they're drugged and disorientated state. They wouldn't be able to figure out how to get back out of the park, you know, and back to civilization to get help.

Starting point is 00:46:46 While the Japanese government is well aware of the high number of suicides in the forest, you know, short of just like not letting one in the forest, which is going to be tricky to fence that entire forest, there isn't much to be done to stop. And even if you did that, people could cut to the fence. I mean, what are you going to patrol an entire forest to try to make people not get in it? You know, again, it's not like the Golden Gate Bridge where you can build a net so people can just not be able to jump into the bay below. If you want to see any of this for yourself, there's quite a few documentaries online about

Starting point is 00:47:12 the suicide force. I watched a short 20 minute vice documentary on YouTube about suicide force where a cameraman follows Nature Guard Azusa Hionna on a walk through the grounds. Now Hionna is a geologist who works in the forest as an environmental protector. And he's also just a good dude. He tells you he's just a good dude. He just doesn't want people to kill themselves and he's trying to find people

Starting point is 00:47:30 and talk him out of it before it's too late. And so he regularly goes on these suicide patrols and search for bodies and people to talk, you know, kind of off the ledge, so to speak. He's lived in the area for over 30 years. He's personally, oh man, I found this. So, horrific, found over a hundred corpses in the last 20 years, well, the 20 years prior to the vice piece.

Starting point is 00:47:50 Holy shit, man, can you imagine discovering that over a hundred dead bodies and not all at once? I mean, that would be terrible, but I would prefer that to having it strung out over two decades where you like, you know, you just, you know, it's been six months, you haven't seen anybody, you just kind of maybe we're Latin, then you see another person, I mean, I guess you could jaded towards it, but God, I just, you know, it's been six months, you haven't seen anybody, you just kind of maybe relax and then you see another person. I mean, I guess you could jaded towards it, but God, I just feel like you just can't get those, wouldn't be able to get those images out of your mind. Hey, owner claims as many of the local rangers do that he can, he can likely guess who is coming for a nature hike, who's coming within

Starting point is 00:48:17 decision and doubt and who is coming to never leave. Those who enter the forest and are contemplating suicide, but haven't yet made up their mind, I guess they often bring a tent. And they're the ones that use rope or ribbon to kind of mark their way back to the trail, because they venture out to some secluded part of the woods to really contemplate their fate. And again, those informal markers are everywhere. There's a little ribbons stuff. We saw some in the videos all throughout occasion. There's a cut news on the ground. I mean, those empty pill cases, yeah, really, really rough. As he only leads viewers on a walk to the forest off and off trail, he encounters an

Starting point is 00:48:49 abandoned tent. It appears to have been there for a few days. He hopes they're just off walking and still deciding that they still have hope pointing out that if a body had been found, the tent site would have been cleaned up. Nearby, he finds a creepy stuffed doll, and they'll upside down to a tree, seriously. It kind of shit that would send most of us into a sheer panic. Nearby, he finds a creepy stuffed doll, nailed upside down to a tree, seriously. It kind of shit that would send most of us into a sheer panic if you ran into it alone at night.

Starting point is 00:49:10 It's creepy, doll wears a striped suit, faces all ripped up, nails were driven to its feet and hands, it's been crucified in an inverted position. Heyona says, put a doll like that, it's just a sign of contempt for society. Somebody was just angry, felt that they society had not been kind to them,

Starting point is 00:49:24 and they wanted to place a curse upon it. Uh, and they put that little doll up like that. Short walk from the doll, leads into a wooden sign, nailed to another tree, presumably by the same person that reads suicide notes. Uh, I came here because nothing good ever happened in my life. Don't look for me. Their name is also listed. Then he came across a second note that speaks to the volume of tragedy that occurred in the force that says need help writing your suicide note, call plus 444458879909 affordable rates. We're not trying to take your last dollar call now. And we will give you a free dollar crucifixion kit. And then there's like a little asterisk and it says we actually are trying to take your last dollar. That's fucked up. And that's not true. The first note is true.

Starting point is 00:50:06 So is a doll. I just needed to say something that had some kind of levity because this shit is depressing. Can you imagine if there was a suicide note business, just like how just pure dark that would be? Like what a soulless fuck of a human being you'd have to be to create that business. Where the only way you make money

Starting point is 00:50:26 is if more of your clients go themselves. Almost zero repeat business, you know? Yeah, the only repeat business is you get people who try to kill themselves failed or trying to get. I guess your ideal customer would be somebody who's extremely suicidal, but really bad at killing themselves.

Starting point is 00:50:41 What a sad person now would be. Self-esteem is already terrible, you know? Possibly because they don't believe they're good at anything and then they feel worse about themselves because they're not good at suicide. Okay, okay, pretty dark, pretty dark. Yeah, so this guy, he keeps going through the woods, further on his patrol.

Starting point is 00:50:57 Oh man, he finds another tent in the middle of the trail and this one has somebody inside it. He peaks in and I couldn't believe it. Chicatillo. He was in the tent. He's in the suicide for you. What a big deal. I bother no one. I stalked South shim cock and woods. It's to make people laugh of anything. I know one watch but the nosey Parker Ranger. Maybe I'll rattle some people but only people want it to be rastly. It's mercy. Chicatillo helping. I kind of good guy in this episode. No, of course Ukrainian serial killer. Under Chicatilo not the tent again.

Starting point is 00:51:27 This is just such a f**k sad narrative here. Park Geologist, Hione approaches, asks the man inside if everything is okay. And you can watch it and again, this is all from the video, the documentary. He lets the guy know that he is not allowed to camp there. You know, and he's a nature guard. He's on suicide patrol.

Starting point is 00:51:44 The man apologizes, never leaves his tent though. And I asked him to take time to think, be positive. Tells us a stranger. There was nice to meet him. Shows him how to leave the park. And then he's worried because the guy doesn't look like a hiker. And he's not dressed the part and the guy doesn't leave. The guy doesn't leave the tent.

Starting point is 00:51:58 Then shortly after this, he finds a perfectly intact skeleton on the ground and clearly bummed out. The bones are resting inside the clothes last worn by the person who ended their life. Their feet still neatly tucked into their lace boots. Pretty eerie. Pretty eerie looking at it because the shoes look new. Uh, they're clean burgundy and black rubber sold hiking boots. Some guys leg bones run right into them, pop them out of his faded dark blue pants. There's an empty water bottle.

Starting point is 00:52:24 The guys left hand. I mean, it just looked like some guy laid on his back, took some sleeping pills, drank him down with the bottle water, fell asleep, and then just never woke up, and then his body wasn't found until two years later. Nothing but a skeleton is some close. It's just so strange. No flesh at all, just bones, clean looking, new looking shoes. Body's completely rotted.

Starting point is 00:52:42 You know, it's been eaten by scavengers and bacteria down to the skeleton, but the shoes are fine. And I don't know, just unnerving for me to look at that image because it maybe just like a blatant reminder of how fragile we are, how temporary we all are, where the shoes are, you know, the rubber soles, they don't even look damaged in the slightest, but the person is just still gone. The whiteness and near cleanness of the bones also kind of make it look fake, like a Halloween shop display, but it's real. Man, it's real.

Starting point is 00:53:09 He only lets the cameraman know that someone will be notified and that they will properly take care of the body. And then near the end of the film, this little documentary, he comments that, you think you die alone, but that's not true. And he shows the viewers' bouquets, the flowers, boxes of chocolates, left from remembrance of other victims of suicide.

Starting point is 00:53:26 You know, it's a short film, but big impact. You know, the fact there are so many people in their lives, the forest, that it's like a virtual guarantee that you'll encounter something like this by merely venturing out the trail is, you know, it's a travesty. How did this forest become such a magnet for death and despair? Oh, we're going to look into those reasons soon, but before we talk some more about death,

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Starting point is 00:55:36 If you don't like it, they voted it in. So, uh, but, you know, I, but I did, and I'm not complaining, actually, I did, uh, find all this stuff very fast, especially all the cultural stuff. And again, we do know culturally a suicide view, differently in Japan. We now know that a lot of suicides occur in this forest, but why here? I mean, if you're going to kill yourself,

Starting point is 00:55:55 why take a trip to this specific forest? Why out of all the locations available in a country plagued by suicide is the, you know, a Oki Gah okay gohar forest the location choice for those and in their lives you know it's absolutely stunning uh... you know uh... potentially you know tranquil you know natural wonder it just it doesn't feel like the the right setting for something like that

Starting point is 00:56:18 well the answer may lie in a pair of books uh... the first being nineteen sixties uh... coroji kai uh... jukai black Black Sea of Trees. It was written by Sicho Matsumoto. You can order it off Amazon and you can read it if you can read Japanese. It has not been translated into English. And this book is about young lovers venturing into the,

Starting point is 00:56:37 oh my gosh, this word kill me every time. Aoki Gahara, Aoki Gahara Forest. It's the end of their lives. It's reported to have written in a romantic tone that glorifies the protagonist's suicidal actions. And in addition to this book that maybe the reason people began to kill themselves in the forest, another book published 1993, 1993, I feel like definitely accounts for the, the large amount of suicides in the forest now. It's, the book is called the complete

Starting point is 00:57:03 suicide manual. It's written by Wataru, Surumi, and it is exactly as fucked up as it sounds. It lists out the options for committing suicide and then ranks them noting their effectiveness, cost, pain level, preparation required, emotional impacts on family, et cetera. I mean, it truly is a non-joking guidebook for suicide. Surumi doesn't really get into the morality of suicide or the philosophy around it.

Starting point is 00:57:30 He simply just publishes an instruction manual that covers, you know, over 11 methods in 11 chapters. There's overdosing, hanging, slashing the wrist, i.e. the carotid artery, car collision, gas poisoning, electrocution, drowning, self-immolation, freezing, miscellaneous, that's a weird one. And then self-definitiation. Now, defenitiation, I had not heard of that word before. Self-definitiation is a very fancy way of saying throwing yourself out of a window.

Starting point is 00:58:00 Nuckity. Defenitiation is defined by Merriam Webster as throwing of a person or thing out of a window assassination by defenestration. And I feel like that has to be a really short chapter. Like what technique is involved there? I feel like it is like chapter 10, self-defentistration, find a window, at least a hundred feet off of the ground, open it, throw self out of it. Then it just goes right to the next chapter. Chapter 11

Starting point is 00:58:31 Missilanius, what would be in there? Missilanius Section 1 Death from anal explosion, find dynamite stick, stuff and ass, light, spend several seconds Really hoping you have used enough dynamite to die as opposed to keep living after you've blown off your dick and balls and or vagina and also destroyed your spine and butthole. So not surprisingly, this is a pretty controversial book, should be, you know, sadly there have been many copies of this book found along with the bodies at the scene of, you know, suicides

Starting point is 00:59:03 in the forest, including several cases, suicides in the forest. Including several cases of suicides of junior high school students, which is terrible. And the author of this book claims that he opposes this societal pressure to persevere and live strong. And which is, you know, it's just a weird viewpoint. And he lists specifically the Oki, Gahara Forest, as the perfect place to die, quote, the perfect place to die quote the perfect place to die

Starting point is 00:59:28 yeah and yeah way too many copies of book been found in that forest the book sold a million copies as of uh... two thousand six you can't find much press about at least uh on english websites the year uh... that that year there was an article uh... where the author is interviewed and he's asked if he had any regrets and he said he did not he said killing oneself is not a crime it's not it's not right to criticize those who killed themselves because we all have that freedom. When the authorities are tightening the control and surveillance of individuals, I have to speak out even more loudly

Starting point is 00:59:52 that we can choose whatever way we want to live our lives. It's an interesting defense of suicide promotion, you know, that check out the government telling me what to do. If I want to fucking kill myself, I should be able to, yeah, you know, you can. I don't know kill myself, I should be able to, yeah, you know, you can. I don't know that you, I don't know that you should, you should, you should. And you definitely shouldn't encourage others.

Starting point is 01:00:10 That's a very weird way to make that argument. So is that book to blame? Can literature really have such a dramatic impact, you know, on suicide? The rate of suicide within the forest did increase significantly after the publication of each of those books. But, you know, correlation and causation

Starting point is 01:00:24 can't be, you know, or, you know, can be confused. You know, and another point is that suicides may have been committed regardless. You know, those books might have just changed the location or the method. There's other people who think that the books may have just added to an already terrifying, existing supernatural paranormal explanation as to why somebody died their own hands in that forest. And we're going to look at that in a second. It's going to get a little scary, a little creepy, but before digging into some, some more horror, I do need to, I need some comedy. I need some comedy.

Starting point is 01:00:56 This is definitely a tricky episode to lighten up, but we're going to do it by checking in with, with what those lovable losers have to say about the suicide forest, those complete idiots of the internet. To find this week's wackadoodles, I went to the trailer for the 2016 US horror movie The Forest, starring Natalie Dormer, you know, from the Hunger Games movies or at least the one or two of them, the Game of Thrones. I've never seen it this movie. It's about a young woman who travels to suicide forest to find her twin sister, finds about a creepy ass monster instead. I was also a trailer,

Starting point is 01:01:35 and that was enough for me. Somehow, according to various comments section, post or reviews, the film had at a 10% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. And I say had, because right now you can't find it. You can't find any reviews for it really. There's like one, but on Rotten Tomatoes, somehow they were able to reboot their Rotten Tomatoes rating, which, oh man, there's got to be so many other producers and distributors of shady movies that are so jealous as to how they figure that out. I'm sure a lot of other films like to erase their terrible ratings. The other 2016 film, US film set the suicide force C of trees.

Starting point is 01:02:10 It was drama starring Matthew McConaughey Naomi Watts Ken Watanabe. That has an 11% approval rating. So, apparently, this force is also to play a lot of movies have gone to die. And I know that joke is not the best taste, but goddamn it, I'm fucking trying. Trying to find some comedy in this episode. That joke basically wrote itself. And you know, from what I've said several times,

Starting point is 01:02:33 I'm big on you guys getting help if you're truly feeling suicidal. Couple virtue signalers pop up in the comment section of this episode or of this under this video, almost immediately, of course they do. User Ashley Dusk Mountain writes, suicide forest is a real place that I find so sad. Yep, yeah, that's, yeah, that makes sense.

Starting point is 01:02:54 And then a recapitado says, it's sad that there actually is a suicide forest. Yeah, you guys both, you fucking both nailed it. I hope the two of you can find each other and form some kind of brain trust where you guys can, you fucking boast nailed it. I hope the two of you can find each other and form some kind of brain trust where you guys can, I don't know, write about yourself, help books or something, because you're right. It is sad.

Starting point is 01:03:12 Thank God, thank God you guys were there to point that out. You know, if you guys weren't there, I would have maybe gone on my whole life thinking it was like a joyous occasion to be celebrated. But nope, no, you guys set me back on the right path. User Amy X Amy clears up an important misconception about the film. Uh, posting, I love just how people think they need to, to point this out for others. Like, who wouldn't fucking understand that?

Starting point is 01:03:35 She says, the forest is based on a Okigahara. Yes, it's real, but the monsters are fake. Oh, that makes way more sense than I thought. Amy, I thought the forest was fake, but the monsters were real. Got it. Good to hear from a monster expert. Now I can sleep a lot easier. I wonder if Amy X, Amy posts on all horror movie videos.

Starting point is 01:04:00 Hey, everybody. Uh, finally just watched a creature from the black lagoon. Uh, listen up. Apparently, finally just watched a creature from the black lagoon. Uh, listen up. Apparently lagoons are real. That's a real thing. Uh, that part of the movie holds up. However, as of this message, no humanoid amphibious salamander-ish creatures have been found, uh, especially ones trying to terrorize human.

Starting point is 01:04:20 That appears to be fake. So those are not real. So don't be afraid to swim in the lagoon this summer. Uh, I's this summer. I like this one. Maxim Dejanovik posts. The movie was filmed in Serbia and I was in the house where it's filmed.

Starting point is 01:04:35 It's still there. Now, I find this really dumb because Maxim posted this in 2017 and the movie was filmed in 2015. Like how is that crazy to you that it's still there just just just the use of the word still Like it's still there man. That's so crazy that a house would be there two years after filming Incredible I'm shocked they even let you into that historically significant building. I can't believe it hasn't rotted away I that's unreal how some things just are able to last like they do, right?

Starting point is 01:05:06 You know, the ancient pyramids of Egypt, Stonehenge, 35,000 year old cave paintings in Indonesia and a Serbian house from 2015. User Caitlin Bataford posts, what's so funny is that the twin sisters are played by the same actress. Is this the first movie you've ever seen, Caitlin? That's less funny and that's more exactly how movies almost always cast twins.

Starting point is 01:05:32 That's usually how they do it. Nicholas Cage played twin writers, Charlie and Donald Kaufman 2002 film adaptation, Lindsey Lohan's done it twice. She played identical twins, Halley Parker and Annie James, severed at birth in the 1998 film Parent Trap, or the Parent Trap, 2007, she played twins again. This time appearing is Aubrey Fleming and Dakota Moss, and I know who killed me.

Starting point is 01:05:53 Christian Bale, played twin magicians, Alfred Borden, Bernard Fallon, and the 2006 film, The Prestige, James Franco. He fucking killed it in my opinion, playing identical twins, Vincent and Frankie Martino, and the first season of HBO's the Duce last year. I mean, I thought I thought that was a really good show. Tom Hardy and legend Arnold Swartz Nanger played played both himself Arnold Swartz Nanger such a good actor. He played both himself playing a

Starting point is 01:06:18 twin and he played Danny DeVito playing another twin in the 1988 documentary twins. And that's why he won four Oscars for that film. Everyone knows that last piece was nonsense, right? I hope so. If YouTube user, uh, Eman Ali is listening to this podcast, I'm guessing he just fell for that and was outraged. He seems very out of touch with reality and he very unstable. This, this is one of my favorite idiots of the internet post we've done so far on the

Starting point is 01:06:45 life of the show. This is just so bonkers. Even Ali posts insanity, ironically about insanity. All caps boycott. Lowercase this movie many exclamation points. They are turning actual mentally ill people who committed suicide with grieving family members into evil spirits and scary ghosts. This is so offensive. Please don't watch this. Mental illness is a huge issue in Japan. Stop taking away its importance. What in the fuck are you talking about?

Starting point is 01:07:23 Let me get this straight. You think they are turning dead mentally ill people who are dead. They're already dead and they're turning them into evil spirits and ghosts. Like you've written that as if you believe they're literally doing that. Like the producers were like, hey, you know what, make this movie really scary? Check this out. Check this out. What if? just follow me.

Starting point is 01:07:46 What if instead of hiring actors to play ghosts? Or instead of creating scary monsters with CGI and post-production, because that can be expensive, you know, we don't have a big budget. What if, hear me out? We turn dead people into ghosts and evil spirits. Who, despite being evil and not of this world, are still somehow able to follow

Starting point is 01:08:06 a production schedule, work with real actors and actresses, do as many takes as we need. Can we actually do that? Can we actually turn dead bodies into ghost actors? We can't. Yeah, we can if, okay, here's a little tricky. We can do it if specifically they were mentally ill when they were alive. Oh, oh, oh oh and also committed suicide uh...

Starting point is 01:08:28 uh... it's kind of a long story but basically i bought a book of spells from a necromancer and it was missing a lot of the pages and those are the only specific spirit i can conjure uh... like it i mean it would save us a ton of money since you can actually you know payable spirits uh... you can't, exactly, exactly.

Starting point is 01:08:45 Now, the post is so weird. It convinced me to Google, did the, it was so specific, did the movie, The Forest, cast mentally ill people to play goes, I was just trying to figure out how this user got confused. And I guess I have to eat some crope, because they did. The film was shot in two locations around Tokyo

Starting point is 01:09:02 and on Terra Mountain, Serbia, and, you know, becausei's government does not allow filming the suicide force and in Serbia they don't have any loss regarding acting unions and so rather than pay actors the producer just rented out of mental health facility and they just forced a lot of the patience into being in the movie they dressed up as monsters and they made them be in the movie and that is fucking ridiculous that never happened

Starting point is 01:09:23 no the only thing that happened is Eman Ali posted some fucking wacky doodleness, because he is one of my favorite idiots of the internet. Idiots, I'll be into that, into that, into that, into that. Okay, that was, that was nice, I needed that. That was a nice break from the darkness. Now, let's, I still can't believe that. I still can't believe somebody is outraged because they think, hey, think that somebody has turned the, the spirits of deceased mentally ill people who come into suicide into like,

Starting point is 01:09:58 into evil monsters, but then also let them work with the movie like it's so many levels of crazy. Uh, okay. Uh, let's, uh, let's, we're going to get a little darker now. We're going to start talking about these monsters that some people believe are behind this, the, uh, ube suits. Uh, legend has it that in times of hardship families would take their elderly sick and otherwise alien family members to the forest and abandon them, leaving them to die.

Starting point is 01:10:24 And this sounds like I'm joking here, but it really, according to various articles I read, this Ubesu is translated as granny dumping, like for real. It was the practice of poor citizens who would bring their senile elders into the mountain tops because they could no longer afford their care and they would just abandon them and let them starve in the wilderness. I'm not even joking. Which seems so cruel. Like, have you going to get rid of granny? I mean, couldn't you at least have the fucking dignity to throw them off a cliff or something? Yeah, let them starve. That sounds like the worst way to go. When families were starving due to

Starting point is 01:10:54 famine and drought, difficult choices had to be made to ensure the survival of some rather than all those, you know, within their home parishing and slow agonizing starvation. And elder would be chosen from the family or volunteer on their own to alleviate the hunger of the others by limiting one mouth to feet. And nearly all the stories collected about this phenomenon, it's almost always the grandmother. That's why we came down to Granny Dumping who would either volunteer or is taken out into the woods.

Starting point is 01:11:19 In various versions of the tale, a young son carries the elderly woman on his back into the forest, she marks his way home by leaving sticks and twigs on the ground for him to follow back. Sun then leaves her in some isolated area on her, or, you know, near the mountain, and she would wait until her slow and eventual death came at the hands of the elements, which is fucking terrible. And apparently this, I mean, there is like mythology type stories about traditional stories,

Starting point is 01:11:39 but also they truly believe this is the thing that really happened. And I do get it on a pragmatic level. Man, sometimes, you know, people have had to make hard choices to survive throughout history in terrible situations. But that one, man, getting rid of Nana. That would be especially tough, you know? I love you, Graham Betty.

Starting point is 01:11:55 You help raise me. You know, you're really more of a second mother to me than a grandmother. You spoiled me, you made me feel special. You've always been there for me. It's always been extremely comforting to know that if the whole rest of the world went to shit, I'd still have you to fall back on.

Starting point is 01:12:09 And that's what makes this tough. I have, look, here's the thing. I have grown accustomed to a certain quality of life because of some gambling debts. I have a crew. I either have to give up Vanty Sawymocus from Starbucks in the occasional state dinner or I leave you in the woods

Starting point is 01:12:24 and I get to keep enjoying that stuff. So I love you. Now put on some fucking comfortable shoes, and get to hiking. We've got quite a hike in front of us. And I'm guessing families who made that decision were facing a different level of hardship, and I just described, I know that.

Starting point is 01:12:37 Man, what a tough thing to do. According to a 2017 business insider article, not only was this definitely a thing, it's making a comeback. Today amid Japan's demographic and economic woes, a form of granny dumping is happening all over again. Modern day granny dumping doesn't involve hauling seniors up to the sides of mountains, but apparently now they drive them up to hospitals or the offices of nearby charities.

Starting point is 01:12:58 And then they just leave them, just take off. Social worker, a tech and aori Fujita, told the times of London, there are a lot of people who have a certain amount of income, but who still live in poverty and struggle terribly with relatives who can't look after themselves. They were reluctant to ask for help because they feel it is shameful.

Starting point is 01:13:15 Japan's economy has been shrinking for the better part of the last decade. And senior citizens have continued aging into their 80s, 90s and 100s, while the younger generations have largely stagnated in having children. So it's created a not good situation. into their 80s, 90s and 100s, while the younger generations have largely stagnated and having children. So it's created a not good situation.

Starting point is 01:13:28 You know, there's fewer people to help take care of the elderly, fewer to pay for social security, fewer to keep the workforce full, not good. And something an inordinate amount of granny dumping has gone on over the years in the Aoki Gahara forest and it's created a bunch of negative spiritual energy, and it's created like a vengeful attraction to those seeking an end to their troubles. It's created basically a bunch of pissed off granny ghosts trying to lure vulnerable peeps out into the woods. And that sounds crazy to me, but not so crazy to a lot of Japanese, just like the act

Starting point is 01:13:59 of suicide looked on differently. In Japanese culture, then it is in the US and most other Western countries. The concept of ghosts is far more accepted in Japan culturally than it is in the United States. For example, in 2013, and not just ghosts, but like vengeful spirits and stuff too, it's totally like culturally acceptable. widespread believed just generally.

Starting point is 01:14:20 Like for example, in 2013, Prime Minister Shinzu Abe displayed and voiced election, hopefully I'm saying his name, it's spelled Abe, but I was just guessing. But anyway, this Prime Minister, he displayed voiced and voiced reluctance to move into his official residence because he felt a bad presence and he thought it haunted. As had several of his predecessors and he wasn't mocked by his citizens. Now, in fact, people basically thought, well, if it's haunted, then he shouldn't have to live there. Now, think about how that would be

Starting point is 01:14:49 interpreted here in the US. Can you imagine the media mockery that would go on if one of our presidents had said they were not gonna move into the White House because they were spooked by the ghost living in that. Like, people will lose their mind. The public would have no faith in the president. Congress would immediately try and find ways to start the impeachment process on the grounds

Starting point is 01:15:08 of mental instability. You know? Do you imagine if something concerned or visual like, I'm sorry. Why did you just say you can't live in the White House, Mr. President? There's some spooky ghosts in there. There's a lot of spooky ghosts in there. Please, Mr. President, you're already late for a very important meeting. It's gonna give me the spooky ghost is gonna get, I know it. I can feel it. Well, a lot of Japanese citizens have no problem at all, believe me ghosts,

Starting point is 01:15:38 and a lot of them don't think they're very nice. The spiritualist in Japan firmly believed that this suicide forest is haunted by the Yuri, vengeful spirits of the dead. It is thought that the trees themselves have soaked in the malevolent energy produced by the countless suicides, all the granny dumping beforehand. All these traumatic deaths have, you know,

Starting point is 01:15:58 that have transpired in the forest and it's like the fucking trees themselves have soaked in that essence. And the Yuri, they're believed to be a very particular type of ghost that has long been held as being real in Japanese culture. And the belief is that the Yuri come from people who died under duress, extreme sadness, or anger, often the victims of murder or suicide.

Starting point is 01:16:17 They are the most dangerous of all ghosts. They are believed to usually, but not always be women as traditional Japanese culture views women as being more emotional and therefore more capable of producing the extreme emotions required for the creation of one of these spirits. Be gone Luciferina. Yeah, here. Go on. Get. Yuri are terrifyingly strong and capable of immense harm is believed. And even more fun, they can't be banished. They can't be exercised. They can just be temporarily calmed. So that's sweet. They run a desire alone. This can be be temporarily calmed. So that's sweet. They run a desire

Starting point is 01:16:45 alone. This can be anything from telling a loved one that they miss them to the desire just to fucking burn the world to the ground. Whatever they want, usually read to some sort of vengeance, they will fiercely seek it out. And thankfully, they are believed to commonly be tied to a specific object. That's like the whole tree absorbing the essence. They're tied to a place, they're tied to an object, which does give you the ability to avoid them. And a lot of Japanese spirits just believe that the suicide force is basically just fucking crammed

Starting point is 01:17:14 full of these Yuri. And if you've ever seen any Japanese or Japanese inspired horror film, you know exactly what these ghosts look like. The year they're pale women, usually dressed in a simple white dress of sorts, they have long dark hair, often covering their faces and obscuring their identity. They move oddly and erratically. They have no ties to the physical realm.

Starting point is 01:17:33 They can bend whatever laws they choose to, to terrify their victims. They can give them the ability to move with terrifying speed, to defy gravity and do that creepy shit where they're crawling on the ceiling. They have the ability to change shape. They can alter the living's vision in moments, you know, in a moment's time as well, creating hallucinations, disorientating you for their own purposes. They are basically those creepy monster kids from the grudge in the ring. I don't know if you've seen those movies, but that is the yuri. Those horror movies that were originally made in Japan and then remade into American horror movies.

Starting point is 01:18:01 And I really hope that's not what's going on in the suicide force. Holy shit, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that,'s going on the suicide force holy shit that that that that that folk that uh... you know shift the narrative from being sad to downright fucking terrifying uh... getting killed by the creepy ass girl from the ring pretty high up on my list of uh... least favorite ways to die can these ury b stopped if you encounter one well uh... there's a uh... of funda a shinto prayer a sheet they can be placed on entrance, the block or attempt to block the degree from entry and a place. Otherwise, you know, your best odds to, you know, to not be hurt by one is just to avoid them

Starting point is 01:18:33 at all costs. I think like, once you're in their space and they come out, yeah, I don't know that there's a lot you can do. So, you know, maybe don't go on that nature hike to the suicide forest after all. And the belief in these creatures is strong enough to allow those who don't go on that nature hike to the suicide forest after all. And the belief in these creatures is strong enough to allow those who don't believe in them to get some seriously good deals on Japanese real estate. Any property that has been the site of an unnatural death

Starting point is 01:18:53 suicide murder must be recorded as such. These types of residences are often referred to as incident houses. And it makes the property ridiculously hard to sell because of Japan's cultural views on these spirits You know, you don't want to buy a house full of fucking Yuri So realtors lower the prices considerably usually 30% or more up to up to 50% off like for murder sites That is a lot for a house and realtors will perform in addition to that cleansing rituals to appease calm or remove residual negative energy

Starting point is 01:19:22 Okay, so or remove residual negative energy. Okay, so maybe people are killing themselves in the suicide forest because of the popularity of a few books, either directly advocating killing yourself in that location or romanticizing the act of suicide in that location. Maybe it has something to do with evil spirits, or at least the belief in evil spirits.

Starting point is 01:19:39 Maybe all the tragic deaths, compounded by more and more tragic deaths over the years, have truly have created some kind of negative attraction, some type of pulling force that brings people to this forest during their darkest moments, maybe the year you're real, you know, they're terrifying presence and astounding power, crops the minds of visitors. Now, maybe these evil sirens are calling out to the broken hearted somehow. And maybe all of this is happening in Japan because Japan has a high rate of suicide in general, because at least partially the act of suicide, you know, partially because of the act of suicide not being taboo in Japan as it is or as taboo as it is in other countries.

Starting point is 01:20:13 But the last question I have is why are modern Japanese kill themselves? Like, you know, I get that it's more culturally acceptable. I get that the forest has been turned through a combination of literature and lore into some kind of final destination of sorts for the hopeless. But still, all that being said, you still need a reason to want to kill yourself, a motive, and what is it? Partly, in Japan right now, it could be a terrible combination of financial pressure and lacks insurance policies as Autoset sounds when it comes to paying out on suicides. Ken Joseph, who works at a Japanese suicide hotline, thinks this is part of what's going on. He says elderly people who are in financial trouble,

Starting point is 01:20:48 and you know, not just elderly, also some younger people might see suicide as a way out of their problems. And he says the insurance system in Japan is very lax when it comes to paying out for suicide. So when all else fails, some people feel you can just kill yourself, and the insurance will pay out and at least protect your family.

Starting point is 01:21:03 This is sometimes... because there is sometimes an intolerable amount of pressure on the elderly did that the most loving thing they could do is you know take their own lives in their by thereby you know take the burden away from their family and provide for their family uh... because this some experts think Japan's suicide rates actually a lot higher uh... than what is being reported because a lot of uh... loan deaths of elderly

Starting point is 01:21:23 people are never fully investigated by the police And according to Ken Joseph and he says the almost universal practice of cremating bodies, you know also means that evidence of suicides is quickly destroyed Now that may explain suicide among the elderly and again, it's not all elderly, but it's primarily an elderly issue there The fastest growing suicide demographic in Japan is actually young men an elderly issue there. The fastest growing suicide demographic in Japan is actually young men. Now the single biggest killer of men in Japan age 20 to 44. And the evidence suggests that these young people are killing themselves because they have lost hope and are incapable of seeking

Starting point is 01:21:54 help. The numbers first began to rise after the Asian financial crisis in 1998. They climbed again after the 2008 worldwide financial crisis. Exper experts think those rises are directly linked the increase in precarious employment, which is the practice of employing young people on short term contracts. Because Japan was once known as the land of lifetime employment. You know, people work for a company their entire lives, we're taking care of by that company. But while many older people still enjoy job security and generous benefits, nearly 40% of young people in Japan, that's nearly 40% are unable to find stable jobs.

Starting point is 01:22:27 So that big shift might have created a lot of the rise in suicides. There's also something known as Hiki Komori. It's financial anxiety and security compounded by Japan's culture of not complaining. There are not many ways to express anger or frustration in Japan, says Mr. Nishita, a psychologist at Tokyo's Temple University. He said, this is a rule-oriented society. Young people are molded, oh, and I'm sorry, actually, I wrote this little pronunciation earlier. Financial anxiety and insecurity is not HIKU Mori. I'm going to explain what that is in a second. but financial anxiety and insecurity are kind of compounding this problem.

Starting point is 01:23:08 He says it's a rule-oriented society. Young people are molded to fit in a very small box. They have no way to express their true feelings. If they feel under pressure from their boss and they get depressed, some feel like the only way out is to die. And technology may be making things worse, increasing young people's isolation. Japan is now famous for a condition called, there here we go. Hikomori, which is a type of acute social withdrawal. The Japanese, yeah, sorry about that little confusion

Starting point is 01:23:34 or that was just poor, poor notewriting on my part. The Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare defines Hikomori as people who refuse to leave their house and isolate themselves from society in their homes for a period exceeding six months According to government figures released in 2010 there are 700,000 individuals living as Hiko Mori with an average age of 31 the young person effect They may completely shut themselves down Usually it's a male

Starting point is 01:23:59 Shut themselves down away from the outside world with drawn into a room and not coming out of that room for months or even years. I'm guessing no, couple of rooms, I think I go the bathroom kitchen, but that's what it was written. And that's just the most extreme version of a more common problem in Japan, which is technology increasing social isolation. I feel like that's becoming more of a worldwide thing, but that's affecting the younger generation. A recent survey of young Japanese people and about their attitudes to relationships and sex turned up from very interesting results Published in January by the Japan Family Planning Association. It found the 20% of men age 25 to 29 Had little or no interest in having a sexual relationship and

Starting point is 01:24:37 That professor in the shida he points to the internet and the pervasive influence of pornography online is the reason for that He says young people in Japan have a lot of knowledge, but they have no life experience. They have no idea how to express their emotions. They forgot what it's like to touch a person. When they think about sex, they get anxiety, have no idea how to deal with it. And when young people do find themselves isolated and depressed, they have very few places to turn to.

Starting point is 01:24:58 Mental illness is still very much a taboo thing in a Japanese culture. There's little popular understanding of depression. Those suffering in symptoms are often too scared to talk about it. Compoundingness is Japan's mental health care system being a mess. There's an acute shortage of psychiatrists of psychiatrists. There's also no tradition of psychiatrists working together with clinical psychologists. People suffering from mental illness might be prescribed some powerful psychotropic medication, but unlike in the West, it's usually not a company with any kind of counseling.

Starting point is 01:25:26 And also the counseling industry is a bit of a free for all. Unlike America and Europe, there's no government mandated system of training. You know, anybody can set themselves up as a counselor. And it's very hard for someone seeking help to know that the counteractio knows what they're fucking doing. So it's not a heavy picture. Well, the suicide rate is actually going to decline in the last three years. It is still woefully high.

Starting point is 01:25:46 Professor Nishita says, Japan, he's talking about mental illness a lot more. And not just a something scary and strange that afflicts a few. When you see a television discussion on mental illness in Japan, they still talk as if depression equals suicide. He says that needs to change.

Starting point is 01:26:00 So, you know, a lot of interesting shit, the main takeaway, I just took from all of that, is you can't make suicide a taboo, undiscussable topic if you want to reduce its societal impact. I mean, that's what I like most about time-sook, man. We can talk, we can joke around about fucking anything here, nothing's taboo, and I think that's really healthy, I really, really do. You know, I do stay away from politics the most part here on the show, but not because,

Starting point is 01:26:22 you know, I feel like it's taboo, I just feel like it's all the media does talk about as far as mainstream media. And it's like you get enough of that every other place. It's nice to have a little refuge from it. You know, I'm human. You know, I have reference things here and there. But, you know, I think it's more important to explore the issues underline issues, you know, the underneath the politics, like in the gun episode. You know, talk about an issue that comes up politically, so that, you know, every week and all make a more informed decision about that and pick the gun episode, you know, talk about an issue that comes up politically so that, you know, we can all make a more informed decision about that and pick the appropriate candidate and all that kind of good stuff.

Starting point is 01:26:51 But nothing should be taboo to talk about. I firmly believe you, like, it makes something taboo, it can make a situation a lot worse like sex. You know, you make sex a taboo topic, I feel like there's gonna be a rise in sex crimes. You know, you make suicide and talking about suicide, super taboo, I feel like there's going to be a rise in sex crimes. You know, you make suicide and talking about suicide super taboo. I feel like there's going to be a rise in suicides. How are you going to solve a problem if you, if you know, you've created a situation

Starting point is 01:27:12 where no one's always comfortable even talk about it. And also you need to write people to talk about it with, which is, you know, what we have in this country. So call the suicide helpline, suicide prevention hotline.org, again, 1-800-273-8255. Feel the zero fucking shame when you do so. You should feel pride, you're handling shit. And if you're not in the US, you're living in Sweden, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the UK, Ireland, one of the many other countries where time suckers listen in. Google Suicide Hotline and just find your country's phone number. If you

Starting point is 01:27:41 don't have Google, it's fucking use gaggle, use shittle, use third world rule, I don't know, whatever you have in your country, you fucking use it. You don't have a computer. I don't know. Get a phone book. If your country is back in 1996 till, I'm sure you have a phone book and I'm sure those places exist. There's call fucking city hall. They'll point you in the right direction. But seriously, don't fuck around. Don't end up in Nimrod's butthole. Get help. And now it's time for Top 5 takeaways.

Starting point is 01:28:11 Time suck, top 5 takeaways. Number one, it is believed that over 100 people choose to die in Japan's suicide forest, AKA Oki Gahara Forest every year. Number two, a combination of two popular books glamorizing, taking one's life in Oki Gahara Forest, combined with the tradition of suicide, being viewed as an honorable act could account

Starting point is 01:28:38 for many of these suicides. Number three, financial pressure, a revival of self-imposed granny dumping, modern social isolation, lack of proper mental health resources, all of that could be combining to keep suicide rates high in modern Japan. Number four, really hope that the yuri are not real, and that there are no evil, creepy, dark-haired kid monsters, like that thing from the ring, and that thing from the grudge,

Starting point is 01:29:02 and other Japanese horror movies, luring people into some kind of on a forest that is fucking most terrifying thing ever uh... number five new info let's talk about the biggest most recent controversy involving the suicide force it is a little bit of old news at this point as far as being topical but still worth mentioning i feel like the story that kind of you know i went big for a second

Starting point is 01:29:22 uh... if you're not if you're not YouTube, if you're not on the YouTube's, there's a YouTuber named Logan Paul with roughly 20 million subscribers. He's extremely popular for, from what I can tell, being an obnoxious and extremely douchey jackass. His popularity literally just makes me sad because I find his content to be so vapid and just disposable and just not entertaining to me whatsoever. Anyway, Logan thought it would be funny as an extremely successful and wealthy and happy

Starting point is 01:29:48 person to film a video of someone who had just killed themselves, someone who was probably sad and poversed and conventionally unsuccessful because he does seem to be like a piece of shit. So he took a trip to Japan's suicide force to film a video for his vlog. He went there knowing that there were high odds, he encountered a trip to Japan's suicide force to film a video for his vlog. He went there knowing that there were high odds, he would encounter a body or an active suicide attempt, not surprisingly it happens. And then when he's, so he's around his body, he shows up, there's a person hanging from a branch.

Starting point is 01:30:17 And he's wearing, it's funny like what bothered me about this. In the video, he's wearing the silly, like a little kid type alien hat. It's like the type of hat My kids wore a similar style hat when they're very little but but both them like not joking by the age of six We're like I'm not wearing that had anymore. It's like the thing you would get a Disneyland or a park It's like I remember a guy. I had a Yoda one where it's like you pull it down It has these long dangly straps on the side that hang over your ears of like the fabric It has like if it's Yoda yoga's face up on the top almost like a Halloween straps on the side that hang over your ears of like the fabric. It has like, if it's Yoda, Yoga's face up on the top, almost like a Halloween mask

Starting point is 01:30:47 on the top of the head. And he had some like wacky green alien one. I mean, I don't know how else to say. Something that a douchebag would wear, you know, in this situation. Not that everybody I know like the cause, play world, there's exceptions, you know, if you're working at a little funky coffee shop and that's your vibe, I get it. Certain people can pull it off. To me, he's not one of them. It's intentionally wacky a little funky coffee shop and that's your vibe. I get it. Certain people can pull it off. To me, he's not one of them.

Starting point is 01:31:06 It's intentionally wacky little over the top and then he doesn't take it off when he sees the body and he just has these goofy expression on his face. It just red is so unbelievably disrespectful and then he laughs about the whole situation with two of his friends, they're laughing about like how it's awkward that they're there, but like, but they're doing this standing a few feet away

Starting point is 01:31:24 from someone who has just killed themselves. Now, you guys know far too well how dark my sense of humor is. I realize it's super dark, but I also feel like I have a pretty good understanding of time and place of context, when you make dark jokes.

Starting point is 01:31:40 I feel like to crack weird jokes about Chickatilo on this podcast, you know, in this weird little world we created, you know, that's one thing. And I know even saying that, there's still a valid argument that it can still be in Port-Ace, you know, to some people's days. But I do also feel very strongly that it is a whole nother thing to go crack jokes at the crime scene of, say, you know, one of his victims, you know, whose body still hasn't been even taken away to the mortuary.

Starting point is 01:32:03 I mean, can you imagine that? The difference between joking, you know, privately with your friends or in victims who you know whose body still hasn't been taken away the mortuary i mean can you imagine that the difference between joking you know privately with your friends or in a like you know a podcast whatever or on a youtube video or what i think you want to put it out like you're talking about something but you're not talking about it like right next to the thing right when it's happened there is that whole like time plus tragedy evils comedy which i which i uh which I do believe in.

Starting point is 01:32:25 And he got called out online. Aaron Paul from Breaking Bad on Twitter says, how dare you? You disgust me. I can't believe that so many young people look up to you. So sad. Hopefully this latest video woke them up. You are pure trash, plain and simple. Suicide not a joke.

Starting point is 01:32:39 Go Rodin' Hell. Lauren Dukea, who writes for Teen Vogue, said on Twitter, Logan Paul is in a moral piece of shit who could not be less deserving of his platform, fuck. If you need help, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-Talk, there's another one. Fellow YouTuber, Philip DeFranco said, just remember this, before all of the extended community outrage against Logan Paul's, we found a dead body video.

Starting point is 01:33:03 There was a seemingly uncontested 550 to 600,000 likes on it. His core audience doesn't give a fuck unless YouTube does something that doesn't hurt him. And that's another thing. Yeah, I couldn't, this video is no longer on YouTube. I, I found like an old portion of it. It was on like Vimeo and it wasn't under the original title. I guess the original title was we found a dead body and it was featured on YouTube's homepage, which is a bet. Logan took three weeks off after the outrage about his video. He supposedly spent time reflecting on

Starting point is 01:33:30 learning about depression and the complexities of suicide. And then I got to say to his credit, selfish motives or not, he did pledge a million dollars to suicide prevention organizations. And he did make another video after his apology, made an apology and then he made another one

Starting point is 01:33:44 where he sincerely discusses suicide. Time, suck. Top five takeaways. All right, suicide for a sucked space, desserts. You wanted it. You got it. And we did learn a lot and I do think it is very good to have a discussion about suicide from time to time.

Starting point is 01:34:01 You know, wait too many people die because of it. So call the suicide help line again. 1-800-273-8255. So I guess that was the same one. I just didn't see it in talk form. But anyway, we'll have that in the episode description. So it's right there. It's easy little like a link. We'll put the website and stuff on there.

Starting point is 01:34:17 Make it super easy for you. Man, today's suck got me very excited for a future samurai suck, death before dishonor. Those guys did not fuck around. New stand-up comedy album. We can all use some comedy right now. Maybe on the problem, it's up on Spotify now for those of you who prefer to stream instead of download.

Starting point is 01:34:33 Thanks again to all of you who have already checked it out. And thanks to Harmony Velocamp, Jesse Dodener, Lindsey Cummins, Josh Crel, Alex Dugan, the entire time-soaked team for their help and huge thanks. And thanks again to my sister Donna Hale for research in another episode. Other researchers coming up next, this next one's a Heather Reilander research piece. Not going full nepotism yet on the sec. Next Monday, we're going to suck on Joan of Arc and I'm really excited for that one. Gonna suck it hard. You can get it all in.

Starting point is 01:35:04 Joan of Arc, man, peasant girl living in Medieval, 15th century France believes that God had chosen her to lead France to victory in this long running war with England with no military training. Joan convinces the embattled crown prince Charles to allow her to lead a French army to the besiege city of Orleans where she kicked some English and Burgundian ass.

Starting point is 01:35:24 After seeing the prince Crown King Charles VII, Joan would not get to enjoy the victory for very long a year later. After her big victory, she's captured by the Anglo-Burgundian forces, tried for witchcraft and heresy, burned at the stake in 1431 at the age of 19. Man, how crazy is it? She was able to do so much in her 19 years on Earth

Starting point is 01:35:44 that almost 600 years after her death We are still talking about her. She still has massive worldwide name recognition if she was alive now or you know He just like you know recently died for this she'd have like a hundred million followers on Instagram Excited to dig in to this medieval badass love finally talking about a badass warrior woman as well Okay, so let's find out what you suckers have been drawn to now. It's past week. Let's get in to some time sucker updates. Time sucker Megan, I will leave her last name out of this is another victim of my syphilis misdirection from the Jack the Ripper suck and I couldn't be happier Megan wrote in with the following kind words, she wrote, God dammit, you cock-sucking mother fucker

Starting point is 01:36:34 I'm listening to the Jack the Ripper and you just had me convinced I needed to get tested for STD's My ex cheated on me multiple times during a stating and I had no idea till the very end of the relationship when it all came out in the open. I was tested then, that was two years ago, and I was clean. You had me worried, I had some dormant disease. Fucking love that you finally got me. Keep on sucking. Well, I love the, you love that I finally got you. That is, that's awesome.

Starting point is 01:36:59 Start, start feeling a little, itch down south, didn't you, didn't you Megan? Start feeling a little itch. Convince to your, you know? Suddenly you convince your VJ had turned against you? It is amazing the power of the mind over the body. Man, very, very psychosomatic. I love the, I cannot believe I fell for that updates. And now for another update I love. I do love getting shadow person updates.

Starting point is 01:37:20 And so I just glance at this. I didn't want to spoil it for myself. I haven't read the whole thing. So let's see what it says. It's from Rick Belcher and Rick says shadow people update to my Lord and master of all the suck at the time I had never heard of the shadow people theory until I listened to your podcast about them Which after hearing gave me great relief and

Starting point is 01:37:37 2005 I had an encounter with the shadow people while and I rack with US Army as an infantry medic and until now I thought I just imagine what I saw it was slightly delusional. My platoon had been tasked with located in informant of ours who had not been seen or heard from for several days. We entered the home of our informant, and to this day I will never be able to fully comprehend the macabre scene of death and torture that was lurking just behind those doors. We unfortunately found our informant as an entire family, oh my gosh, oh wow, oh my got it, have been raped and tortured and finally burned alive.

Starting point is 01:38:06 The man's family, which included a wife, three sons, and two daughters were found in various rooms of the house. Smell was rancid, burn flesh. After the house had been cleared of all potential threats to us, and fortunately we found none. I was tasked with another soldier to start collecting bodies for transport. My battle buddy and I entered the room of the youngest daughter and there we found a skeletal dark figure crouched over her body as if feeding off of her soldier bolted back out the door. I was with bolted back out the door and the creature turned his lightly glowing red eyes

Starting point is 01:38:34 upon me. I would have run. It was frozen in place unable to even lift my rifle to defend myself as this monstrous figure looked at me. I got the impression that it was grinning with a wide sharp light grinning in anticipation of fear and pain. It was about to commit the creature slowly gotten to a textile post-screen preparing to lunge at my still frozen body. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't scream. I couldn't look away. As the shadow man's eyes grew brighter, lighting up the room slightly.

Starting point is 01:38:58 Right as he lunge from me out of nowhere. Out of nowhere. Boom other fucking jangles. Three-legged one-eyed half-breed, hell-hound son of Lucifin and Poseidon, creator of Dr. Shave, Shave, Butter, using 98.3% of his own semen mix with 1.7% of communist children's tears, Jesus Christ.

Starting point is 01:39:15 Stirred by the third secret fist of Chuck Norris, when Spire John Holmes to undergo cock-lengthening surgery, ripped into the creature tearing his throat, leaving a trail of visceral smoke, bleeding from toothy grins neck. As the creature lies there, bone mother fucking jangles tea bagged. The hole in his throat while skull fucking see this guy with a cyber genetically enhanced cock saving my life and soul from being devoured.

Starting point is 01:39:37 Hail fucking Nimrod. God bless the ball sack of both jangles. Uh, wow. Uh, thank you, uh, Rich Belden. That was that was intense. That was a good mistrack, man. I don't know if you if you were in the service, thank you for your service. If not, that was that was the hell of a hell of a story. You're even there did not expect the bow jangles mistrack. That was well, well done. That was in a very intense one at that. Now we got an email from a from Time Sucker John Meyer who writes in saying

Starting point is 01:40:05 Dear Master Sucker, I started Time Sucker in April and I just finished the entire catalog today. I celebrated by officially becoming a space. So there's night. Ah, yeah. Thank you. I want to drop you notes saying thank you for enlightening and entertaining six weeks. I also wanted to get through every episode before chiming in on a little pronunciation item. I noticed in a few episodes. Yeah, yeah, I would imagine all episodes. Um, sure today there was a bunch of terrible ones. I can't remember exactly which episodes, but I'm pretty certain on at least a couple of occasions, you pronounce the word, oh yeah, I did read this earlier and I was, you're

Starting point is 01:40:36 actually right. Uh, you pronounce the word Ms, Ms. Lead, the past tense of, uh, Ms. Lead as, as myzled. I absolutely did. I actually love that you did because I was called out for the same pronunciation when I was reading out loud in school. I think I can fabulated the word myzled and myzled and came to the conclusion that there was such a thing as an old myzler who cons into saved people. I am now a full believer that the she myzler herself, Lucifina is the one who myzled my mochemouth and continues her mazling ways to this day. Dam you Lucifina. Keep up the great work and it's for me. I will continue to lick the delicious word from it from your puke field beard until the day I follow the great light to the end of Nimrod's p-hole and enter his glorious nut sack. Hail Nimrod. You guys are such wordsmiths. I love it.

Starting point is 01:41:18 Yeah, you know what? I'm so glad you pointed that out because I think I'm doing that a long time as in maybe my entire adult life. Well, I guess why would I do it right as a kid and then not do it as a digital result? My entire, everything I found that word. Miserable, it's misled. Oh, man. And you sent a second email saying,

Starting point is 01:41:38 PS, I think you narrowly avoided potential copyright infringement with the Pudi and Juju catchphrase, too little, too dittle. Fortunately the micro penis awareness awareness association uses this logo with no comma too little to dittle. So I believe you are safe for many future lawsuits. That was a well played again man. Well played. Oh geez. You guys. Okay, last one, last one, one last update for today. This is from OG Time Sucker, Andrew J. Mickly O'Reto. I'm trying to get caught up, man, I really am,

Starting point is 01:42:13 but I've fallen behind. When did Putin juju first show up? Stalin suck, is when they first showed up. Yeah, Vladimir Lenin was a big fan of Putin juju comics. Putin your lunch back, Shirley, two little two, dude, a booty. Lately, I've had a bunch of unstable shit going on in my life was a big fan of Putin's geochicomics. Putin your lunch back, Shirley. Too little to do, Putin. Lately, I've had a bunch of unstable shit going on in my life that a time seems

Starting point is 01:42:29 like too much to deal with, but every time I hear the latest or new to me suck, I am rejuvenated. I fucking love that. I was previously used as an, you previously used one of my updates on the suck, can't remember which episode, but I do remember being laided upon here in my name.

Starting point is 01:42:44 And after one of your stand-ups shows in Portland, I was the first out to meet you. I do remember this, and you've remembered my emails. What are you doing? What you are doing with the podcast, and my opinion is fucking important because it's connecting people,

Starting point is 01:42:56 that may have totally different ways of thinking from each other. You may be the problem, but what a great fucking problem to have. Well played again there. All my love to you, and to Lindsay, Kyler, Monroe, Penny, and Ginger, sorry if the spelling is fucked up.

Starting point is 01:43:08 I went with the traditional spellings, but people are spelling shit however they want nowadays. Yeah, exactly. My wife Lindsay spells, she got a Z in there. That's whatever she wants. Just two more things. You probably didn't get the email for some weird reason, but I informed you that I used time suck,

Starting point is 01:43:23 specifically the episode about the sailing witch trials, Hey Lucifena, as a source and an argumentative essay on the death penalty and a collegiate paper that has now been published. That's fucking awesome. Congrats Andrew, that's really cool man. And then also number two, oh, oh, Reardon, as in Dolores Reardon is pronounced,

Starting point is 01:43:43 oh okay, oh Reardon, I think I was doing a roardonden uh... okay final thing if you're reading this uh... doctor revern comments please give a shout out to justin michael bryce he is a huge fan is the reason i'm a sucker in the first place so love all of your work love all of you all of you suckers devotedly to nimrod andrew j may the reto well thank you andrew what a great way to end this episode uh... love you man and uh... and thank you and love you Michael Bryce. Hail Nimrod

Starting point is 01:44:12 We all did so that's all for today time suckers and yeah, man jokes aside, you know do not kill yourself There is a community that loves you The time-set community hit the fucking phone number in the episode description And if you're not around anymore and how the hell are you supposed to keep on second

Timesuck with Dan Cummins - 88 - Aokigahara: Japan's Suicide Forest

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